Church Comics
A monthly series of comics which I produce for my church, and which also find their way into other venues.
The second Captain Christianity comic starts where the previous one left off. What happened to the Hero of Hermeneutics? All the answers are here, along with some theology jokes, a visual in-joke based on the computer game Portal and a dog on the title page who is hearing his master's voice. Some of the puppets in the puppet scene are the puppets used in our church.
I produced 2ND Chance for the committee that oversees the running of Llandrillo College Christian Union. It was designed to be give out during a week of evangelistic activities, so it's biblical message is fairly oblique for the most part. I wanted to do something that the non-Christian students would actually enjoy reading, and which would work as an invitation for them to attend the events we were running.
This comic has some of my favourite cells of any comic I've done so far and, also, the largest cast of main characters. I think it's also the longest. Phew.
The series began this Christmas with a festive adventure starring Father Christmas and Nelson the Elf (characters I resurrected from a series I wrote as a teenager). I was going to stick a reference to the sleigh's 'flux capacitor' in at the bottom of page three, but I didn't think enough people would know what one was, so FC simply calls it the 'time machine'. The giraffe's presence in the stable is a nod to the fact that the Bible never actually refers to any animals being there, which gives us some nice artistic license.
The second instalment of my comic coincided with the beginning of a new year and my thoughts turned to the future -- the Far Future! A kind of Alastair Reynolds meets The Mighty Boosh affair, this comic explores our anxieties about the future and features the worst pun in history as a title. The 'cheeky aliens' situation reflects actual events in the life of a girl in my church. I don't envy her.
Captain Christianity is a tongue-in-cheek rendering of the ideal Christian. His super strength and ability to fly make all Christian tasks a doddle. His life is not that simple, though, and this two-parter is all about living as a real Christian.
Interesting facts: Ian Bowman was named on a day when there were a lot of Bowmans presenting on Radio One. He's the 'typical' middle-class, good Christian -- you can see the poster of the 'Footprints in the Sand' poem on the wall of his study. Charis was named as a theological joke. The church has often argued about whether the 'charismata' (miraculous spiritual gifts) are an "indispensable aide" and I don't think we should shy away from these sort of debates, so I stuck this ironic reference in the comic.
Interesting facts: Ian Bowman was named on a day when there were a lot of Bowmans presenting on Radio One. He's the 'typical' middle-class, good Christian -- you can see the poster of the 'Footprints in the Sand' poem on the wall of his study. Charis was named as a theological joke. The church has often argued about whether the 'charismata' (miraculous spiritual gifts) are an "indispensable aide" and I don't think we should shy away from these sort of debates, so I stuck this ironic reference in the comic.
I left Captain Christianity to his own devices over Easter and turned instead to Jim Lancer, Private Eye. It's hard to be funny about Easter and it's also hard to do it in a fresh way. To counter this, I wrote this comic with a 1920s, film-noir, private investigator as the main character and used his personality as the comic relief. My intention was to have Jim give a hard-bitten, dark narration to his adventure, which would be humorously undermined by the fact that it was obviously at odds which his actual personality -- hence the cigar incident at the beginning of the comic. I also wanted to leave the reader guessing, so the fact that Lancer is investigating the Easter story becomes only slowly apparent. (No prizes for naming the 'dame' who hires Lancer in the first place.)
The cross-hatching took ages.
The cross-hatching took ages.
The second Captain Christianity comic starts where the previous one left off. What happened to the Hero of Hermeneutics? All the answers are here, along with some theology jokes, a visual in-joke based on the computer game Portal and a dog on the title page who is hearing his master's voice. Some of the puppets in the puppet scene are the puppets used in our church.
I produced 2ND Chance for the committee that oversees the running of Llandrillo College Christian Union. It was designed to be give out during a week of evangelistic activities, so it's biblical message is fairly oblique for the most part. I wanted to do something that the non-Christian students would actually enjoy reading, and which would work as an invitation for them to attend the events we were running.
This comic has some of my favourite cells of any comic I've done so far and, also, the largest cast of main characters. I think it's also the longest. Phew.