One does get tired of Christians painted in SF (and out of it) as inneffectual, pie-in-the-sky or head-in-the-sand boobs. Or of belief in "truths" (dare I say, absolute truths?) as something to pooh-pooh as naive, uninformed, unintellectual, or just plain silly.
This week, with a bit of chronic fatigue chasing me down, I got to read a bit of "light stuff"--which wasn't light at all, which was graphicky novelish, which was sometimes gory, sometimes hilarious, and not at all cheery.
Yes, well, I am given to melancholia.
I read the latest Buffy the Vampire Slayer (Season 8) to find the statement "There is no truth" and "There's only what you believe." Yes, one can say that. It's hard to LIVE that. How does one campaign for female equality if one isn't convinced that the TRUTH is that women are NOT inferior to men. How does one battle racism and not hold to the truth that all races are equal and all humans are of equal worth in the sight of...other humans? The cosmos? GOD? A lot of people battling fiercely on matters from animal rights (so, are animals worthy of protection--true or no? Or is it just preference?) to human rights (Is torture wrong? Is THAT true?) to dietary habits (Is it true that trans fats are unhealthful? Or is that just, er, what we believe?)
I get sick of that crap. I don't think people can actually live, day to day, and not believe X and Y and Z are true and A and B and C are untrue. 1 is right and 2 is wrong. You can't live in LaLa "There is No Truth" land. Otherwise, why have Buffy battle so fiercely against demons and deny herself so much that humans enjoy (er, a normal life)? Because it's TRUE that a slayer must fight EVIL cause EVIL is BAD and protecting humans is GOOD. Those are truths. Duh.
Let's move on to GIRLS, shall we? It's a terrific series (so far, I've not read all the bound volumes). Has some great components from SF past--the destructive hot naked chick (think LIFEFORCE), the trapped and can't get out and something's after us scenario, the "zombie-ish" non-zombies, the alienish craft in a cornfield (heh), the bunch of people at each other's throats trying to survive The Menace, the battle of the sexes, etc. It's really excellent in terms of characterization and pacing and, oooh, gross horror-ry stuff. But what's the Christian character like so far? (Only one that I can recall, and he may end up more heroic and fine later, dunno.) He's a weenie. He's a "Let's pray" and "It'll be all right" and so far USELESS.
Which reminds me of SPIN (a novel about which you'll hear more next week when Marcus Goodyear examines it for you as a guest blogger right HERE): Three main characters, and the one who turns religious (the gal) is a wuss, an ostrich-head-in-the-sand weenie who has to be rescued. Geesh.
Okay, back to the graphic novels:
Thank God for BLACK CHERRY by Doug TenNapel.
I got it in the mail yesterday and dropped everything (kinda literally, as I was really tired and when I'm tired I drop stuff) to read it. Here we got Christians--active and muscular and some even backslidden and messed up--but they're not sitting around spouting platitudes and not doing the work. This graphic novel takes the taboo words and topics of Christian fiction and, well, I would say shoves them up the censor's you-know-whatsits, but that would be rude, wouldn't it? Not to mention just too close to what the demons do in BLACK CHERRY. Yup, there be demons. And an angel, even.In fact, the preface to the story is TenNapel explaining exactly why he does what he does in the story, go for REALISM even in the midst of all the speculative/genre wackiness: "Criminals don't talk like they are trying to keep from offending soccer moms."
He's also quoted saying the following in an interview at Newsorama :
"Doug TenNapel: It’s a deliberate change of tone in order to properly swim within a decidedly seedy genre. I thought it would be criminal to take a steamy genre like crime-noir and baptize it with conservative Christian culture; that’s what the Christian ghetto does in all forms of media today.
I don’t go into genres and say, “How do I Christianify this story?” because it degrades both the literary history of the genre as well as what the Christian enterprise should be. So making Black Cherry “safe” was not on the table.
At the same time, I have a duty as a man who follows Christ where my understanding is that I’m not to just camouflage myself with my culture and bury the light of Christ so that it’s indiscernible from that which is non-Christ. I’m not hiding anything faith-based in my writing either. That’s also not on the table when it comes to my stories that address religion (and I love to take a break from telling stories about religion whenever possible).
The title character (although not the one you see most in the story) is a stripper. And yep, in one panel, she's working the pole. Hair is strategically placed, you'll be glad to know. Then there's the other character (the main active one) named Eddie, and he's in love with Black Cherry. He's also got a filthy mouth, but then, he's a mobster/criminal/bad-dude/gambler. He doesn't talk like your Aunt Letitia at tea parties.
I'm not easily offended, so I can enjoy the story and not get bristley about the "how" of its telling. If you're easily offended:Not for you. If you can handle how people really talk, go for it. Urban folks know that this is part of what we see daily. I lived in the ghetto. I grew up cussing (out of the house, with my "homies.") I walked over a blue-faced, dead junkie once who breathed his last on our front stoop. I got beat up by gang members on days when I wore the wrong dang color coat to school. I had to walk past old geezers smelling of accumulated urine and who-knows-what bodily and urban filth as they panhandled at me on the way home from school. I watched hookers get it on in the alleyways of the neighborhood. Drug dealers lived next door. Drug users lived upstairs and downstairs and all over.. And I knew that fathers and mothers sometimes did unspeakable things to their kids--and I knew that by the time I was EIGHT. And by the time I was nine, I carried a big, honking hunting knife in my book bag, that my dad gave me. For protection. (One of my grade school pals got gang-raped at age 11. I got propositioned by a gang member when I was 14. Protection became mission one.) I got a good look at the dark side of the world kinda early.
So, some people cussing, this doesn't rank high on my "Offend Mir Scale."
What does? Smirking gossip offends me more. Snobbery offends me. Pharisees oppressing new believers into cowering submission to stupid dress code or "millstone" rules offends me. Churches that barf if a drag queen shows up for service offends me. Pastors who refuse (or refuse) to visit the AIDS afflicted offends me. White Christians who don't wanna worship with minority Christians offends me (and vice versa). Materialistically driven believers in an afflicted and dying world offends me.
But showing strippers and gangsters in their milieu...no. I think: Jesus would have gone to have lunch with them. He would have talked to them like neighbors. I figure they need some Jesus-loving types interceding for them, caring for them, because these are folks who clearly have no clue there is something much finer and lovelier between men and women, and when you add God into the mix, it's beyond believable how wonderful love and sex can be. This is part of the arc in BLACK CHERRY--sordid to hopeful and touched by the sacred.
The underworld types, the pole dancers, the junkies: They need grace. Bad. Like us all.
Black Cherry and Eddie are people who have been hurt by some really lousy parenting (can we say ABUSE?) and some really bad choices, but when it comes down to it, they take risks for the rank and reeking planet they inhabit. And for other planets, interestingly. And love ends up being a mighty powerful thing. As does the sacrament of the Eucharist. (There is a Catholic priest and a monastery in this one by TenNapel. CREATURE TECH had a Protestant minister and one of the most creative depictions of the substitutionary sacrifice of Christ I've seen.) BLACK CHERRY shows God's grace in some very odd but effective action.
It's got sci-fi. It's got horror. It's got crime drama. It's got humor. It's got religious stuff. It's got chases and action. It's got romance. (I did say TenNapels likes to mash genres together, right?)
If you've heard the parable of the lost sheep, how God will go out of his way to find that one when the 99 are safe, well...this graphic novel is a ripping, wild ride of a depiction of THAT parable. And what TenNapel does with his trademark blending of genres (he never stays put in just one) and his kooky humor and his really strong sense of the neediness of humans (he manages to get me misty-eyed in EVERY SINGLE one of his G.N.'s), well, it's exciting and it's got an awful lot of truth.
But it's also the parable of the prodigl son, retold.
After so many comics with either NO believers (in a country where, what, 80+ percent identify as Christian and 90 percent believe in God) or show believers as well-meaning doofuses or criminals and pederasts and embezzlers, it's refreshing to read one that shows faith as important, prayer as important, grace as ever-working, and love as life-changing.
Aaaah. Thanks, Doug T. Melancholy Mir loves ya. I hope some soccer moms will, too.
Visit Doug's site!
Note: This should be my last post for a while (possibly for the rest of the year). Next week, Marcus Goodyear guest blogs for your pleasure. Expect also some cool posts by Jim Black after that.
Please visit the original posts for comments from readers.
