Toward the end of our third interview, Robert Williams gives me some advice about overcoming creative blocks. “Phrase it as a problem,” he says. “For example, ‘The problem with Robert Williams is . . .’ And then you solve it, and then you have your story.” Cool, cool. He should know about productivity, with more than 300 paintings in his oeuvre, more dirty comics than you could shake a censorship hearing at, and a hot-rod build so confounding that it inspired a whole new scene.
” He dropped out of school, worked briefly for a martial-arts magazine called Black Belt, got fired for being too slow, worked as a container designer, got fired for being too weird, and was just about out of ideas when the unemployment office mentioned a gig nobody wanted: art director at a custom-car shop for a guy named Ed Roth. Roth was the Walt Disney of the custom-car world. His Mickey Mouse was the scabrous Rat Fink.