Punk Rock Jesus Review
Punk Rock Jesus is the Limited Series comic book from DC's Vertigo line about a not to distant future where scientist are going to clone Jesus Christ. I came for the interesting title, but I stayed for the brains.
The comic doesn't even start off with our "Punk Rock Jesus" it starts, most likely in present day, in Ireland with a little boy named Thomas seeing his family killed right in-front of him and then his uncle comes and takes him into the I.R.A. We then cut to years later when the boy grows up and the year is now 2019. There is now a new show starting called J2: The Second Coming. The show is about a group of scientists that have supposedly acquired a sample of the actual Jesus of Nazareth's DNA and are now going to clone him and bring on the second coming. The child is eventually born and he is cleverly named Chris.
This plot idea could be played for laughs or for straight up satire (which I wouldn't be against) but while reading I was constantly amazed of how sophisticated and well thought out the story was, but also how scarily believable some of the ideas were. For example the leading man in charge of J2 is a man named Slate who very creepily controls nearly every aspect of the project, there is a scene where they can see what Chris will look like when he is around twelve, Slate notices that his eyes will be brown and the common image people have is Jesus with blue eyes, so he orders the genetic modification regardless that it could damage the child. Another scene where Slate orders for Chris is prom date to be the school cheerleader, a classic pretty white blonde girl, but he originally asked out a black girl. That is scarily believable that a TV show with so much funding and power would make such a move.
I first learned about Punk Rock Jesus from the official DC Youtube page where Sean Murphy said he would be writing and drawing a comic about the future where Jesus has been cloned. My first experience of Sean Murphy's work was in Joe the Barbarian where I was always impressed with his unique artwork, however I had no idea what he was capable of as a writer. My first thoughts was that this would be like when Todd McFarland took over Spiderman where he was an artist first and a writer second, putting more thought and energy on the visuals aspect of the comic rather than the story and narrative.
Sean Murphy is an artist but to my surprise also a really solid writer. While reading the comic I had a feeling that this is Philip K. Dick in comic books, they should say on the cover for advertisement "Punk Rock Jesus, Philip K. Dick's BACK!".
To my surprise beyond the talent of Sean Murphy himself there was also Karen Burger as Editor and Todd Klein as Letterer. Karen Berger has earned her place as one of comics greatest Editors with allowing great writers room to express their visions without silly censorship restrictions with titles like Alan Moore's Swamp Thing, Neil Gaiman's Sandman and Grant Morrison's Arkham Asylum. Todd Klein is one of the greatest Letterer's in the business with his word balloons being distinct to each character, however he doesn't have many chances to put his signature on the work here, which is a shame.
Sean Murphy's art is a mix of Jamie Hewlett and Katsuhiro Otomo, with stylized, angular character designs and big sharply drawn cityscape's and very sci-fi technology. His work works in Black and White very well although I'm not entirely sure why, maybe because it invokes the feeling that this is some cheep underground comic with heavy inks and the cheep paper, sometimes while I was reading it I checked my fingers to see if the ink had come off (it never did).
One thing that I feel I have to bring up about Sean Murphy's art (and its a weird one) because its mostly because the book is in Black and White but whenever there's a black character I cant tell that their suppose to be black, there's only two black characters that I can recall off the top of my head so it wasn't a major recurring dilema but it still sticks out to me. An example of Black and Caucasian done well in Black and White comics is Craig Thompson's work in Habibi where, with the use of great careful line shading, it was clear which character was of which ethnic origin. However again nobody is at fault it was just something that stuck out to me.
I first thought that the comic was an ongoing title and so when I first saw it on the shelves I decided to give it a pass but then with closer inspection I saw that it was a limited six issue run and as soon as I saw that I picked it up without a seconds hesitation. The story takes its time to tell its story and I admire it so much for that, it doesn't get straight to the punchline of Jesus is back and he's a punk rocker, isn't that funny. There is a genuine story here that needs to be fleshed out. Chris isnt even born until the last few pages of the first issue and doesn't become a fully formed punk until halfway through issue four. However there is still a part of me that wishes that this was an ongoing title so that we had more time and development with this unique world, situation and characters.
Sean Murphy is an atheist, that's important to note so you could make an assumption of what the overall message will be at the end of the book. Well while I'm sure no one will predict the exact ending a comic written by an atheist is surprisingly sympathetic to religion. Keep in mind that at the end of issue four Chris goes on stage and flat out delivers a severe fuck you to Christianity. Some of the more sensitive readers will be turned off by this but if you are then didn't you read the title? Chris does become a punk rocker and this is what punk rockers do. But still by the end of the series there is still an upbeat message and feeling, maybe not the best to Christianity but a good feeling for the human race.
To my disappointment this comic hasn't gathered a lot of hate from fundamentalist Christians or Catholics, why? Because that is usually the best kind of publicity that would have really boosted the sales of this comic. Ow well the sales seem to be solid and hopefully it'll become a cult classic in the future.
If you picked up Punk Rock Jesus because the title made you laugh then you may get a few laughs, because there is comedy here, but please stay for the intelligence, sophistication, unique artwork and just an overall great comic book.
Rating: 4 stars out of 4
0 komentar:
Posting Komentar