The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb

Illustrator R. Crumb is drawn to God with his latest project

By David Colton, USA TODAY

Behold! Robert Crumb has found God, or at least a hint of what he looks like.

"It was hard to draw God," the reclusive cartoonist says about his latest project, which begins at the Beginning, with Creation itself.

"Should God just be a bright light? Should I use word balloons? Should God be a woman?" Crumb says the answer came to him in a dream.

"I ended up with the old stereotypical Charlton Heston kind of God, long beard, very masculine. I used a lot of white-out, a lot of corrections when I tried to draw God."

With a mixture of anticipation and anxiety, the art world has been awaiting Crumb's long-rumored illuminated manuscript, a four-year, monastic-like effort to adapt every word of the first book of the Bible in distinctive pen and ink.

FAITH AND REASON: Crumb’s doubts are downright biblical

The result, The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb ($24.95, W.W. Norton), out today, is a beautifully drawn and relentlessly faithful rendition of the first 50 chapters of the Bible by an apostle of the 1960s and sometimes profane progenitor of underground comics.

Crumb has produced what could be the ultimate graphic novel — using the Bible's sacred text to retell the stories of Creation and Noah's flood along with Sodom and Gomorrah, the family saga of Abraham and the collaboration of Joseph and Pharaoh.

Its 224 pages are sensual and violent, unblinking when it comes to incest and lust, and at times, like the Bible itself, mystifying. "Nothing left out!" shouts a cover blurb.

But those hoping for a spiritual journey of redemption — hippie artist finds salvation transcribing the Bible — will be disappointed.

"To take this as a sacred text, or the word of God or something to live by, is kind of crazy," Crumb, 66, says in a rare telephone interview from his home in southern France.

"So much of it makes no sense. To think of all the fighting and killing that's gone on over this book, it just became to me a colossal absurdity. That's probably the most profound moment I've had — the absurdity of it all."

Those are hardly the words of a modern-day St. Augustine or any of the Talmudic scholars, Christian commentators, historians or ordinary faithful who view the Bible as the Word of God and who accept its mysteries as the beginning, not the end, of enlightenment.

"If people of faith say what I've done is blasphemous or profane, I'd shrug my shoulders and say, 'I just illustrated what is there,' " Crumb says. "I'm not ridiculing it, just illustrating the exact words that are there. I restrained myself. I really didn't want to make visual jokes about it. I hope people see it for what it is."

Many are surprised that Crumb, who in the 1960s infused comics with sex- and drug-addled characters like Mr. Natural and Fritz the Cat, and catchphrases such as "Keep on truckin', " would this time play it so straight. But the long-lapsed American Catholic depicts the shared roots of Judaism, Christianity and Islam without comment or his usual ironic judgment.

Each Crumb panel is a detailed biblical tableau, down to the endless "begats" that fill the pages with tiny portraits of tribal sons and desert chieftains.

"I'm pleasantly surprised, and relieved," says Rabbi Simcha Weinstein, a professor at Pratt Institute in New York City and author of Up, Up and Oy Vey, a history of the influence Jews had on the creation of superheroes.

"Crumb is a phenomenal talent, one of my sages," he says. "But he's not always the sage I would like him to be. There's a little bit of danger in what Crumb does and I'm glad he toned it down a bit. I get nervous when it comes to Holy Scripture."

Asked about Crumb's dismissal of some of the early Bible tales as nonsensical, Weinstein laughs.

"I'd love to have Bob to Sabbath dinner any time to begin explaining it to him. The Bible is a complicated work and something the greatest minds of all time have cracked their heads against."

A recluse in France

Crumb, born in Philadelphia, began his career drawing playful greeting cards. But his subversive, turn-of-the-century linework, untamed libido and obsessive social commentary made him in many ways as important a figure in the LSD-laced hippie era as Bob Dylan, Jerry Garcia or John Lennon.

His artist brother, Charles, committed suicide during the filming of Crumb, a 1994 documentary. Crumb's work with comic book writer Harvey Pekar laid the groundwork for the 2003 film American Splendor. He has lived in France with his wife, cartoonist Aline Kominsky, and daughter since the 1990s.

"I've lived here 18 years and still can't speak the language," he says after his wife, whose voice on their answering machine is in perfect French, helped set up the interview.

Famously shy and reluctant to license his characters or encounter fans, Crumb asked that the name of the French village be withheld to deter pilgrimages. "Unless there are pretty girls," he says with a laugh.

A brief, five-stop U.S. tour is planned. But no book signings: "Those are a nightmare."

Biblical sources

As source material for Genesis, Crumb used the text of the King James Bible and a 2004 translation called The Five Books of Moses by scholar Robert Alter, who has praised Crumb's effort as "bold." Alter's translation of ancient Hebrew is sometimes surprising — Jacob's ladder becomes Jacob's ramp, for example — but rarely strays far from the traditional story lines of the Torah, the first five books of the Bible.

"Alter's version is just very clear," Crumb says. "But I still retained some of the language of the King James version, things like, 'And behold!' If you take that stuff out, you lose some of the poetry."

The project began as a satire on Adam and Eve, but Crumb got a "really good offer" to do a much larger take on the Bible. He switched to research mode, delving into ancient Sumerian myths, North African cultures and obscure Hebrew translations.

Crumb is suspicious of the centuries of rewrites that have changed what "seems indeed to be an inspired work."

The pivotal role of Abraham's wife, Sarah, he believes, was downgraded by the priests of ancient times. "Over the centuries, the stories of the matriarchal society of the Sumerians got all twisted around."

But he says he "had to resist the urge to load it up with a lot of footnotes."

Crumb calls the book "a straight illustration job" and says he relied on friends, experts, even Hollywood movies to come up with the look of the peoples, the clothing and the backgrounds.

"Isaac," he says. "is based on an old guy who lives near here who's a Jew from Algeria."

The Rev. James Martin, a Jesuit priest who writes about pop culture and who has seen excerpts of the book, says Crumb is only the latest artist to bring the Bible to a new generation.

"I just think it's fantastic that a protean mind like R. Crumb is translating the Bible into a new language, a new idiom," Martin says. "Just as was done with the Vulgate (a popularized translation in the fifth century) or the Latin.

"Yes, there's some stuff there that's a little lascivious, but that's R. Crumb. The Bible is the world's oldest soap opera, filled with sex, violence and rape, particularly the Old Testament."

Like Rabbi Weinstein, Martin dismisses Crumb's notion that the Bible makes no sense.

"Whenever you engage in God's spirit, it's a workout," Martin says. "Some of these stories are so familiar they're like old coins that have been worn down. There are no edges anymore. So to see this in a new way is very important."

Was the hand of God animating Crumb?

"I don't believe it's the Word of God. I believe it's the words of men," Crumb says. "I'm just another human interpreting the story."

And yet, could his choice to do the project in the first place reflect some kind of spiritual need?

"That's a good question," he says. "I'm a spiritual guy. I'm not an atheist, more an agnostic. I don't doubt the existence of God, I just don't quite know what God is. It's a question that will challenge me until the day I die."

He laughs.

"I got totally sick of it by the end of it. I've come out exhausted," Crumb says.

"I may never draw again."

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