It was the Sunday Telegraph that did it. With the headline "Smutty Show A Comic Outrage", it looked at Robert Crumb's upcoming Australian appearance, stating "a self-confessed sex pervert whose explicit comic drawings cannot be shown in Australia is to deliver a talk and hold a special exhibition at the Sydney Opera House."

Last year, the same event hosted Neil Gaiman and Eddie Campbell. This year, it was to include a stage interview between Crumb and Gary Groth.

They quoted an unnamed sexual assault crisis groups describing him as "sick and deranged", talked to a government spokesman who said Crumb's work couldn't be displayed without classification, which would probably be refused, and finally quoted anti-child abuse campaigner Hetty Johnston saying the event was endorsing the "depraved thought processes of this very warped human being… These cartoons are not funny or artistic – they are just crude and perverted images emanating from what is clearly a sick mind."

And sometimes you can only take so much.

As a result of the article, Robert Crumb has pulled out of the event.

He told rival paper The Australian, that "It was strong stuff and it made me look very, very bad… All it takes is a few people who overreact to something like that to show up and cause unpleasantness. I have a lot of anxiety about having to confront some angry sexual assault crisis group."

Co-curator of the event, Jordan Verzar, has asked Crumb to reconsider his decision.