Interact: Archive for December, 2009

About the author: The influential comics artist Robert Crumb is best known for such outre works as Keep on Truckin’ and Fritz the Cat. Crumb was born in Philadelphia in 1943 to “a Marine father and Catholic mother.” His family moved frequently during his childhood, and ended up in Delaware in 1956 when his father retired after 20 years in the U.S. Marine Corps. Robert’s mother often behaved erratically and was probably manic depressive. Robert was a faithful Catholic until he was 16. His biggest influence during his youth was his older brother, Charles, who loved comics and co-wrote many of the comics they produced as children. Learn more at his website – http://rcrumb.com 

Notes on the book: One day 15 years ago, for no reason he can remember, Crumb decided he wanted to read the myths of ancient Sumer. Eventually he found a scholarly work that said some of the myths were similar to stories in Genesis. He read Genesis closely, and the idea of illustrating it clicked. He told a literary agent friend that if he would fetch a big enough advance, he’d do it. W.W. Norton & Company came through with $200,000, which seemed enough; Crumb thought he could bang out the project in a year or two. It took four. The 200-page book comes with a warning label: “Adult supervision recommended for minors.”

Crumb was fascinated by the raw power of the imagery in Genesis. He started with the idea of doing a satire, and instead decided to present it straight, verse by verse. “I was intrigued by the challenge of exposing everything in there by illustrating it. The text is so significant in our culture, to bring everything out was a significant enough purpose for doing it.”

In an interview with TIME magazine Crumb briefly discussed the challenges of drawing the character of God: “He has a white beard but he actually ended up looking more like my father. He has a very masculine face like my father. My problem was, how am I going to draw God? Should I just draw him as a light in the sky that has dialogue balloons coming out from it? Then I had this dream. God came to me in this dream, only for a split second, but I saw very clearlywhat he looked like. And I thought, ok, there it is, I’ve got God.”

“I don’t think Genesis is a good place to look for spiritual guidance or moral guidance,” he said. “I don’t believe it’s the word of God.” “At the same time,” he continues, “I think the stories are very powerful. I’m not out to ridicule them or belittle them.”

Not an atheist like his father, Crumb describes himself as a Gnostic, a member of that ancient movement searching for spiritual enlightenment. “I’ve spent a lot of time studying different religious traditions and I meditate,” he says. “I think that all humans have that need for some spiritual meaning.”"But,” he adds with a hearty laugh, “I don’t think you’re going to find it in Genesis.”