THE NEW YORK TIMES
By Ken Johnson
NEW YORK - In a recent essay in The New York Review of Books about R. Crumb’s illustrated “Book of Genesis,” the literary critic Harold Bloom seems bemused by Mr. Crumb’s graphic style, which reminds him unpleasantly of Mad magazine. Mr. Crumb may be irreverent, but in his attention to every detail of word and image he is as devout as any medieval manuscript illuminator. Scanning the 207 drawings on gallery walls is not the best way to take in the epical narrative, but it is good to see them in the original, undiminished by the inferior reproductive quality of the $24.95 book published by W. W. Norton. The inks are blacker, the pages whiter and the artist’s touch visibly subtler. [link]
By Ken Johnson
