They're All Stories

Religion. Science. Politics. Our relationships. Our identities. They're all stories.
Stories that hold our place in the world. Hell, that become our world.

- The Unwritten #45

by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

66 Days of Preacher: Day 7

Wow. It has been a while. You know how I get distracted? Well, I get distracted. But 66 Days of Preacher continues! We left off way back when on a cliffhanger. Have you been on the edge of your seat the entire time? Or did you figure I'd never get back to this? Well, surprise! I am definitely going to slog through all 66 issues of joyous theology, blasphemy, and depravity for your entertainment.

So, to briefly recap: Jesse and Tulip went with Cassidy's friend Si to visit a blind man that might know where God is. Meanwhile, Detectives Bridges and Tool are hunting a serial killer. Tool receives a tip that the killer wants to turn himself in. While Jesse goes into the blind man's building, Si stabs Tulip! And Cassidy finds something in Si's apartment...

Feel free to review for yourself:
Day One
Day Two
Day Three
Day Four
Day Five
Day Six

Standard Preacher NSFW protocols apply.

Without Story

But in the end--
--without story... without the ability to step sideways from fact into hypothesis--
--human life is untenable.

- The Unwritten #45

by Mike Carey and Peter Gross

And Who Decides?

Hellboy: What are they?
Demon: Misspent lives. Not the great monsters, but the common damned.
Hellboy: And who decides who's damned?
Demon: Each man's soul is his own. How he chooses to spend it...
That is for each man to decide for himself.

- Hellboy in Hell #2

by Mike Mignola

I Believe In Comic Books

I believe in comic books.
When most people hear "comic books," the immediate thought is mor than likely of some capes and tights and some muscle-y dudes or muscle-y ladies slamming each other into buildings or punching a battleship. Y'know -- books like the ones those corporate suits produce over at the two big companies... or like the other book I do, Invincible.
You see, I'm a comic fan; I love that stuff.
But comic books, as a whole, are so much more. The good news is this isn't news. Comics have been much more from the very beginning, actually. And lately we've had things like Sin City and Hellboy, Cerebus, the fine crime comics from the likes of Brubaker and Phillips, classics like Minimum Wage or Love and Rockets, modern comics like Casanova, Morning Glories, Hack/Slash, Elephantmen, Chew, Preacher, Y: The Last Man, The Walking Dead (whatever that book is) or the upcoming Saga.
So non-super hero comics are nothing new... and whoo boy is that a good thing.
Still, though... the vast majority of comics feature superheroes, and the vast majority of those comics feature old superheroes, stale musty ideas from the middle of the last century or later. Around 60 to 70% of the comics produced each month fit that bill, so we've got a long way to go.

- Robert Kirkman

Romances in the Wards

Fuck superheroes, frankly.
The notion that these things dominate an entire culture is absurd.
It's like every bookstore in the planet having ninety percent of its shelves filled by nurse novels.
Imagine that.
You want a new novel, but have to wade through three hundred new books about romances in the wards before you can get at any other genre.
A medium where the relationship of fiction about nurses outweighs mainstream literary fiction by a ratio of one hundred to one.

-  Powers #7

by Brian Michael Bendis and Michael Avon Oeming

2013

Dear Avid Fan Base,

I am sorry.

I apologize for being away for so long. There was this thing. I wrote a paper. I presented it at an academic conference. It was awesome.

But I got distracted. I got sidetracked and overwhelmed and skipped updating Wednesday Theology one day. And then the next. And it went like that until now. Until today. Until 2013.

We're back, baby!

New year. New logo (look at that thing! Courtesy of Josh Bailey. Look at it!). New content.

Same old fun, theological insanity.

I'm getting the band back together, so to speak. Updates will be more frequent (as in there will actually be updates). We can all continue 66 Days of Preachers. I was afraid that would get left behind, and it was a strategic move so I could get everything done in time for the presentation, but afterward it was just my own dang laziness. Again, I apologize.

Soon I'll give a more detailed account of the conference, what I learned, how it inspired me, and what I'm going to do next. Yes, there will be some interesting stuff coming up next.

There's a fire inside, a passion for comics and theology that can't die out, even if I wanted it. But I don't want it to die out. Because this is what I do. And in 2013 I'm going to be doing a lot of Wednesday Theology.

Won't you join me?

Happy New Year!

 - Mitch
Bitter. Sarcastic. Handsome.