It's the old story. Milton tried to retell the Bible and discovered that Satan was a more interesting character than God, and now, three centuries later, Robert Crumb confirms that God is a hell of a lot less fun than Fritz the Cat. "The first book of the Bible graphically depicted! Nothing left out!" declares the cover of this 214-page comic version of Genesis, and for a moment you think it's a teasing double-entendre, capitalising on the fact that Crumb's depictions of sex have always been "graphic" in the porno sense of that word, and that there's plenty of deviant behaviour in the Old Testament that an impious illustrator might relish. But no. Crumb's Genesis fulfils its blurb on a solemnly literal level.

All 50 chapters are present and correct, and, apart from some discreet nudity when there's begetting to be done, there's nothing to disqualify this from being sold in the staidest Christian bookstore. The text, heavily reliant on a recent translation by Robert Alter, reads like the King James partially revised, in haste, by a primary school teacher. Crumb is a non-believer but frowns on the liberties taken by some other graphic adapters of the scriptures. "This is a straight illustration job," he states, "with no intent to ridicule or make visual jokes." Intentional humour is indeed scarce, although the bit in Chapter 28 where God and the messengers of Abraham float down a heavenly ramp has a Teletubbyish daftness that made me smile.

If the book does not intend to ridicule, what exactly is its intent? Hard to imagine. Crumb's lack of religious fervour means the images lack the weird mystery that suffuses the visions of, say, William Blake or David Tibet. But, with his gifts for satire and grotesque playfulness locked away, Crumb merely manages to depict the soap-opera antics of primitive Israelites in a manner that neither illuminates nor nuances them. His drawing style here  unexaggerated, painstakingly cross-hatched  is the same as he's used for other "serious" works in the past, such as his adaptations of Boswell's journals, Kafka's life story, Krafft-Ebing's Psychopathia Sexualis, or the biographies of various American blues singers he adores. The difference is that there's no one, in the narrative of Genesis, through whom Crumb can vicariously live.

Of course there is some fine artwork. In a project encompassing one and a half thousand panels, there ought to be. The evocation of human wickedness that precedes God's decision to flood the world has a nauseous pall of Bosnian war crimes about it. Noah's construction of the ark is masterfully handled. The genealogy pages swarm with tiny yet distinctly characterful portraits of semitic faces. Abram's haunted sleep when the Lord tells him his seed will be scattered for 400 years is powerfully imbued with preternatural dread. Too much of the book, however, differs too little in conception from the many other graphic Old Testament stories that have been produced by inferior artists. In his foreword, Crumb thanks a pal for supplying him with source material in the form of "hundreds of photos from Hollywood biblical epics". Contempt for the mainstream entertainment industry used to be one of Crumb's strongest instincts, so it's sad to think of him earnestly studying kitsch Hollywood movies for inspiration.

In the long term, I suspect this book will be regarded as an inessential curio in Crumb's oeuvre. In the short term, it's likely to win lavish praise from people who are dazzled by the halo of "magnum opus" radiating off its hardback bulk (even the gothic lettering under the dustjacket is lustrous gold). It's a godsend for those sensitive souls who always wanted to admire Crumb's oft-trumpeted genius but couldn't stomach the copious lashings of bile and sperm.

Actually, this is not Crumb's first attempt to infiltrate the bookshelves of respectable folks. In 2006, MQ Publications brought out The Sweeter Side of R Crumb, an anthology of miscellaneous sketches picked by "Mr Nicey-Nice Himself" specifically to charm those who might regard him as a "misanthropic sex pervert". That book was enlivened by flashes of inspiration: the pure urge to capture in ink whatever delighted or possessed the artist at that evanescent moment. The Book of Genesis, by comparison, comes across as the fruits of indentured drudgery. Not since Crumb last worked 9 to 5  for a greetings card company in the mid-1960s  has his talent been so cramped, so subservient to the service of another agency's agenda. While I don't expect a man of 66, living contentedly in the south of France, to rail against the world as he once did, I can't help believing there must be more spirit in the old devil than this tome suggests.

Michel Faber's latest book is The Fire Gospel (Canongate).