Cartoonist Robert Crumb gives talk in Richmond

The cartoonist Robert Crumb has drawn countless images of himself or his alter egos since his work first appeared in the mid-1960s, but recent glimpses of the reclusive artist are rare.

Thanks to the Modlin Center, his fans and comics lovers got to hear him speak at the Carpenter Theatre on Tuesday night, along with Françoise Mouly, art editor for The New Yorker. The two are making only five U.S. appearances to promote his latest publication, "The Book of Genesis."

A screen onstage allowed Mouly to show the audience images of Crumb's work through the years, as well as a few photos of his home and family. She steered the conversation in a roughly chronological arc, covering his early years in San Francisco -- where his comics were a mainstay of the counterculture comics scene -- his penchant for incendiary topics, his life now in France and his work on the Genesis project.

At one point, Mouly described Crumb's drawing as "very attentive to a woman and her body" as pages from a 1960s comic depicting a certain sexual activity were shown overhead.

Crumb, 66, joked: "You think it's sensitive to women?" He was alluding to the oft-leveled accusations that his work was sexist or misogynistic. The conversation veered toward the issue but never delved into it. "It's a touchy topic," he said several times.

"Your work is not quite what it seems at first glance," Mouly went on.

"I hope not," Crumb said immediately.

Later in the evening, he said: "I was a sick puppy. I was definitely unbalanced crazy. I got that out of my system. Now I'm nice."

Crumb spent five years researching and working on "The Book of Genesis," which tells the entire first book of the Bible in illustrated form. He originally thought he would draw Genesis satirically, but after a few strips, he wasn't satisfied.

"The real text doesn't need to be satirized," he said.

He described being surprised to discover the extent of scholarly debate over how to translate the original Hebrew. "The text is garbled; the meaning is difficult to discern," he said. "People are killing each other over [the Bible], and they don't even know what it means!"

In addition to textual research, he visited the British Museum, looked up ancient Sumerian writing and images, and studied film stills to create as visually complete a book as possible.

What will he do next? Certainly not another book of the Bible. He also emphatically declined to try the Quran. He anticipates returning to France and working on collaborative projects with his wife, the artist Aline Kominsky-Crumb.