Review by John C. Snider © 2009
Underground comics and counterculture icon Robert Crumb is widely praised as a brilliant satirist and is one of the most recognized pop artists of the 20th century. The seminal–and often misunderstood–creator of such characters as Mr. Natural, Fritz the Cat and Devil Girl has also been called sick, perverted, racist and misogynistic.
So who better than to illustrate the Book of Genesis? After all, Richard Dawkins once infamously described the Old Testament God as a “misogynistic, homophobic, racist, infanticidal, genocidal, filicidal, pestilential, megalomaniacal, sadomasochistic, capriciously malevolent bully.” Crumb’s got nuttin’ on YHWH.
Five years in the making, The Book of Genesis Illustrated (pub. by W. W. Norton, Oct 2009, 224 pp hdcvr, $24.95) is both vintage Crumb, and an extraordinarily faithful (if you’ll pardon the pun) interpretation of the first book of the Old Testament. Those expecting a scathing satire will be sorely disappointed: Crumb serves Genesis straight-up, word-for-word, with text derived mostly from Robert Alter’s recent translation of The Five Books of Moses. Crumb makes no mockery here; indeed, the only hint of tongue in cheek is a warning on the front cover stating “Adult Supervision Recommended for Minors.”
Crumb’s Genesis is entertaining and fun to read, but not particularly distinctive. It comes across as little more than a coffee-table expansion of the Bible tracts produced by Chick Publications (albeit with bawdier artwork and no preaching). God is a stereotypical old bearded white guy in a robe; Adam and Eve look like Native Americans (Eve even bears a passing resemblance to Devil Girl!). In what I first thought was a new spin on the character, Crumb depicts the Serpent in the Garden of Eden as a short, anthropomorphic reptoid whom God subsequently curses, transforming him into a limbless snake. But Chick Publications does nearly the same thing in their tract “In the Beginning.”
By pursuing a too-literal illustration of the Biblical text, Crumb stumbles into territory both boring and controversial. Boring in that, do we really need an individual portrait of every descendant of Jacob in Chapters 35 and 36? Controversial in that conservative Christian groups are aghast that anyone would depict, in explicit detail, the incestuous rape of a drunken Lot by both of his daughters. Of course, putting some of the most egregious episodes from the Bible into pictures can underline how outrageous and unreliable the stories really are.
Crumb’s heart was in the right place in creating this adaptation of one of the most influential texts in human history: his is a sincere and respectful effort, and it’s certainly a worthy extension of his work. But Crumb brings nothing new to the table (indeed, he notes in the foreword that he eschewed unnecessary embellishment and relied on sources like still photos from old Hollywood epics), so it’s hardly a masterpiece.
The Book of Genesis Illustrated is available at Amazon.com and Amazon.co.uk.
Great review. I’m going out to Borders to see if it’s come in yet.
[...] as his reviews of Carl Zimmer’s evolution textbook The Tangled Bank and Robert Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated. Also, David recommends Robert Schadewald’s posthumous collection of skeptical essays [...]