The Book of Genesis - R. Crumb

From the Creation to the death of Joseph, here is the Book of Genesis, revealingly illustrated as never before. Peeling away the theological and scholarly interpretations that have often obscured its most dramatic stories, Crumb--using the actual text word for word--has imagined the Bible as it really was. \n \nNow, readers of every persuasion--Crumb fans, comic book lovers, and believers--can gain astonishing new insights from these harrowing, tragic, and even juicy stories. Crumb's Book of Genesis reintroduces us to the bountiful tree lined garden of Adam and Eve, the massive ark of Noah with beasts of every kind, the cities of Sodom and Gomorrah destroyed by brimstone and fire that rained from the heavens, and the Egypt of the Pharaoh, where Joseph's embalmed body is carried in a coffin, in a scene as elegiac as any in Genesis. Using clues from the text and peeling away the theological and scholarly interpretation that have often obscured the Bible's most dramatic stories, Crumb fleshes out a parade of Biblical originals: from the serpent in Eden, the humanoid reptile appearing like an alien out of a science fiction movie, to Jacob, a kind've depressed guy who doesn't strike you as physically courageous, and his bother, Esau, a rough and kick ass guy, to Abraham's wife Sarah, more fetching than most woman at 90, to God himself, a standard Charlton Heston-like figure with long white hair and a flowing beard. \n \nAs Crumb writes in his introduction, the stories of these people, the Hebrews, were something more than just stories. They were the foundation, the source, in writing of religious and political power, handed down by God himself. Crumb's Book of Genesis, the culmination of 5 years of painstaking work, is a tapestry of masterly detail and storytelling which celebrates the astonishing diversity of the one of our greatest artistic geniuses. \n \nNominated for three 2010 Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards: Best Adaptation from Another Work, Best Graphic Album, Best Writer/Artist.