Hiatus

So, I meant to only take a couple days off from blogging for Christmas. That apparently turned into a week. Oops. You'll get over it. I mean, it's not like the AFB is real, anyway. Not yet. Once we hit Harry Potter numbers in readership, then we'll be cooking with transcendental Crisco.

Is it stuff like that people are referring to when they tell me they can't understand this blog or my thought process? Hmm, I might have to ponder that.

Anyway, my sincere apologies for the absence of Wednesday Theology this week. Time got away from me and I'm worn out from busting my hump doing something that actually gets the bills paid.

But the plan is for Wednesday Theology to strike back with a vengeance (like an Imperial John McClane) on Monday, ushering 2012 in with some comic book awesomeness. I've been reading some good stuff in the interim. Grant Morrison came out with a new, extra long issue of his Batman, Incorporated series. And it was awesome. And my mom gave me some comics she's been using to teach her Sunday school class. I'll be honest, you guys, I didn't hate them. But I'll talk about that and more in the new (and possibly last) year!

Daily Batman

You guys, I've resisted posting this for soooooo long. You have no idea.

Wednesday Theology wishes you all a Merry Christmas!

He Will Trample Your Head

And the Lord God said to the serpent...
Because you have done this, cursed be you of all the cattle and all the beasts of the field.
On your belly shall you crawl and dirty shall you eat all the days of your life! Enmity will I set between you and the woman, and between your seed and hers! He will trample your head, and you will bite his heel!

- The Book of Genesis

by R. Crumb

Daily Batman

Art by Mark Dos Santos.

Superstitious, Cowardly Lot [NSFW]

Channon: Couldn't you have gotten dressed?
Spider Jerusalem: I am dressed.
Besides, this'll bring out the criminal religious element I seek.
Messianic fuckheads are a superstitious, cowardly lot, and I must strike fear into their hearts.

- Transmetropolitan #6

by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

Daily Batman

What Would You Do?

So this Zealot comes to my door, all glazed eyes and clean reproductive organs, asking me if I ever think about God.
So I tell him I killed God. I tracked God down like a rabid dog, hacked off his legs with a hedge trimmer, raped him with a corncob and boiled off his corpse in an acid bath.
So he pulls an alternating-current taser on me and tells me that only the Official Serbian Church of Tesla can save my polyphase intrinsic electric field, known to non-engineers as "the soul."
So I hit him. What would you do?

- Transmetropolitan #6

by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

Daily Batman

Air Jesus

Galilee Corner, The West Side:
Go on! Go for it!
We believe!
-------
Air Jesus

- Transmetropolitan #5

by Warren Ellis and Darick Robertson

Daily Batman

I Will Make Arian Doctrine Orthodox

 

I command the Eternal Army of Rome.

Refuse me this, and I will make Arian doctrine Orthodox and hunt down and dispatch all Heretics from this, their mortal coil.
I, of course, am speaking of you and a premature meeting with God himself.

- Pax Romana

by Jonathan Hickman

Daily Batman

DC Special Series #21.

For those of you that like Bible verses to go along with your Batman. Or Batman to go along with your Bible verses.

This comes from the 1980 story "Wanted: Santa Clause, Dead or Alive" by Denny O'Neil and Frank Miller. Yes, that Frank Miller.

You Cannot Escape Your Destiny

Hecate: Accept the truth of your existence or be destroyed!
You cannot escape your destiny!
Hellboy: Gonna try.
Hecate: Time is coming to ring down the curtain on man.
Already the Four Horsemen are loose in the world.
It is for us to darken the sun, turn the moon to blood, and put out the stars...
Then you and I alone, forever, in the dark --
Hellboy: Shut up!
Not gonna happen...
...'Cause you're very, very ugly...
...and...
...You have a giant snake body!

- Hellboy: Wake the Devil

by Mike Mignola

Daily Batman

This Heresy Has a Face and a Name

Holy Father, most revered brothers...
...I know that we are all tired and have grown weary of nuance.
So...Witness! I speak plainly now...there is a sickness in our presence...
...An apostasy in the hearts of some gathered here -- we have all witnessed it -- we all suffer from its influence.
A question has been put before us and a choice must be made: Is Christ God, or, and it angers me to even mouth the words, simply a created artifact of the celestial godhead?
There is someone here that would have us accept the second and risk the salvation of souls and the betterment of our earthly existence.
This Heresy has a face and a name...
...Arius of Alexandria.
Progenitor of Arian doctrine.

- Pax Romana

by Jonathan Hickman

Sam's Club Bans the Bible!

How's that for a sensational headline?

I woke up and found this news and thought I'd share, even though it's about a month old, apparently. But yes, Sam's Club did pull from their shelves a Bible. A graphic adaptation of the Bible. A graphic adaptation of the Bible that uses Legos.

Why?

Mature Content.

CNET has the news here and a Lego blog also comments on it here.

The banned Bible is a book version of Brendan Smith's website The Brick Testament. You may be somewhat familiar with this site since I used a panel from it for a Graphic Bible post about cutting off foreskins.

See, this is what I have been talking about. Forget Harry Potter, parents need to start standing up in church and warning that the Bible is too dark and raunchy for kids to read! Seriously, what responsible parent would let their child read the Bible?

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First Council of Nicaea

The Secret Vatican Archives

The First Council of Nicaea was a month-long meeting called to order by Constantine I in the hopes of achieving a uniformed Christian doctrine. It is a common misconception that it was an assembly to compile or edit the Christian Bible. It was, in fact, convened in order to answer specific questions of faith including: the resolution of regional schisms, a formalized Passover date, the baptism of heretics, and, most importantly, a decree concerning the Arian debate.

Arian belief originated from the competing beliefs that either Christ Jesus was the same as God, or that He was merely composed of the same material -- a product of His father's divinity.

The resulting support of the first position was the point of origin for the guidelines of a unified Christendom -- The clear delineation of what was Orthodox belief and what was heretical. A distinction that had to be manipulated.

- Pax Romana

by Jonathan Hickman

Daily Batman

In This Sign You Will Conquer

Illuminated shadows...
An edifying umbra.
A sign from heaven...
Under this victory.

The Secret Vatican Archives
Flavius Valerius Aurelius Constantinus: Constantine I
Age: 40

He was born in Naissus, Moesia Superior to the Roman General, Constantinus Chlorus and his wife Helena. A seasoned campaigner and a shrewd politician, Constantine eventually climbed to the rank of Caesar.

Legend has it, that on the eve of his battle with Maxentius, he heard a voice from the heavens saying, "In hoc signo vinces" - "in this sign you will conquer." The sign was the Labarum, the Chi-Rho of Christ. There has long been historical speculation that Constantine fabricated this story to gain the support of the Christians who were an organized fifth column in the Eastern Empire.

Note: Constantine's progeny will be limited to a single child. Crispus, son by the concubine Minervina.

Estimated lifespan: 65 Years.

- Pax Romana

by Jonathan Hickman

Daily Batman

Batman and Santa don't always get along.

No One Will Expect This Out of the Church

I'm having the scientists watched and, honestly, no one will expect this out of the Church.
We can take comfort in the fact that, as usual, most people remain ignorant of how aggressively we have been funding scientific research.
It is ours and there are no others.

- Pax Romana

by Jonathan Hickman

Daily Batman

Art by Rudy Vasquez.

Limited Knowledge of the Universe

Let us just take into consideration, for a moment, that we are two mortals, with our limited knowledge of the universe, discussing the inner workings of the mind of God.
He works in mysterious ways.
And that's not meant to be a dismissive answer. I'm just acknowledging that he exists at a level beyond our comprehension. He has a plan...it's not our job to understand it, it's our job to believe in him.

- The Walking Dead #63

by Robert Kirkman and Charlie Adlard

Ineffable.

Daily Batman

Batman Arkham City

How Time's Leveled Us

This disaffection. This is armageddon. Ah, Mary, how time's leveled us. We are made equal, both mere curios of our vanished epoch in this lustless world.
This world, where in comparison I am made ignorant, while you...
you are made virtuous.

- From Hell

by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell 

Daily Batman

By Artgerm. Check it out on his site!

Children Playing With Their Unfathomable Toys

Dear God, was is this Aethyr I am come upon?
What spirits are these, labouring in what heavenly light?
No...
No, this is dazzle, but not yet divinity. Nor are these heathen wraiths about me spirits lacking even that vitality.
What then? Am I, like Saint John the Divine, vouchsafed a glimpse of those last times?
Are these the days my death shall spare me?
It would seem we are to suffer an apocalypse of cockatoos...
Morose, barbaric children playing with their unfathomable toys.
Where comes this dullness in your eyes? How has your century numbed you so?
Shall man be given marvels only when he is beyond all wonder?

- From Hell

by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

Site News

The updates for today are going to be a tad bit delayed. There should be a daily quote and daily Batman up sometime this evening. My apologies for such a delay.

Mostly this is due to my usual lack of organization. But I'm also currently quite engrossed in From Hell by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell. If you've read it, you understand. If you haven't read it, you should. It is one of those great works that could potentially convince even the most determined skeptic that graphic literature is, in fact, literature. It is an impressive, marvelous work.

Maybe I'll get around to writing a review of it.

I apologize again for the lack of new content for the time being. If you want, take this as an opportunity to go back and read any Wednesday Theology posts that you might have missed in the past. You just might enjoy it. Or become incredibly confused or even irate. I never know how people will react to things.

Daily Batman

Cover to Batgirl #14. Art by Artgerm.

It All Came True Anyway

I made it all up, and it all came true anyway.
That's the funny part.

- From Hell

by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell

Daily Batman

Cover to Batgirl # 11. Art by Artgerm.

The Ineffable One

The little dude with the pointy horns on his head is obviously going around yelling out shorthand slang for that infamous word little Ralphie said in A Christmas Story. And then out of no where Jesus shows up and makes a theologically sound and unrelated statement. And yes, it is a pun and I just find it hilarious, even without the last panel. Dictionary.com defines ineffable as "incapable of being expressed or described in words; inexpressible."

Daily Batman

Cover to Batgirl #10. Art by Artgerm.

Media, the Gutter, and the Bible

The Bible actually may have been written in the wrong medium. I'm saying this as a media theorist - a guy who has written books and novels, taught university classes, and made documentaries about the impact of new technology on the way we relate to stories. And particularly those stories we happen to really believe in.
If anything, working in what is still the rather new space of networked computers has taught me that our relationship to narratives is stuck in a dangerous place. Sure, we watch TV and imagine ourselves as characters, but we have lost access to the gaps in stories, the places where temporality, interpretation and sequence are up for grabs. We just get lost in the seamless reality and get taken along for a ride.
.............
Business people, religious people, educators, and publishers are all equally threatened and confounded by the idea that real stuff is actually occurring in the gaps between the moments that pass for history.
And that's when I discovered the prefect place to tell what I've come to believe is the real story of the Bible: comics.
.............
For by insisting that we "believe" the Bible happened at some moment in distant history, the keepers of religion prevent us from realizing that the Bible is happening right now, in every moment. The narrative and its power transcend time...

- Douglas Rushkoff in Testament #1

Daily Batman

Cover to Batgirl #9. Art by Artgerm.

Forgiven

S'okay, I've forgiven worse!

Battle Pope #11

by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Cory Walker

Daily Batman

Cover to Batgirl #13. Art by Artgerm.

No Less Potent, No Less Terrible

Scorn not the Gods: Despite their non-existence in material terms, they're no less potent, no less terrible.
The only place Gods inarguable exist is in our minds where they are real beyond refute, in all their grandeur and monstrosity.
What's Mars but mankind's violent attributes personified? Or Aphrodite, save mankind's desires? The Homeristic sages recognized all Gods as aspects of "The One" yet missed the greater truth.
"The One" is us, each with a pantheon of Gods in our Right Brain, whence inspiration and all instinct springs.
Athena gives us automobiles, Mars our Mahdi uprisings. Is that not plague and miracle enough to sate the God of Exodus?

From Hell

by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell 

Daily Batman

Cover to Batgirl #12. Art by Artgerm.

Our Lunatics Were Prophets Once

William: Born in the Eighteenth century, our greatest prophet, William Blake, experienced visions; spoke with Milton's ghost, or the Apostle Paul...
Netley: Sound barmy.
William: Possibly.
And yet, as Alexander Gilchrist, Blake's biographer, suggests, 'Tis but comparatively recently that seeing visions would call into doubt a person's sanity.
Why, Roman military logs describe divine encounters quite routinely; less remarkable than horse-shoes lost or Quartermaster's lists. Our brains were different then: The Gods seemed real.
..........
In Gilchrist's words, Blake's spiritually belonged to earlier ages of the world, since when, as Hazlitt has remarked "The Heavens have gone further off."
Our lunatics were prophets once, and had a prophet's power. Never forget that, Netley.

From Hell

by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell 

Daily Batman

Cover to Birds of Prey #7. Art by Stanley "Artgerm" Lau.

All About Getting Presents

Pope: What's the matter?
Jesus: Christmas. Everybody's worried about what they're getting and what they're getting other people.
Nobody cares about my birthday anymore...it's all about getting presents!
It's like I was never even born.
When people hear "Christmas" they think of trees before they think of me!
It was bad enough when my mom used to tell me all my Christmas presents were for my birthday, too!

Battle Pope #11

by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Cory Walker

Daily Batman

You know how comics are supposed to be all dark and realistic now? That clearly wasn't always the case.

A Task Most Difficult

Father: Think less on tomorrow's work, boy, and more upon today's.
The Lord has his own plans for each of us, and tis vanity to speculate.
The scriptures...ung...The scriptures say "What doth the Lord require of thee, but to do justly, and hurp...to love mercy, and to walk humbly with thy God?"
Son: Yes, father.
You are right.
Father: Uwp.
Son: Father? Is it vanity to hope the Lord may choose for me a task most difficult?
Father: No, that would seem a worthy Christian attribute, so long as it were not for glory's sake.
Son: Oh no.
Though I should have a task most difficult, most necessary and severe, I should not care if none save I did hear of my achievement.
Only the Lord and I shall know.
And that shall be sufficient.

From Hell

by Alan Moore and Eddie Campbell 

Daily Batman

Batman and Robin #15

Pulp Fiction [NSFW]

Yorick: You will know I am the LORD when I lay my vengeance upon you!
Amazon 1: That's not real Scripture, it's a line from fucking Pulp Fict--

- Y The Last Man #25

by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra

Daily Batman

Because Batman: The Animated Series is one of the best cartoons and best iterations of Batman ever produced.

Would You Rather Have Toys?

Is dying for your sins not good enough?!
Would you rather have toys instead of the chance to go to Heaven?!
Is that what it's all about? Toys?!!

Battle Pope #11

by Robert Kirkman, Tony Moore, and Cory Walker

Daily Batman

Cover to Gotham Knights #59. Art by Jae Lee.

Run by Humans [NSFW]

Beth: Anyway, Magdalene Asylums were an Irish-Catholic thing, spiritual sanctuaries for "sinful women." You know...prostitutes, abuse victims, flirts.
The hilariously misnamed Sisters of Mercy would lock these girls inside sweatshops, force them to work under the whip for their penance.
And this wasn't the Dark Ages, mind you. I found out my biological mom died in one of these hellholes in fucking 1989.
So you don't need to tell me how screwed-up the church was, all right? You're preaching to the goddamn choir.
Amazon 1: If that's true...then renounce your God.
Beth: Go to hell.
Amazon 1: Renounce your allegiance to this patriarchal hate machine...or I kill you where you stand.
Beth: Patriarchal? Did you hear anything I just said?
The church wasn't fucked-up because it was run by men, it was fucked-up because it was run by humans.

- Y The Last Man #25

by Brian K. Vaughan and Pia Guerra