Graphic Novel Friday: "The Book of Genesis Illustrated" by R. Crumb

When it was announced that R. Crumb decided to tackle The Book of Genesis, I braced myself for the riotous response. As one of the founders of underground comix and a preliminary voice in graphic satire and subversion, R. Crumb's every project is one to watch, let alone one where he interprets something as literally sacrosanct as The Bible. (Not to mention the publisher's decision to release it just in time for the holidays.) Let there be controversy!

Then The Book of Genesis Illustrated arrived, but any controversy was secondary to the finished product. As Crumb states in his hand-lettered introduction, "If my visual, literal interpretation of The Book of Genesis offends or outrages some readers...all I can say in my defense is that I approached this as a straight illustration job, with no intention to ridicule or make visual jokes."

NPR's Susan Jane Gilman gave it high praise: "It's a cartoonist's equivalent of the Sistine Chapel, and it's awesome." Yet there's a caveat in her cheer: "I have to tell you, it took me a while to get used to. Crumb, after all, is one of those innately funny people whose mere way of expressing things makes you laugh."  It's as if Crumb's natural talent serves to disarm those of us expecting an approach with more venom.

When God comes to Noah, for example, He arrives nonchalantly, His great beard sprawling as Noah tills the soil. In my favorite moment of the book, God, rather than creating a spectacle to impress or awe Noah, simply sits with him beneath a tree, hands on His knees. Noah is bug-eyed and dumb-founded (and rendered not unlike a hobbit), but Crumb's God is relatable and commanding at the same time. It's the context, mixed with Crumb's frank, high-spirited art, that offers such moments of good-natured levity. In a scene that escaped me from my years of Sunday school, God returns to Noah after the flood, and Crumb depicts it so warmly that it's difficult to believe this work is a "straight illustration job."

"And God said…'This is the sign of the covenant which I make between Me and you and every living creature that is with you, for everlasting generations. My bow have I set in the clouds to be a sign of the covenant between Me and the earth, and henceforth, when I send clouds over the earth, the bow shall appear in the cloud."

In this panel, Noah and his sons stand before God under the shade of a tree, and as God extends his arm, a rainbow flows from His crown. It's a tiny moment in a 224-page, oversized book, but it packs an immediate impact.

For fans looking for Crumb's voice as well as his signature artwork, there is an eight-page, all-text "Commentary" at the end of the book, where he offers inspirations, clarifications, and opinions on each chapter in Genesis. Chapters 29 and 30 focus on Jacob, Leah, and Rachel in a very adult love triangle that eventually involves a couple of handmaids as well. Crumb notes:

"The story in these chapters seems almost intentionally meant to provide bedroom-comedy relief. But who can say how such a tale was received by its ancient listeners? Did they laugh? We'll never know."

David Hajdu, author of The Ten Cent Plague, offered his own commentary on The Book of Genesis in a recent New York Times review: "Crumb’s book is serious and, for Crumb, restrained. He resists the temptation to go all-out Crumb on us and exaggerate the sordidness, the primitivism and the outright strangeness (by contemporary standards) of parts of the text. What is Genesis about, after all, but resisting temptation?"

Last week, R. Crumb's The Book of Genesis held the No. #1 spot on the New York Times Bestseller list for Hardcover Graphic Novels. It also landed in our editors' Top 10 picks for Best Comics & Graphic Novels of 2009. Crumb made a rare choice with this project, opting not for the easy story--to incite and offend--but to hold steadfast to the source material, allowing the words to speak for themselves and inspire his own interpretation.

--Alex