Fritz, the 13th Disciple

Cartoonist Robert Crumb, author of Fritz the Cat and “Keep on Truckin’,” will publish the Book of Genesis, comic-book style.

Via Memeorandum and Althouse:

The famously subversive US cartoonist Robert Crumb has announced the completion of his long-awaited take on the Book of Genesis.

“Famously subversive” sounds like an oxymoron to me. What makes him “famously subversive?” He wrote comic books full of sex and violence. That means that in 30 years, Zack Snyder will be considered “famously subversive.”

I did see the movie version of “Fritz the Cat” when I was in college. It was okay. And I got a lot of enjoyment from the line “Keep on Truckin’” when I was 12.

The acclaimed satirist [synonymous with “famous subversive” – ed.] revealed on his personal website that he had finished the project, which is out this autumn, and which his UK publisher is predicting will “provoke the religious right”. Four years in the making, Crumb worked from the King James Bible and Robert Alter’s translation to reinterpret the Book of Genesis, from the Creation via Adam and Eve in the Garden of Eden to Noah boarding his ark.

It will “provoke the religious right.” I’m sure it will – I’m sure the book was written with exactly that in mind. The publishing company’s marketing division probably insisted on it.

Hey, so would I.

…The cartoonist, who now lives in the south of France, said that creating the book had been “a lot of fun”. “It’s very visual. It’s lurid. Full of all kinds of crazy, weird things that will really surprise people,” he added.

Just like the actual Book of Genesis!

I wonder what Genesis 19:30-38 is going to look like. Bet Crumb went through a few tissues.

According to his publisher, Jonathan Cape, Robert Crumb’s Book of Genesis is a “scandalous satire” which “presents a complex, even subversive, narrative that calls for a significant re-examination of both the Bible’s content and its role in our culture”. It will be published simultaneously in the US and the UK on 19 October.

Hey, I’ll read it. I won’t pay for it, but I’ll read it first chance I get. Watch me turn it into a Bible study lesson. A good one. Not for the youth group, though.