Would John Lennon’s “Imag­ine” have been such a big hit if it had come from an unknown singer/songwriter instead of one of the most famous rock stars in the world? Impos­si­ble to say. Maybe a bet­ter ques­tion is: could any­one else have writ­ten the song? “Imag­ine” has become much more than a soft rock anthem since its release in 1971; it has become a glob­al phe­nom­e­non. Among the innu­mer­able big events at which the human­ist hymn appears we can include, since 2005, New York’s New Year’s Eve cel­e­bra­tion and, just recent­ly, a per­for­mance by pop star Shaki­ra at the UN Gen­er­al Assem­bly just before Pope Fran­cis’ his­tor­i­cal appear­ance.

It seems an odd choice, giv­en the song’s appar­ent anti-reli­gious mes­sage. And yet, though Lennon was no fan of orga­nized reli­gion, he told Play­boy mag­a­zine in a 1980 inter­view that the song was inspired by “the con­cept of pos­i­tive prayer” in a Chris­t­ian prayer book giv­en to him by Dick Gre­go­ry. “If you can imag­ine a world at peace,” said Lennon, “with no denom­i­na­tions of religion—not with­out reli­gion but with­out this my God-is-bigger-than-your-God-thing—then it can be true….” As if to under­score that par­tic­u­lar point in his adap­ta­tion of “Imag­ine” in the video above, car­toon­ist Pablo Stan­ley includes such reli­gious­ly diverse, yet ecu­meni­cal fig­ures as the agnos­tic Albert Ein­stein, Protes­tant Mar­tin Luther King, Jr., Hin­du Mahat­ma Gand­hi, and Rasta­far­i­an Bob Mar­ley, along with less-famous free­dom fight­ers like Har­vey Milk and mur­dered Russ­ian jour­nal­ist Anna Politkovskaya.

Stan­ley’s “Imag­ine” orig­i­nal­ly appeared in web­com­ic form, sans music, on his blog Stanleycolors.com. It seems that sev­er­al peo­ple took excep­tion to an ear­li­er, most­ly black-and-white draft (which also includ­ed what looks like the once-very-South­ern-Bap­tist Jim­my Carter), so Stan­ley issued a mul­ti-point dis­claimer under his revised, full-col­or ver­sion. He states that this “is NOT an anti-reli­gion/athe­ist pro­pa­gan­da comic”—charges also unfair­ly levied at Lennon’s song. Stan­ley does­n’t address the fact that most of the famous peo­ple in his com­ic, includ­ing Lennon, were assas­si­nat­ed, though this blog post offers a sug­ges­tive the­o­ry with inter­view footage from Lennon him­self.

In every respect, the com­ic adap­tion of “Imag­ine” hews pret­ty close­ly to Lennon’s call for world peace. In anoth­er Bea­t­les-penned bal­lad-adap­ta­tion, how­ev­er, things take a much dark­er turn. Stan­ley uses his per­son­al expe­ri­ence of near-sui­ci­dal depres­sion in his com­ic real­iza­tion of Paul McCart­ney’s song of lost love, “Yes­ter­day.” (See a video ver­sion above, web­com­ic ver­sion here.) This is grim stuff, to be sure, but Stan­ley assures us that he “over­came that sit­u­a­tion.” His com­men­tary offers a hope­ful take on the painful end­ing: “Look­ing at the yes­ter­day reminds me that I should thrive for the tomor­row.” I’m sure McCart­ney would agree with the sen­ti­ment.

For many more smart, moving—though non-Beatles-related—comics from Pablo Stan­ley, see his blog, Stan­ley Col­ors.

Relat­ed Con­tent:

The John Lennon Sketch­book, a Short Ani­ma­tion Made of Lennon’s Draw­ings, Pre­mieres on YouTube

Hear John Lennon’s Final Inter­view, Taped on the Last Day of His Life (Decem­ber 8, 1980)

The Rolling Stone Inter­view with John Lennon (1970)

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness

It is sur­pris­ing to me, but a few peo­ple I’ve come across don’t know the name of car­toon­ist Robert Crumb, cult hero of under­ground comics and obscure Amer­i­cana record col­lect­ing. On sec­ond thought, maybe this should­n’t come as such a sur­prise. These are some pret­ty small worlds, after all, pop­u­lat­ed by obses­sive fans and archivists and not always par­tic­u­lar­ly wel­com­ing to out­siders. But Crumb is dif­fer­ent. For all his social awk­ward­ness and hyper-obses­sive­ness, he seems strange­ly acces­si­ble to me. The eas­i­est ref­er­ence for those who’ve nev­er heard of him is Steve Buscemi’s Sey­mour in Ter­ry Zwigof­f’s Ghost World. There’s an obvi­ous trib­ute to Crumb in the char­ac­ter (Zwigoff pre­vi­ous­ly made an R. Crumb doc­u­men­tary), though it’s cer­tain­ly not a one-to-one rela­tion (the film adapts Daniel Clowe’s com­ic of the same name.)

Whether or not Ghost World (or Zwigof­f’s Crumb) rings a bell, there’s still the mat­ter of how to com­mu­ni­cate the lov­able lewd­ness and aggres­sive anachro­nism that is Crum­b’s art. For that one may only need to men­tion Big Broth­er & the Hold­ing Com­pa­ny’s 1968 clas­sic Cheap Thrills (top), the first album cov­er Crumb designed—and which Janis Joplin insist­ed upon over the record com­pa­ny’s objec­tions. With its focus on musi­cians, and its appro­pri­a­tion of hip­pie weird­ness, racist Amer­i­can imagery, and an obses­sion with female pos­te­ri­ors that rivals Sir-Mix-a-Lot’s, the cov­er pret­ty much spans the spec­trum of peren­ni­al Crumb styles and themes. Above, see anoth­er of Crum­b’s cov­ers, for a com­pi­la­tion called The Music Nev­er Stopped: Roots of the Grate­ful Dead, which col­lects such roots and old-school rock and roll artists as Mer­le Hag­gard, Chuck Berry, Bob Dylan, Rev­erend Gary Davis, Howl­in’ Wolf, and more.

Though he object­ed to the 1995 assignment—saying to Shanachie Records, “You want all these peo­ple on a CD cov­er? What are they, like, five inch­es across?”—Crumb must have rel­ished the sub­ject. (And he was paid, as per usu­al, in vin­tage 78s.) Next to those pos­te­ri­ors, Crum­b’s true love has always been Amer­i­can roots music—ragtime, swing, old coun­try and blue­grass, Delta coun­try blues—and he has spent a good part of his career illus­trat­ing artists he loves, and those he does­n’t. From famous names like Joplin, Dylan, and B.B. King (above, whose music Crumb said he “did­n’t care for, but I don’t find it that objec­tion­able either”), to much more obscure artists, like Bo Carter, known for his “Please Warm My Wiener,” on the 1974 com­pi­la­tion album below.

Crum­b’s use of racial­ly ques­tion­able and sex­ist imagery—however satirical—has per­haps ren­dered him untouch­able in some cir­cles, and it’s hard to imag­ine many of his album cov­ers pass­ing cor­po­rate muster these days. His recent work has moved toward more straight­for­ward, respect­ful por­trai­ture, like that of King and of Skip James on the best-of below, from a series called “Heroes of the Blues.” (Crumb also illus­trat­ed “Heroes of Jazz” and “Heroes of Coun­try,” as we fea­tured in this post.) See Crum­b’s inim­itable, loos­er por­trait style again fur­ther down in 2002 album art for a group called Hawks and Eagles.

Crumb may have shed some of his more unpalat­able ten­den­cies, but he has­n’t lost his las­civ­i­ous edge. How­ev­er, his work has matured over the years, tak­ing on seri­ous sub­jects like the book of Gen­e­sis and the Char­lie Heb­do mas­sacre. For an artist with such pecu­liar per­son­al focus, Crumb is sur­pris­ing­ly ver­sa­tile, but it’s his album cov­ers that com­bine his two great­est loves. “What makes Crum­b’s art so appro­pri­ate for the album sleeve,” writes The Guardian’s Lau­ra Bar­ton, “is its vivid­ness, and its cer­tain oomph; it’s in the min­gling of sex and joy and com­pul­sion, and the vibran­cy and move­ment of his illus­tra­tions.”

Crumb has­n’t only com­bined his art with music fan­dom, but also with his own musi­cian­ship, illus­trat­ing cov­ers for sev­er­al of his own albums by his rag­time band Cheap Suit Ser­e­naders. And he even pro­vid­ed the illus­tra­tion for the sound­track to his own doc­u­men­tary, as you can see above—an extreme exam­ple of the many self-abas­ing por­traits Crumb has drawn of him­self over the years. Crum­b’s album cov­er art has been col­lect­ed in a book, and you can see many more of his cov­ers at Rolling Stone and on this list here.

Relat­ed Con­tent: 

R. Crumb’s Heroes of Blues, Jazz & Coun­try Fea­tures 114 Illus­tra­tions of the Artist’s Favorite Musi­cians

A Short His­to­ry of Amer­i­ca, Accord­ing to the Irrev­er­ent Com­ic Satirist Robert Crumb

Car­toon­ist R. Crumb Assess­es 21 Cul­tur­al Fig­ures, from Dylan & Hitch­cock, to Kaf­ka & The Bea­t­les

Ralph Steadman’s Evolv­ing Album Cov­er Designs: From Miles Davis & The Who, to Frank Zap­pa & Slash (1956–2010)      

Josh Jones is a writer and musi­cian based in Durham, NC. Fol­low him at @jdmagness