Robert Crumb

Girls, Girls, Girls! Step right up and don't be shy. This intimate, accordion-folded and concertina-bound portfolio of 20 never-before-seen Pinup Girl portraits from the world's most respected cartoonists opens up to reveal more than 10 feet of original and subversively erotic girly comics. Featuring R. Crumb's Lela, a robust vision of overflowing femininity, Dan Clowes' Doris, the last girl on earth, Adrian Tomine's Yuki, a young woman captured in a serene domestic moment, and Gary Panter's show more Cave Girl, a menacing yet alluring female amid raptors and pterodactyls, this highly collectible volume is not simply a collection of traditional pinups, but a string of 20 mini-narratives set in environments as disparate as the bedroom and the bowling alley, the circus or the Cenozoic. The portfolio comes in a transparent plastic box. show less

Whatever your persuasion might be, the Bible is without argument an incredibly influential historical document which has helped shape the World, for better or worse, into the place we all live in today.
The stories within its pages define grandeur, and have been integrated into our very psyches. Their epic scale has influenced every aspect of our modern life, even including science fiction and fantasy stories which often borrow from the old testament, transposing characters and situations show more onto other worlds.
For similar reasons I became interested in Shakespeare, especially Hamlet; basically I was tired of missing half the references in films like Star Trek etc.
As a big history fan, it had long been my desire to read the Bible as a grounding in better appreciating world events, but, the Bible is a heavy tome for the uninitiated. This, comic form serves as a easy to digest introduction to the great book itself.

I honestly never expected this body of work to spill forth from someone who is perceived to be as decadent and perverted as Robert Crumb. Don't get me wrong I like those things about him! But, to have dedicated such a significant portion of his remaining years to a project such as this; to have brought the book of Genesis within such easy reach of everyman is an astonishing thing for one person to have undertaken.

Part of me, struggling to get a grip on what was going on, recalled comparisons between Judith Krantz's character of Julien Mistral who produced a considerable body of religiously themed paintings as penance for his life's misdeeds. Could this be what was going on here I wondered?
Somehow I couldn't quite get my head around the fact that R. Crumb had not attempted to treat the subject matter with his usual cynicism, or at the very least to have added a subversive twist to the whole endeavour. After all, the man has been walking on the wild side all of his life and at the time, approaching his seventies, one could well expect him to rather 'be hung for a sheep as a lamb' and attack the establishment of the church with all his worst bile while raising a glass and casting a wry grin in the direction of the alter. But nothing could be further from the truth. This is an honest and respectful piece of work which, although I can not see it being used as a teaching tool in an evangelical situation - because of the shear power of the pictures and also, lets face it, because the artist is R. Crumb; it would otherwise lend itself to scholars wishing to visualise better the book of Genesis for themselves and reflect on some of the messages held within.

Of course, I don't personally trust R. Crumbs motives entirely. Part of me would like to believe that the 'Old Dog' does have a wicked grin on that sweet innocent face of his, and exposing the fact that the Bible contains at least as much sex, violence, debauchery and horror as anything he himself has penned over the years must be a reply to some of his harsher critics.

Never the less, whatever his motives, pure or not so, the fact remains that this is a wonderful addition to the true connoisseur's library. show less

I can not believe that I hadn't read this until now. It has been sitting on my shelf for a couple of years, sandwiched between some of Buk's poetry, and I had a vague feeling that it was some slight novelty item chucked out posthumously and liable to set my teeth on edge. What it is in reality is the diary captured thoughts of an aging writer who can't stop noticing the vacuity and worthlessness of the lives lived around him. Regardless of the passing of time his eye is as keen as ever, show more regardless of his need for a cataract operation, and his rage is as pure as ever, even with the compensation of enough money for the first time in his life. As beautifully honest and simple as anything he ever wrote, a fitting coda for my favourite writer and poet.
Also, Robert Crumb's illustrations seem to grow organically from the page, a perfect marriage with the words. show less

This is one of R. Crumb's masterpieces, whether it is a labor of love or of compulsion. (He worked on it for five years.) I love biblical scholarship and this "R. Crumb Meets Classics Illustrated" version of Genesis is informed by scholarship. Crumb relied on both the familiar King James Version and, more heavily, on Robert Alter's translation which is in modern English but is also extremely conscious of the original Hebrew.

The stories of the first book of the Bible are told at once with show more imagination yet close adherence to the meaning of the text as best as that can be determined. What is remarkable to me is how clear Crumb's rendition makes the stories. Even the begats become readable when there is a picture of each individual in the genealogy. This made it easier, for example, while reading about Joseph, to flip back to the relevant page and see the illustrated chart of who his brothers were and who the mother of each was. And, believe me, Genesis needs a who's who of characters.

The aptly named Mike Judge of the Christian Institute has predictably denounced Crumb's "The Book of Genesis" as "turning the Bible into titillation." Excuse me? Has Judge not read Genesis with an engaged brain? This ancient text is so full of titillation and ribaldry that to turn it into such would be redundant. There is ribaldry and brutality enough in the King James or any other standard text version of Genesis to warrant this version's warning--"Adult supervision recommended for minors"--being applied to all versions. True, only an illustrated version could show Adam's pizzle or Eve's mound, but not to show the first humans au naturel would betray the earthy spirit of the ancient people who told these stories.

Besides, Crumb never goes overboard. Take Chapter 19 (verse 5 and following, though Crumb does not clutter his illustrated text with verse numbers) where the men of Sodom want to "know" the apparent men (actually angels) who are guests in Lot's home. It is clearly understood that these citizens want to gang rape Lot's guests. The text only gives a clue to this effect. So does Crumb. He does not dwell upon this or try to make the lasciviousness of the situation any more explicit than it is in the traditional text versions of Genesis.

Yes, Crumb shows men lustily taking their wives (and daughters), but only because the original text says that they do these things. If anything, Crumb has toned down his obsession with large breasts, which are apt to be much, much larger in his other works than they are here. show less