Spire Comics

What you see here is isn't some sort of neo-Nazi propaganda; rather, it's Christian propaganda.

I try not to be too hard on the Christian urge to evangelize. I appreciate the fact that their world view tells them that humanity is trapped in the metaphorical equivalent of a burning house with only one exit and that they feel that it's their moral duty to try to rescue us from that conflagration. Viewed from that perspective, evangelists and missionaries really are trying to do something moral, never mind that the rest of us get awfully tired of trying to be pulled from a burning building that we don't believe actually exists.

Be that as it may, some methods of evangelization take such absurd forms in their attempt to "reach" people that it's nearly impossible not to point and laugh. A particular egregious form of this is that of Christian comics. I have no doubt that we're all familiar with the works of Jack Chick, but Chick ministries aren't the only ones who've attempted to spread the word of Jesus through crappy art, stilted dialog and plots that a pre-schooler should find simplistic. A lesser known -- but still weirdly fascinating -- company is Spire Comics who ran a line of Christian themed comics such as the above "Hansi: The Girl Who Loved the Swastika" -- about a girl who initially loved the Nazis but eventually came to love Jesus -- as well as many others including quite a few surreal Archie Comics cross-overs.

I found a good fan site that has PDF versions of many of their comics. If you like reading Chick tracts (for a suitably broad definition of "like") I'm sure you'll enjoy reading these as well.

Unstructured Garfield

Some very clever guy noticed that Garfield comics are just about as funny as they normally would be if you just took a bunch of panels and slapped them together at random.

Here's a utility where you can see the results for yourself.

Of Batarangs and Bottles

Many people consider it a social faux pas to bore your friends with stories about your dreams. I'm not sure I quite agree with that but I do agree that dreams have a way of seeming a lot more cool to the person who dreamed them than to the audience to whom they are being conveyed.

With that said, a segment of a dream I had last night just seems so darned cool that I feel compelled to share it, so brace yourself.

The background isn't really important. Basically, some unnamed female superheroine with a gun shtick has approached Batman for help. For reasons that weren't entirely clear to me, she needed to infiltrate a circus and she needed Batman's help with an act (which, apparently, they could do in costume... don't ask me why; this isn't the cool part).

So they come up with a kind of trapeze act where they're swinging around while trying to break bottles set up on a platform. First she shoots a few while tumbling through mid-air and then he breaks a few with his batarang until finally there's just a few bottles left.

Finally, he releases her into the air, throws his batarang, which hits and breaks two out of three of the bottles before curving back towards Batman. While the batarang and our heroine are both in flight she throws her gun into the air, the batarang connects with the gun, pulls the trigger and shoots the final bottle, all to immense applause.

Now tell me that wouldn't make an awesome comic-book movie moment!

Unstructured Comics

Does this comic make you laugh?

If so, you are a True Geek™, in which case you should check out XKCD, which describes itself as a "webcomic of romance, sarcasm, math, and language". Rarely have I encountered such a concentration of Pure Geekery.

Whiskey Tango FoxTrot

Some of the very best newspaper comics are geek comics. The first time I ever saw Bloom County was as a clipping posted up in a computer lab. The Far Side found much of its sensibility in the very geeky world of science humor. Dilbert gained its initial impetus from its audience in the I.T. world. Even Calvin and Hobbes found popularity in geek circles well before it became established as a timeless family classic.

It is thus that I was sad to learn that the very geekiest of newspaper comic, FoxTrot, will be going to a Sunday-only format as of the start of the year. According to the sources I've read, the move is entirely the decision of Bill Amend, the strip's author, who simply does not want to spend the majority of time creating daily strips anymore.

I certainly respect his decision and I am also relieved that it's not going away entirely, as too many great comics already have (which is frustrating given the sort of dreck that never seems to go away). Never the less, I will miss my daily dose of uber-geek Jason and the rest of the family. At least we still have Get Fuzzy and Pearls Before Swine.

Unsctructured Comix

Scott McCloud thinks a lot about comics. He's got an excuse given that this is how he makes his living; however, it the depth and creativity of his thoughts that make him stand apart. A while back, he wrote a book (in comic form) called Reinventing Comics in which he analyzed the art-form and then speculated on its future. He was one of the people who, early on, saw the potential for the web and advocated the idea that the web could allow comic artists to employ what he described as an infinite canvas.

When you look around at most online comics, most of them look a lot like traditional print comics. Very few people are really taking advantage of the new medium and, sadly, many of those who are trying to do so aren't, frankly, doing a very good job.

Scott McCloud is more than just a theorist. He's created some truly innovative comics and have them available for viewing on his site. My personal favorite is an autobiographical one called My Obsession with Chess. For sheer beauty of form, I would recommend Zot, which is a kind of superhero story. He uses the idea of a story trail to connect his panels which vary greatly in size per the needs of the story. It's worth taking a look at.

Unstructured Superdickery

We seem to have a curious relationship with our heroes. On the one hand, we venerate them while, on the other, we desire to bring them down to our own level.

An interesting and amusing exhibit of this latter trait can be found at Superdickery.com which features a collection of comic book covers that "prove" that Superman is, in fact, a dick.

My favorite is a cover with Superman and Jimmy Olsen. Superman is holding up a jacket that Jimmy got him, burning it with his heat-vision. As he's doing this, Superman says, "Jimmy, this gift you got me for Father's Day makes me sorry that I ever adopted you as my son. I'll have to destory it to teach you a lesson!"

The pedant in me does feel compelled to note that comic covers are intended to compell kids to buy their issues and that a common trick is to depict characters behaving contrary to their personas. Never the less, it's a very amusing collection of covers.

Enjoy.

Special thanks to Natalie Ramsey for the link