Panel Discussion

If you know Robert Crumb as the sleazy high priest of 1960s underground comix, seeing the sex-obsessed artist’s interpretation of The Book of Genesis Illustrated (W.W. Norton, $24.95) might give you a bit of conceptual whiplash. But Crumb’s heavily crosshatched drawing is well suited for the weighty proceedings of the good book’s first chapter. Though still fixated on sex, Crumb doesn’t add any histrionics or subversive interpretations to the stories of Adam, Noah and Abraham; any humor, violence or lewd behavior he renders was already there. Throughout, the biblical figures look elated, sweaty or stuck in the sway of existential panic, if not facing the wrath of God himself. Crumb’s major accomplishment is to portray Isaac and his descendants as ordinary and extremely neurotic people—albeit ones who stumble into the occasional cataclysmic disaster or miracle.

If you’re looking for really subversive takes on the story of Adam and Eve, R. Sikoryak’s Masterpiece Comics (Drawn & Quarterly, $19.95) will do you dandy. Sikoryak mashes up familiar comics-page staples with highbrow literary-canon fodder and comes up with funny pages that crackle with clever resonance. So, in Sikoryak’s Garden of Eden story, put-upon everyman Dagwood Bumstead stands in for Adam, his imperious boss J.C. Dithers plays the part of God, and cute-but-clueless wife Blondie becomes Blond Eve. Many of Sikoryak’s mash-ups are inspired. The author reframes Dostoyevsky’s Crime and Punishment as a 1940s Batman story, revealing both stories to be grim melodramas with central characters who exploit the tension between law and responsibility. Whether it’s The Picture of Dorian Gray as a Little Nemo riff, Ziggy as Candide, or Macbeth done in the Mary Worth style, you can’t dismiss any of the works as simple gags, because Sikoryak consistently fuses the core strengths of each to create a punchy, surprising hybrid.

In the new collection Absolute Promethea Volume I (DC/WildStorm, $99.99), legendary creator Alan Moore (who looks like Crumb’s version of God) concerns himself with how spiritual imagination can open up other planes of existence. Once grad student Sophie Bangs stumbles on recurring literary character Promethea, she becomes a vessel for the myth made flesh. The stories (stunningly illustrated by J.H. Williams) start off with a fantasy superhero vibe that pays homage to Wonder Woman and Shazam, but soon Moore sends you on a dizzying journey that explores the tarot and an alternative universe. As befits a work alleging that literature has the power to create new worlds, this gorgeous book will birth a new obsession in anyone who reads it.

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