The Book of Genesis

The Book of Genesis is R. Crumb's 2009 graphic novel adaptation of the biblical text: a complete, word-for-word illustration of Genesis rather than the satire many expected from an underground-comix artist.

W. W. Norton published the book on October 19, 2009, after Crumb spent over four years on it, working out of a shepherd's hut in the south of France. He hand-lettered every word himself, drawing mainly on Robert Alter's 1996 translation with occasional reference to the King James Version, and rendered the story in his dense, crosshatched drawing style. Costumes and sets are based on old Hollywood films, since little documentation survives of daily life in ancient Mesopotamia, and the characters are given "distinctly Semitic-looking" features rather than the Europeanized look common in earlier Christian art. The book's sexual content, explicit in the source text, is drawn plainly rather than exaggerated. It reached #1 on the New York Times graphic novel bestseller list, and in 2013 its pages were exhibited individually at the Venice Biennale.

Crumb was born in 1943 and helped found the underground-comix movement of the 1960s, co-founding Zap Comix and creating characters like Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural, and the Keep On Truckin' strip, work known for its satire and explicit sexuality. The Book of Genesis stands apart in his catalogue as a "straight" illustration job on a canonical text, made without the sendup his reputation had led readers to expect.