R. Crumb, best known for his bawdy—to put it mildly—underground comics featuring the likes of Fritz the Cat, is coming under expected fire for his illustrated version of the Book of Genesis (with its cover warning: “Adult Supervision Recommended for Minors”)—even though he hasn’t changed a word of the original. One day 15 years ago, for no reason he can remember, Crumb decided he wanted to read the myths of ancient Sumer. Eventually he found a scholarly work that said some of the myths were similar to the stories in Genesis. He read Genesis closely, and wished to illustrate it. He declared his anger at the description of his book by his own British publisher as “scandalous satire.” So he’s probably not happy with some of the other responses either. Mike Judge of the Christian Institute criticizes Crumb’s book for “turning the Bible into titillation.” According to Crumb, he’s merely being accurate, drawing and drawing out what is plain in the words: “I had no intention to scandalize the Bible,” he said. “I was intrigued by the challenge of exposing everything in there by illustrating it. The text is so significant in our culture, to bring everything out was a significant enough purpose for doing it.”