INTERVIEWER
Genesis is obviously a graphic novel, but the cover is like a fifties comic-book cover.
CRUMB
It’s a Classics Illustrated! I had to argue with them to let me call it “illustrated.” They wanted to call it The Book of Genesis According to R. Crumb
but I preferred “illustrated by.” I wanted a humbler position. It’s an
illustration job, OK? Illustration has a bad name in modern culture
because for decades artists who were “mere illustrators” were considered
inferior to fine artists. Being an illustrator was looked down upon. It
meant you were not really a creative person, you just had the technical
skills that you were lending to someone else’s ideas. It’s all bullshit
though—the fine-art world, the myth of the creative genius artist.
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