![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
Crappy comics make Jesus cry.
Nov. 8th, 2009 12:02 amMy sister was rummaging in her trick or treat bag today. My sister is theoretically too old to trick or treat, but she is smaller than me and cuter than me and has little or no shame. At least where free candy is concerned. Darn her. Anyway, she was going through the last of her candy and stuff when she discovered that the "and stuff" included a fundy Christian comic mini pamphlet. You know, repent or go to Hell, you adorable little heathen.
Now that is a scary Halloween trick.
She was mostly amused. Little worried she might have been singled out for some reason. Her fellow treaters better have gotten 'em too, or that's blatant discrimination against goth zombie nurses and she'll totally sue.
I was amused too, but also annoyed. Not so much at the proselytizing, actually. I kinda feel bad for most of the local Mormons and such, doggedly trying to hand out free bibles by the train stations and smiling wearily and wishing me a nice day when I turn them down. You just want to give them a consoling pat and a mug of warm tea, you know? There, there, I'm sure you'll save someone from everlasting hellfire tomorrow!
What offends me isn't so much the religion. It's the damn BAD COMICS.
On my shelf is the complete Vertigo edition of Osamu Tezuka's Buddha. It's gorgeous and epic and funny and heartbreaking and humane and so damn bloody UNFAIR. Because Siddharta Gautama Buddha got Osamu Tezuka, Manga no Kami-sama, God of Manga, the father of sequential art in East Asia, doing comics based on his life and teachings. What did poor Jesus get? Jack. Freaking. Chick.
I don't consider myself a Christian, except culturally. You know, celebrates Christmas and Easter, but doesn't attend church and hasn't been baptized or saved. I'm basically agnostic in my beliefs. Well, with lingering touches of neo-paganism left over from an adolescent Wiccan period. But while I haven't taken Jesus as my personal saviour, I have a certain amount of affection and admiration for the guy. And he deserves better than crummy, stiff art, BAD plotting and storytelling, and cold, humourless, angry writing. The man punned, for God's sake. (I mean, literally, he punned for the sake of his God.) Jesus had a sense of humour, and he was a damn GOOD storyteller. He'd hate this ugly, angry, smug little book.
Well, no, I guess he'd love it even though it's ugly and angry and forgive whoever drew it because he's the Nazz and that is how he rolls but STILL.
So, here's a few comics in which Jesus appears which do not suck. Because it is possible, darn it.
Dean Rankine's HOLY COW! Christian Comics. The anti-Chick. Dean Rankine appears to be a smart and sane member of the faithful, and he can draw. His zany, cartoony art style reminds me a bit of the little illustrations in Klutz Press books. These little mini-comics are hilarious and thoughtful. Jesus appears in them as a grinning hippy figure in sandals and colourful t-shirts, which apparently some people have found sacreligious but I find ridiculously a propos. And the comics have delightfully clickable titles like "Jesus meets Oprah" and "Psalm 23 and the Vampire Death Squad."
Externality and The Book of Merl, by Daniel Merlin Goodbrey. Jesus makes appearances in these two fun flash-based hypercomics. The Book of Merl was Goodbrey's attempt at improvising his own holy book, in comic form, and a little stick figure Jesus makes a cameo. It's a nice little acknowlegement of the debt the creator feels he owes Christianity as to the shaping of his morals.
...In Externality, Jesus battles a NINJA.
Saint Young Men, by Nakamura Hikaru. Jesus and Buddha take some time off from Heaven and kick it on Earth for a while, sharing a cheap bachelor pad in Japan. It's like the Odd Couple! With saviours! I dearly love this one for so many reasons. Mostly because my particular sense of humour is always tickled by the juxtaposition of the fantastic and the mundane. But also because both Jesus of Nazareth and Siddharta Gautama Buddha went through so much crap on this Earth, and It's NICE to think of the two of them getting to come back and relax and be ordinary and go to Tokyo Disneyland.
The thing those comics all have in common, sadly, is that conservative Christian fundamentalists probably hate them. But I like 'em. And Jesus loves 'em. But then, Jesus loves everybody, so I'm told.
Now that is a scary Halloween trick.
She was mostly amused. Little worried she might have been singled out for some reason. Her fellow treaters better have gotten 'em too, or that's blatant discrimination against goth zombie nurses and she'll totally sue.
I was amused too, but also annoyed. Not so much at the proselytizing, actually. I kinda feel bad for most of the local Mormons and such, doggedly trying to hand out free bibles by the train stations and smiling wearily and wishing me a nice day when I turn them down. You just want to give them a consoling pat and a mug of warm tea, you know? There, there, I'm sure you'll save someone from everlasting hellfire tomorrow!
What offends me isn't so much the religion. It's the damn BAD COMICS.
On my shelf is the complete Vertigo edition of Osamu Tezuka's Buddha. It's gorgeous and epic and funny and heartbreaking and humane and so damn bloody UNFAIR. Because Siddharta Gautama Buddha got Osamu Tezuka, Manga no Kami-sama, God of Manga, the father of sequential art in East Asia, doing comics based on his life and teachings. What did poor Jesus get? Jack. Freaking. Chick.
I don't consider myself a Christian, except culturally. You know, celebrates Christmas and Easter, but doesn't attend church and hasn't been baptized or saved. I'm basically agnostic in my beliefs. Well, with lingering touches of neo-paganism left over from an adolescent Wiccan period. But while I haven't taken Jesus as my personal saviour, I have a certain amount of affection and admiration for the guy. And he deserves better than crummy, stiff art, BAD plotting and storytelling, and cold, humourless, angry writing. The man punned, for God's sake. (I mean, literally, he punned for the sake of his God.) Jesus had a sense of humour, and he was a damn GOOD storyteller. He'd hate this ugly, angry, smug little book.
Well, no, I guess he'd love it even though it's ugly and angry and forgive whoever drew it because he's the Nazz and that is how he rolls but STILL.
So, here's a few comics in which Jesus appears which do not suck. Because it is possible, darn it.
Dean Rankine's HOLY COW! Christian Comics. The anti-Chick. Dean Rankine appears to be a smart and sane member of the faithful, and he can draw. His zany, cartoony art style reminds me a bit of the little illustrations in Klutz Press books. These little mini-comics are hilarious and thoughtful. Jesus appears in them as a grinning hippy figure in sandals and colourful t-shirts, which apparently some people have found sacreligious but I find ridiculously a propos. And the comics have delightfully clickable titles like "Jesus meets Oprah" and "Psalm 23 and the Vampire Death Squad."
Externality and The Book of Merl, by Daniel Merlin Goodbrey. Jesus makes appearances in these two fun flash-based hypercomics. The Book of Merl was Goodbrey's attempt at improvising his own holy book, in comic form, and a little stick figure Jesus makes a cameo. It's a nice little acknowlegement of the debt the creator feels he owes Christianity as to the shaping of his morals.
...In Externality, Jesus battles a NINJA.
Saint Young Men, by Nakamura Hikaru. Jesus and Buddha take some time off from Heaven and kick it on Earth for a while, sharing a cheap bachelor pad in Japan. It's like the Odd Couple! With saviours! I dearly love this one for so many reasons. Mostly because my particular sense of humour is always tickled by the juxtaposition of the fantastic and the mundane. But also because both Jesus of Nazareth and Siddharta Gautama Buddha went through so much crap on this Earth, and It's NICE to think of the two of them getting to come back and relax and be ordinary and go to Tokyo Disneyland.
The thing those comics all have in common, sadly, is that conservative Christian fundamentalists probably hate them. But I like 'em. And Jesus loves 'em. But then, Jesus loves everybody, so I'm told.
