Counter-culture figure Robert Crumb pens Genesis comic book
By Peter Elliott | Contributing Editor of Everyday Christian
Posted 4:48 pm on October 19, 2009
It’s safe to say most of us have seen Charlton Heston part the Red Sea in “The Ten Commandments,” or on the opposite end of the spectrum perhaps taken our kids to see the VeggieTales adaption of the Jonah in the belly of the whale.
Taking a single book of the Bible – in this case Genesis – and plowing through it word for word to create a comic book is an entirely different endeavor altogether.
This, however, was the end result of a 224-page comic created by 1960s counter-culture figure Robert Crumb, known for sexually edgy material and the distinction of having the cartoon character Fritz the Cat dubbed with the first X rating.
I can’t delve into a deep analysis of Crumb from first-hand experience. I can’t pretend to be one of the multitudes of people who claim to be at Woodstock, either. That’s challenging when you weren’t even born yet.
What Crumb has done in the present is take the King James Version of the Bible and a scholarly interpretation of it and developed the comic complete with all the “begats,” and violence that comes with Cain and Abel, Joseph getting shoved into the cistern and sold off, and so on.
Crumb denies God’s hand was at work in any of his work.
He doesn’t deny God, though, and poses a query about life after death that I think many Christians wrestle with sometimes as well.
"I'm a spiritual guy,” Crumb said. “I'm not an atheist, more an agnostic. I don't doubt the existence of God, I just don't quite know what God is. It's a question that will challenge me until the day I die."
Tags: Bible, books, comic books, Genesis, Robert Crumb
Peter Elliott is a veteran news and sports journalist. He enjoys interviewing others about how God works in their lives and sharing that with readers. He is also a lifelong, long-suffering Chicago Cubs fan. He resides in Indianapolis with his wife and three sons.
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