Selected Bible Segments

So this weekend was pretty crazy at New York Comic Con/Anime Fest. Probably not just for me but everyone else in the class too. My friend came down from Wellesley to table at NYAF Artist Alley with me, which was pretty fun. She made a killing doing quick ink portrait caricatures for $5 a piece (really underselling herself in my opinion). Her prints did pretty well too, particularly one of My Little Pony in Adventure Time fashion shown here (http://shainareads1001books.tumblr.com/post/9493049908/d-im-thinking-of-changing-the-caption-on-the-top)
I basically played second fiddle to my friend, handling her sales when she was too busy doing portraits and barely selling any of my own prints. I did get some sketch commisions in, so those were fun. And I met some other cool artists, which was great.

I'm getting sidetracked. I'm actually treating this like a blog and not just somewhere to post my ill-conceived thoughts on comics. So, to the point of this post: comparing Crumb's Genesis and parts of The Wolverton Bible to their source, the Bible. Both are relatively straightforward adaptations. Both artists approached the task with respect, and the parts we're looking at (Genesis 3-5, 25-27, 37-47, Revelations 1-3, 19-23) aren't particularly detailed or evocative. I've already compared how Wolverton and Crumb each approach the job, so it's easy enough to scroll down the page to those posts.
My friend from Wellesley says I probably shouldn't compare Wolverton, Crumb, and Chwast's work to Dürer and Doré's. She has a point. I probably shouldn't have. Oh well.
Since both Wolverton and Crumb work pretty straightforward from the text, we can see that they worked with what they had. Genesis is relatively barebone, probably leading to some of the boring scenes I criticized in both Wolverton and Crumb's books. With Revelations though, we get some descriptive imagery, leading to some of the better pictures in Wolverton's Bible. What I like to see in adaptations are artists taking the limits placed and stretching as far as they can with those limits.
With the sketch requests I received at the artist alley, some of them were pretty simple, to-the-point (Big McIntosh from My Little Pony as a space marine) and others gave me more freedom for interpretation of their request (a halfling paladin in crystalline armor with angel wings, youthful face, flowing hair, and a claymore). I enjoyed both types of commisions, so being reminded of that is fun.