For those who don’t know Robert Crumb, he is probably one of the best known counter-culture comic book artists. Beyond his work for Zap Comics and on the Fritz The Cat series, he penned the original "Keep on Trucking" image that became hugely popular in the 1970′s.
There’s even a documentary on him that provides insight into his life and career that is truly worth the time to watch.
But now, he’s taken on the Bible by illustrating the first book of the Old Testament, Genesis. It’s soon to be released and I can’t imagine not wanting to get a copy to see his take on this ancient tale. But that’s just it, it’s not his take on the story. In the introduction he writes that he has faithfully reproduced every word from the original text, apparently spending 4 years researching various versions of the text to recreate it in 224 pages of art. I guess a story this crazy doesn’t need embellishment.
NPR recently did a story on the release of the comic including a link to an excerpt.
Apparently, during a press conference about the comic, Crumb was asked about his own belief, or lack of one, in God. Here was his response.
"I’m a Gnostic — someone who seeks knowledge of God," Crumb responded.
"There’s some force that rules our destiny: This is obvious. But what
it is — this is a mystery we cannot possibly understand."
He went on to add this comment about the Bible itself.
"The idea that people for a couple thousand years have taken this so
seriously seems completely insane and crazy, totally nuts. But the
human race is crazy if nothing else,"
No argument here.
