Craig's Response to Crumb

Reading Response

Robert Crumb’s Book of Genesis

The famed cartoonist and social commentator Robert Crumb created a comic strip based on the “Book of Genesis.” This version of the bible was published in the New Yorker in June 2009. Crumb illustrates the story without any alteration to the words or popular interpretation. The drawings are in the typical graphic Crumb style, but this work is a strict illustration job. Crumb did not become revered for illustration. He became popular for his social and cultural sensitivities to the pathetic human.

Crumb’s Book of Genesis leaves an important aspect out of its content–the artist. As I read and viewed the cartoons I was waiting for the real Crumb to stand up and say something. That wonderful cantankerous, perverted and misogynist master of comics. I wanted the panel to come up where Adam squeezes the voluptuous Eve’s boobs and says, “my rib sure did turn out fine piece of big ass and tits.” It never came, nor did any other punchline to make a comment on religion. I think Crumb has gone soft in his old age. Copying “Genesis” and making ordinary domestic strips of his wife and himself shopping. Crumb has lost his edge and his ability to critique society. He started out a few blocks from my house down on Coventry Road in Cleveland Heights in the mid 1960s drawing for Harvey Pekar and developing his “Mr. Natural” and “Keep on Trucking” characters. Now he enjoys the breeze of the French countryside and the comfort of publishing for the New Yorker. I want the bitter, depressed Crumb back. He was a lot more fun.