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Showing reviews 1-5 of 123
I Didn't Burst into Flames! August 22, 2010
Doctor Moss
I didn't burst into flames reading this! Your results may vary.
Although the illustrations are very Crumb-like, this is no trashing of the Bible. The story is there, and you can't blame Crumb for the grittier parts of the story itself, including incest, polygamy, deception, and all the rest. Some may be offended by his treatment of God as very much a character in the story, rather than one standing above and outside it, but this is the God of the Old Testament.
It's the drawings. Crumb's style carries over. You wouldn't expect anything else, and, for my taste anyway, he makes the times of the story very real, almost pungent. Crumb has always depicted people as more animal in appearance -- the men are hairy and often world-weary, and the women are all breasts and hips. But he didn't turn Genesis into Fritz the Cat. There are sexual scenes, but . . . sex happens in the story. If you want to fault Crumb, then fault him for how he sees the world, not for how he sees the Bible.
I enjoyed reading this. Crumb's illustrations bring the story to life in his distinctive, gritty way. A good expe
Brilliant! August 15, 2010
JPS
A unique treatment of the Book of Genesis by one of the greatest cartoonists of our time. Highly recommended.
The Book Of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb August 12, 2010
Cai Yixin Jeremy
R. Crumb has always been one of the best cartoonists when it comes to historical graphic novels based on immense source materials. A Short History of America is just that, a tremendous piece of work. Like Will Eisner, Crumb portrayed life in America as he sees it through his eyes. Some people view Crumb as fairly controversial in the way that he doesn't compromise in his work, never pulling back from telling it as it is, but that is an admirable position to take as an artist. He certainly did not compromise with this illustrated take on the first book of the bible, Genesis, with perhaps an aim of giving overlooked insight on how these stories really were and how it can applied to current times. This passion from Crumb is evident in the scope and length of the project and if it is any indication of the book's quality, it is big and epic. The material is as complex as its source and when the source is the bible you know it's going to be good.
The book never pulls back from the source material if ever. If you were expecting a conventional graphic novel this isn't it. There's dialogue and captions, yes, but nothing that doesn't already appear in the bible. Everything is in there. Basically every panel describes a part of a verse or could encompass an entire verse, every piece of dialogue in word balloons and every piece of non-dialogue in captions. All artistic elements are all firmly rooted in the source material, making this different from books where the material is made-up. But this book never feels draggy at all and if such a book could be done, this is the way to do it.
This may appear as a simple thing, but the way Crumb adds his own historical research into his drawings astounds. Right down to the facial expressions, Crumb derives from his own view of how it really looked like between the lines. That serves as some delightful insight too into the nuances of human behavior.
Which is what this book is really about, human behavior. How can one say it isn't, having read about how Man came from the dust of the Earth into living form, how Man has to find a way to live on after the fall, when man and woman sinned for the first time. The generational evolution of human behavior happened in snaps of a finger and it seemed Crumb is painting a picture of morality and how we, human beings, should live our lives. This feeling is palpable, extending to maybe every single page.
Even a believer of God would be apt to see Genesis in a new light after, given the fact that Crumb's perhaps unsentimental commitment to historical accuracy has made the narrative fresh and vibrant. We never quite understood why the Serpent had legs in the beginning, but Crumb explains it further in his rather lengthy afterword, a feature welcome in such an immense work.
The stories lead from Adam to Abraham, his offspring and ultimately, to Joseph, ending there with his death. The cool thing about this is that something could have happened to, say, Jacob, and its repercussions appear later with his beloved son, Joseph, which was hated by his brothers. A simple truth: mistakes from our forefathers always extend to present times, however big or small. Perhaps the oldest of stories have such an effect, and it doesn't get as moralistic as the first book of the bible where it all began. How man came about serves as a mirror for the way we were made to live.
And that, Crumb has to turn in some of the best work he has ever done, even with The Short History of America put side by side. Just an amazing work, and we are talking about a book that even the passer-by can enjoy for its pure storytelling. If it does what it says and educates/inspires people to evaluate the meaning of life, then it must be said that it succeeds at a very high level. The truth is that this important piece of art does both of these things equally well.
R. Crumb, Biblical Scholar...who knew???? August 3, 2010
Hwy61Joe (Ohio)
R. Crumb illustrating the complete text of the Book of Genesis? How could anyone not be intrigued by such an endeavor? I wasn't sure what to expect, I thought Crumb might approach it with an over-the-top view or perhaps try to make it humorous. It is simply a straight-forward, illustrated telling of the famous text. I'm certainly no biblical scholar and I found this all-inclusive, unabridged look at Genesis to be very interesting. This is a must have for any R. Crumb fan and I think there is a lot to be enjoyed by any fan of comic art as well as people simply looking for writings about the Bible. Crumb's notes at the back offer a very interesting, scholarly interpretation of some of the chapters that I had never thought of or heard before.
Eye-opening July 26, 2010
R. Schimpf (San Francisco, CA United States)
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
The concept here is deceptively simple -- a graphic novel that includes every word of the book of Genesis. But nothing about Genesis is easy or simple, and R. Crumb brilliantly reveals the complexity that makes this a magnificent, essential, inconsistent, troubling, and gorgeous cornerstone of our culture. I've read the Bible as a believer and as an academic. This version of Genesis still had much to teach me about this extremely important text. Quite simply, nothing is left out, and everything is open to new interpretation. Buy it.
Showing reviews 1-5 of 123
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