In the beginning, Robert Crumb’s work was all parody and cartoonish variation. Over the decades, he breathed form to illustration, bringing detail and something, at times, approaching realism while maintaining a characteristic style speckled with prickly-hair and ponderously-built men and women (but especially women). The Book of Genesis Illustrated is his longest, most ambitious creation. It's also his most real -- despite the subject matter --real relative to his style (see “A Short History of America“). As the cover declares, it contains “ALL 50 CHAPTERS” and “NOTHING LEFT OUT!” Indeed, not only does Crumb include, “every word of the original text” (derived from “several sources”, mostly Robert Alter’s 2004 translation The Five Books of Moses and the King James Version) but something of his own interpretation, no matter how innocent, expressed in his drawing. Crumb has humanized the first book of the Bible, reminding us what its suffering, nakedness, incest, murder and the fiery consequences of God's wrath look like. Picture His destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah (shown after the jump)...
Something of Crumb’s approach to the project can be found in Todd Hignite’s interview from his 2006 publication In the Studio: Visits With Contemporary Cartoonists. At the time of the interview, Crumb had finished all of four pages but much of his thinking on how he would approach it was complete. Commenting on an old 1946 EC comic Picture Stories From the Bible, with its blond Eve and red-headed Adam, he complains about its sloppy drawing and the fact that, “they just make shit up to gloss over and fill in whole passages. They have Eve saying, ‘Mmm, this apple tastes really good.’ If I’m going to be doing this and don’t want some fucking Christian fanatics to kill me, I’ve got to say, ‘Look, it’s all there, I didn’t change a single word, I just illustrated it as it’s told.’”
No doubt, some fanatical Christians will want to kill him anyway simply because he does illustrate what's told. We're shown Onan spilling his seed on the ground when "he would come to bed with his brother's wife" as well as the Lord's fatal consequence of the act. We see a drunken Lot having sex with his daughters, the older in missionary position, the younger girl-on-top. Crumb does not shy away from the murder, incest, adultery, lies and God-driven war that make the Old Testament the more human of the two scriptures. Nor does he exaggerate or parody the acts as he might have in the days of Zap. That's Genesis' greatest accomplishment: bringing humanity and reality to the cruelties and taboos that are so often glossed over.
Of course, it's interpretive arts. In humanizing the events, Crumb draws in his own reading of his subjects' reactions and feelings. Did Issac actually sit by dejectedly when Esau took Hittite wives? We can imagine that Noah's reaction to hearing of the Lord's plan to kill every living thing on earth is as bug-eyed as portrayed. But would his eyes bulge again when there's a hint of the end? There's a touch of homo-eroticism when Jacob wrestles "until the break of dawn" with a nameless divine being. Would the handmaid look so sleepily satisfied after sex with the elderly Abram? Occasionally, character expression adds comedic touches as when Abraham takes all the males among his household to be circumcised. The looks on their faces shows they know what awaits.
Most expressive is God Himself. The look of satisfaction when He smells the aroma of Noah's burnt offering of cattle and fowl after the flood is divinely human. But mostly He's shown in various stages of anger (Crumb modeled the Lord after his father), allowing only his messengers to appear relaxed and serene. Crumb's is an angry God indeed.
One of the great achievements here are the dozens of thumb-sized portraits of all the begotten and begatters, the minor sons and daughters, all meticulously drawn. No Aryan looking Middle-Eastern ancients for Crumb! We can see the different tribal characteristics as the sons of Abraham spread out to fill the known corners of the world. Where Crumb found all these faces can only be guessed. Scholars may take exception with Crumb's models for the architecture and costumes of the time, many derived from Hollywood. But there's no arguing against the fact that Crumb has made one of the world's greatest archetypal and symbolic sagas, from Adam to Joseph, enjoyable in its humanly purest form.
After 9/11: The New York Times has put up a video entitled "Portraits Redrawn: Alissa Torres" (find it here) that recounts the evolution of the idea that led to her graphic novel American Widow with illustrator Sungyoon Choi. The book tells the story of Torres' struggle to survive after 9/11 and the death of her husband. They'd been married three years and she was seven months pregnant. "It was creativity that saved me in a significant way," Torres says in the video, suggesting that graphic novels, beyond creating fantasy, can help frame reality, even harsh reality, to meaningful purpose.
Marvel Boycott: A number of comics websites are calling for a boycott of Marvel Comics, specifically any Marvel product (and that includes a lot more than actual comics) that have anything to do with characters or stories created by the great, late Jack Kirby after a federal judge in New York declared that Kirby's heirs had no claim for a judgement against Marvel and its parent The Walt Disney Company. The judge ruled that Kirby's creations, the Incredible Hulk, X-Men and the Fantastic Four among them (all in collaboration with Stan Lee), were "work for hire" and that the family had no argument for copyright. Well-known illustrator/cartoonist Seth took to his website to support the boycott and defend Mr. Kirby's legacy while attacking Marvel, Disney and Marvel mavern Lee:
The corporate lie about Kirby's role in the creation of all those characters is abhorrent. It's a bold faced lie. Everyone knows it's a lie. No one is fooled. Everyone lying for the company should be ashamed. Stan Lee should be ashamed. What the Marvel corporation is doing might be legal but it certainly isn't right.
I'll let readers decide if a boycott is warranted but the issue --who owns an artist's creative rights -- is one that applies to much more than comics.
THE CABBAGE RABBIT REVIEW OF BOOKS AND MUSIC