Robert Crumb set to publish 'scandalous' Bible satire

[BurtWorm]

http://www.guardian.co.uk/books/2009/mar/31/robert-crumb-book-genesis

Cartoonist Crumb's vision of the first book of the Bible said to be a 'complex, even subversive narrative that calls for a re-examination of its role in our culture'

* Alison Flood
* guardian.co.uk, Tuesday 31 March 2009 10.53 BST
* Article history



Robert Crumb being interviewed at the National Film Theatre. Photograph: Sarah Lee

The famously subversive US cartoonist Robert Crumb has announced the completion of his long-awaited take on the Book of Genesis.

The acclaimed satirist revealed on his personal website that he had finished the project, which is out this autumn, and which his UK publisher is predicting will "provoke the religious right". Four years in the making, Crumb worked from the King James Bible and Robert Alter's translation to reinterpret the Book of Genesis, from the Creation via Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to Noah boarding his ark.

Back in 2005 in an interview at the New York Public Library recorded by Time magazine, Crumb, a hero of underground comics, talked about the difficulties of drawing God for the book. "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 clearly what he looked like. And I thought, OK, there it is, I've got God," he told interviewer Robert Hughes, Time's art critic. "He has a white beard but he actually ended up looking more like my father. He has a very masculine face like my father." He had considered, he said, drawing God as a black woman. "But if you actually read the Old Testament he's just an old, cranky Jewish patriarch."

The cartoonist, who now lives in the south of France, said that creating the book had been "a lot of fun". "It's very visual. It's lurid. Full of all kinds of crazy, weird things that will really surprise people," he added.

According to his publisher, Jonathan Cape, Robert Crumb's Book of Genesis is a "scandalous satire" which "presents a complex, even subversive, narrative that calls for a significant re-examination of both the Bible's content and its role in our culture". It will be published simultaneously in the US and the UK on 19 October.

...

[Echo In Light]

1. K&R for Crumb

[sufrommich]

2. Keep on truckin', Crumb. nt

[tridim]

3. I was wondering what happened to Crumb

Last I heard of him is when I saw the movie.

[MineralMan]

4. When does the U.S. version appear? I want it.

[KG]

5. replacing one myth with another? scandalous!

[madrchsod]

6. i`m saving my pennies.....

[MountainLaurel]

9. Will be released October 19

You can preorder on Amazon.

[MineralMan]

11. Oh, thanks. Heading there now!

[MineralMan]

13. On second thought, I'll wait

and steal it from Barnes and Noble. :evilgrin:

[Kolesar]

After we have been using his artwork for free ... eom

[KittyWampus]

7. Well, it might provoke the "Religious" Right. But I feel compelled to say that those of us

who belong to the Spiritual Center welcome anything that provokes thought in an amusing way.

[MineralMan]

8. I thought he already drew God.

Enuff said.

[Mari333]

10. all he has to do is draw the pictures.

the OT is so full of lust and rape and murder and carnage, it will speak for itself.

[PufPuf23]

12. Crumb's Religious Experience of Philip K Dick is online

Weirdo #17

http://www.philipkdickfans.com/weirdo.htm

[On the Road]

17. Wow, That Was Worth It --

Crumb on Dick -- had never seen that.

Crumb's drawings just make me happy -- I don't even care what they're about.



http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_Rs53-MPsJaI/RwCdxylPFqI/AAAAAAAADSU/smoCSJT8gsA/s400/crumb+cityscape2.jpg

[newtothegame]

14. Safer than satirizing the Koran for sure; hopefully not riots, cars set on fires, murders...n/t

[daleo]

19. I think Genesis is very relevant to Muslims

I am not sure if it is actually part of the Koran, but my understanding is that Genesis is part of the Islamic canon, so to speak. So, Mr. Crumb will quite possibly annoy fundamentalists of three religions with this work.

[progressoid]

15. ruh roh

That ought to get the Jesus bees humming.

[Ganja Ninja]

16. "What does it all mean?" - "It don't mean shit."

[Javaman]

18. He will become the Salman Rushdie of the Religious right. nt

[tjwash]

20. R Crumb...great artist, but batshit crazy.

He came out with a bunch of these:




And then said "who cares, it's only white liberals that are complaining to me about it"