The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb Review

After so many years of hearing bits and pieces of these stories it is fantastic to now read them in their entirety. If I just sat down and read the text I would quickly get bored and not get too far. But with these graphic images the stories come to life with all their rough edges, quirks, flaws, and unbelievable qualities.
The most redeeming value of the Genesis text is that it laid the groundwork for this fantastic comic. Since I have been reading this, people have been asking me why I have such a smile on my face. I haven't finished the book yet and can't wait to see what will happen next.
At first I thought that this might not be so great since Crumb was using the actual text instead of using creative writing to satirize it. But after reading it as actually written the brilliance of his art has put these stories in their proper perspective.

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb Feature

• ISBN13: 9780393061024
• Condition: NEW
• Notes: Brand New from Publisher. No Remainder Mark.

The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb Overview

From Creation to the death of Joseph, here are all 50 chapters of the Book of Genesis, revealingly illustrated as never before. Envisioning the first book of the bible like no one before him, R. Crumb, the legendary illustrator, reveals here the story of Genesis in a profoundly honest and deeply moving way. Originally thinking that we would do a take off of Adam and Eve, Crumb became so fascinated by the Bible’s language, “a text so great and so strange that it lends itself readily to graphic depictions,” that he decided instead to do a literal interpretation using the text word for word in a version primarily assembled from the translations of Robert Alter and the King James bible.

Now, readers of every persuasion—Crumb fans, comic book lovers, and believers—can gain astonishing new insights from these harrowing, tragic, and even juicy stories. Crumb’s Book of Genesis reintroduces us to the bountiful tree lined garden of Adam and Eve, the massive ark of Noah with beasts of every kind, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by brimstone and fire that rained from the heavens, and the Egypt of the Pharaoh, where Joseph’s embalmed body is carried in a coffin, in a scene as elegiac as any in Genesis. Using clues from the text and peeling away the theological and scholarly interpretation that have often obscured the Bible’s most dramatic stories, Crumb fleshes out a parade of Biblical originals: from the serpent in Eden, the humanoid reptile appearing like an alien out of a science fiction movie, to Jacob, a “kind’ve depressed guy who doesn’t strike you as physically courageous,” and his bother, Esau, “a rough and kick ass guy,” to Abraham’s wife Sarah, more fetching than most woman at 90, to God himself, “a standard Charlton Heston-like figure with long white hair and a flowing beard.”

As Crumb writes in his introduction, “the stories of these people, the Hebrews, were something more than just stories. They were the foundation, the source, in writing of religious and political power, handed down by God himself.” Crumb’s Book of Genesis, the culmination of 5 years of painstaking work, is a tapestry of masterly detail and storytelling which celebrates the astonishing diversity of the one of our greatest artistic geniuses. .

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