In the beginning

After a lifetime of wild sex, social outrage and some of the most mind-bending artwork ever put to paper, Robert Crumb has found God - so to speak.

More accurately, what he found was another treasure trove of bizarre behavior, religious taboos and primal mythology in Genesis. Crumb spent the past four years researching and illustrating the opening book of the Bible, producing a 200-page epic that was previewed in the June 1 New Yorker and will go on sale in the fall. How is he feeling after a completing a task comparable to parting the Red Sea?

"Mostly relieved," he says. "I felt like it was never going to get done."

"We rented a house for a while so that Robert could work," adds his wife, Aline Kominsky-Crumb, who is making appearances with him at the Prague Writers' Festival this week.

"At home, the phone is ringing, people are constantly coming over - I had to get out of there," Crumb says. "We rented a little cabin up in the hills."

"I would take him food, his mail, stuff like that," Aline says. "He would come home on weekends, but I wouldn't tell anybody where he was."

The Crumbs have been living in a small village in the south of France for almost 18 years, but fame, friends and fans follow them wherever they go. And the spotlight will no doubt shine even brighter after Crumb's Book of Genesis is published. Provocation comes naturally to the shy, soft-spoken godfather of underground comix, and he has no illusions about what Genesis will unleash.

"The Orthodox Jews will immediately dismiss it because I visualize God," he says, opening an abbreviated preview copy to the very first drawing, of a bearded, long-haired heavenly giant creating the world. "Obviously, the Christian fundamentalists are not going to like it. Look at this, Adam and Eve cavorting - forget it, that's out."

"It's going to be very controversial!" Aline says.

"That's why I put this on the cover," Crumb says, pointing to a hand-drawn label that reads Adult Supervision Recommended for Minors. "I'm worried that people will see it and say, 'Oh, an illustrated Bible, I'll give it to my kids.' "

No one would have made that mistake during the first 30 years or so of Crumb's career, when he created titles like Zap, Snatch, Big Ass and Weirdo and filled them with Fritz the Cat, Mr. Natural, Devil Girl and a host of other randy characters who explored forbidden terrain that made Hieronymus Bosch look tame. But along the way Crumb's work and subject matter broadened and matured, with collected drawings of jazz and blues musicians and illustrations for books like Edward Abbey's The Monkey Wrench Gang.

In 1993, he released R. Crumb's Kafka, with text by David Zane Mairowitz, a brilliant compendium of Franz Kafka's life and work set in Prague. Though Crumb had never been to Prague, and worked from photographs, he captured the city's atmospherics perfectly, as well as the author's despair and angst - and modern-day commercialization.

What place Genesis will take in his oeuvre remains to be seen, but the point of departure for Crumb was not religious.

"I've been studying ancient civilizations for a long time, and I got interested in how the early version of Genesis picked up myths from places like Sumeria and Babylon," he says. "We all grew up with this religious craziness. Jewish, Christian, even Islamic -it's such a strong part of our whole civilization. So, to examine that, try to see through it and get to what's behind it, is really interesting."

After doing a lot of research - he can talk at length about the historical context of Old Testament stories and themes like matriarchal versus patriarchal - Crumb realized he had to change his approach. "My first idea was to do a satire on Adam and Eve," he says. "But, after I did a couple of Adam and Eve satirical things in a sketchbook, I decided to play it straight. It's just so bizarre and strange as it's written, there's no need to satirize it.

"When you start deconstructing Genesis, it's really crazy - a garbled compendium of these old myths that then had all these layers put on them by the priestly caste. The stories would be twisted and altered, and some of them make no sense at all in modern terms. The idea that anybody would use them as a serious source of moral and spiritual guidance is to me just crazy. I mean, it's like believing in Paul Bunyan or one of those early American legends, and using it as a source of moral values."

That attitude should shake up the media and self-righteous religious groups throughout the world later this year, when Genesis is published in 10 countries (though, alas, not the Czech Republic). But, by then, the Crumbs will be on to other things. A query as to what book of scripture is next on the list draws groans from them both.

"I'm through with the Bible," Crumb declares. "Finished!"

"I can't put up with it anymore," Aline says. "I've had enough of being a Genesis widow."

"I was sick of it long before I was finished with it," Crumb confides.

"We're going to do a collaborative book next, and, after that, I don't know," Aline says. "Pure smut, maybe - something completely different. But it's not going to be the Bible."

Outside of their scheduled appearances at the American Center and Lanterna Magika on Thursday, celebrity-watchers may see the Crumbs out and about Prague this week - Aline likely in shoe stores, marveling at the big, big feet people here have compared to France, and Robert in antique shops rooting for his beloved vintage 78s.

"I got some Czech records from a guy I know in Germany," Crumb says.  " 'Bugatti Step' and 'Bloody Moon' by a guy named Jaroslav Ježek. Great band, kind of this Art Deco jazz. I hope there's more of that here."

Frank Kuznik can be reached at
fkuznik@praguepost.com