Thirty Pieces of Silver

There was once a man who betrayed a friend for thirty pieces of silver.
He betrayed him with a kiss.
The friend was crucified.

- The Judas Coin

by Walter Simonson

Christianity, Counterculture, and Comics

The other week I made an impulse buy at my local comic book shop. Those of you who know me well may not think this is surprising, but actually I usually hold a pretty strict shopping list when it comes to physical, individual issues. This is both due to financial and time restraints. The cost of buying comics seems to grow in an inverse relationship with the amount of free time I have to read my purchases. To illustrate the seriousness of the situation, I don't even include any Batman titles on my regular reading list (unless, of course, it is written by Grant Morrison).

But that day I saw on the shelf an issue of Occupy Comics about the Occupy movement and the financial crisis and bailouts that spurred it. Now, you, dear reader, likely have your own opinions on this social/political occurrence. I don't really care about that. What I was really interested in was the fact that this issue contains an essay by Alan Moore (of Watchmen fame and self proclaimed wizard who is not to be trifled with) about the history of comics as counterculture and a medium of protest.