#R CRUMB BOOK OF GENESIS HOW TO#

And the reviews -from USA Today, the L.A. We weren’t concerned about him being funny. He’s a very deep reader and he felt he couldn’t do a send-up. But you know, Crumb is capaciously well-read in a wide range of subjects which I think is one reason why he was attracted to publishing with Norton. Years ago he might have thought to do a comic send-up of the text. He calls the book, “a straight illustration job, with no intent to ridicule or make visual jokes.” And that tone extends to his visual interpretation of this ancient text. In the introduction to the book he is very respectful of Genesis as a revered sacred text, even though he acknowledges that he isn’t very religious. PWCW: The book seems a departure from Crumb’s irreverent and sharply satirical sensibility. Lora deals with Robert and his wife Aline Kominsky-Crumb every day and she also works closely with his U.S.

She made all the arrangements for the foreign language co-editions and made sure scans of the pages were ready for international translations. I’d like to mention that the book has also been guided to publication by Lora Fountain, Crumb’s main literary agent. In early January we got the manuscript and I went over it with Francoise. We got a lot of technical assistance from Francoise Mouly, Art Speigelman and Chris Ware. I did get a chance to go over the first 50 pages and told him that I thought the language needed to be smoother and he kept that in mind. I’ve edited Will Eisner but I’m not really a graphics editor and I really haven’t done anything different working with this book. Both the language and the artwork have the same effect on readers. They’re both symphonic units and must be approached as a whole.

We were consistent in caring about what’s good for the book as art and not as a business project.īut it’s no different for me editing prose or a graphic book. I think he appreciates that we, here at Norton, didn’t concede that the book was some sort of commercial project that it was always seen as a work art with transcendent values. I listened to him and what he wanted to do. His father was a Marine and a very proud man and there’s a great deal of civility to R. We have a great relationship-I call him Mr.

#R CRUMB BOOK OF GENESIS HOW TO#

RW: With a figure like Crumb I can’t really presume to tell him how to work. PWCW: What’s it like editing him what was the process of getting this book produced? He’s really not viewed as some sort of cult figure any longer. I think he’s always seen himself as an “underground” comics guy, but the reviews in the mainstream media regard the book as a major work of art. PWCW: What’s been his reaction to the publication and praise for The Book of Genesis Illustrated? He already had three pairs so he gave me one. He even brought me something-a grift wrapped package of new Brooks Bros. Robert Weil: I’ve just come back from an author/editor’s lunch with Robert Crumb and we had a great conversation. PW Comics Week: You’re the editor of the most famous “underground” cartoonist in the world. PW Comics Weektalked with Weil about the process of editing a graphic book as opposed to straight prose works working with Crumb on Genesis Illustratedand an upcoming slate of books coming from Norton over the next few years by Crumb and his wife and fellow cartoonist Aline Kominsky-Crumb. Norton, an effort to transform the complete text of the Book of Genesis into comics, to impressive critical acclaim. Weil has overseen the publication of Crumb’s new book, The Book of Genesis Illustrated, published this month by W. Crumb, the gifted underground cartoonist and arguably the most acclaimed comics artist of our time. Weil is passionate about great books and great authors so it's not surprising that he’s the editor of R. More recently Weil has taken to editing graphic books and his authors include the late Will Eisner and David Small, whose graphic memoir Stitcheswas recently nominated for a National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. Ballad, Isaac Babel and Patricia Highsmith in addition to poetry translations by John Ashbery and books by the distinguished nonfiction writers Edmund S. While nonfiction is his specialty, he has also published fiction of great literary distinction including books by such authors as Henry Roth, Primo Levi, J. Weil’s books have also received a Pulitzer Prize and a National Book Critic Circles Award. He is the editor of Annette Gordon-Reed’s The Hemings: An American Family, a scrupulous and lively history of the lives and relationship between Thomas Jefferson and Sally Hemings, which was awarded the 2008 National Book Award for nonfiction. Which is to say that he publishes books of great intellectual depth and literary substance that also manage to sell quite well. Norton executive editor Robert Weil is best described as an editor’s editor.

R crumb book of genesis