Skip to main content

Punk Rock Jesus!


Punk Rock Jesus.  The title alone caught my eyes.  Then I saw the plethora of positive reviews.  And then I read the synopsis.  I knew quickly that I needed to read this book.

Written and drawn by Sean Murphy, Punk Rock Jesus tells a fascinating story about a corporation who is able to clone Jesus and shepherd him (or Him?) to become the world’s biggest reality TV star.  Like all good corporate sequels, the whole event and his show is dubbed as “J2”.  He is birthed by a young virgin teenager named Gwen Fairling, who was chosen from a worldwide full of hopefuls.  She names him “Chris” as it’s pretty close to “Christ”, she explains.  We follow Chris as he grows up before the eyes of the world and see all the trials and tribulations that he goes through, as a corporate “Christ”.  As he becomes a teenager, he begins to reject all things religious, becomes an atheist, and joins a punk rock band to fight the religious, societal and corporate powers alike.

I think this is the first comic book where I can say that I felt uncomfortable reading, but not in a necessarily negative way.  Rather, the book was able to push some of my buttons in a way that comic books haven’t done for me before.  That feeling of discomfort was outweighed by intrigue in seeing where the story was going and how the conflicts would be resolved.  The story is full of twists and turns to keep things lively.  Murphy does an excellent job of crafting believable characters, and although you might not get behind every single one of them, you can clearly see where they are coming from.

As I was reading PRJ, it was evident to me that this was a really personal story for author Sean Murphy.  There’s just so much dialogue that you can tell is bleeding from a real world conversation.  And perhaps that’s why the story seems so intriguing.  The book ends with an afterward by Murphy explaining his personal faith journey, and how he ended up where he is today as an atheist.

As a Christian, although I don’t personally agree with some of the sentiments he expresses, I can respect where he’s coming from and appreciate that he would feel challenged by faith at all.  I’ve always believed that one experiences the most growth when they are challenged or feeling doubt.  Granted he’s become an atheist now, but I would hope that he wouldn’t stop asking questions about faith and even challenging himself.

The whole experience of reading PRJ made me appreciate the comic book/graphic novel medium even more.  Not only can you read fun and pop-titles about superheroes battling super villains, but there’s also engaging stories full of real life stories, conflicts and scenarios.  If you’re the type of person only into superhero books, I can encourage you to explore other realms and avenues within the medium.  There are truly some great stories out there.  Until next time, later geeks!
Labels:

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Mark Waid's IRREDEEMABLE (Issues #1-7)

(Note: be warned that this review is on the spoiler heavy side, so read at your own discretion if you don't want the story spoiled.) Since I was a teenager, I always had this dream that I would become a quirky movie director and I'd make a bunch of crappy little horror movies to start with, but that my first big movie would be this anti-superhero movie. I dreamed up of an Apocalypse Now -like movie using existing Marvel superheroes where Captain America would go mad, slaughtering the innocent and go into hiding somewhere 'up the river'. There would be a detective like character (possibly superhero) that would be after him, interviewing his former teammates to find out what made the all-American hero go mad. Imagine my surprise when I started reading Irredeemable . Although not exactly the story in my dreams, it's pretty close. I started reading the series this past weekend upon the glowing review that those geeks over at iFanboy put up a few weeks ago. As far a
Post a Comment
Read more

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3!!!!!!!!!!!! (PS4)

Call of Duty: Black Ops 3 is Activision’s latest entry into the bestselling Call of Duty franchise.  Developed by Treyarch Studios, the Black Ops subseries of Call of Duty games has been considered by many as the best of the COD games.  Whereas Black Ops 1 and 2 were direct sequels, BO3 seems only to be a spiritual sequel to its predecessors.  There is no direct or clear continuation of story from the previous entries.  Rather it takes the ideas of mind control and manipulation, and spins off its own story. It’s a futuristic world, where humans are infused with technology (much like Robocop!) and fight alongside and against robots.  This time around, you assume the role of an unnamed soldier, who together with your partner Hendricks and a CIA agent named Rachel Kane, track down a former Black Ops commander named John Taylor as he and his former squad appears to have gone rogue destroying CIA sites around the world.  The story will take you to Singapore, Egypt and ev
Post a Comment
Read more

The League of Denial (2013)

The topic of concussions in sports is a dialogue that’s been growing the past number of years.  Do a search on ‘concussions’ and ‘football’ and you’ll get several thousand hits on the controversy that’s surrounded the sport.  It’s a challenging topic as the research is all relatively new, and the topic itself challenges the mentality and philosophy adopted by football loving Americans.  Now, I’m not a fan of football or NFL but when I saw this book lying at the local bookstore, my interest was piqued.  Although I’m not a fan of football, those that know me know that I’m an unabashed fan of prowrestling.  Talks about concussions are also quite a hot topic even within the prowrestling sub-culture.  Earlier this year, one of the hottest wrestlers of the current era, Daniel Bryan, retired early at the age of 34 due to a history of concussion related issues.  Interestingly, he was not permitted to return to the ring due to the disapproval by WWE’s medical director – a doctor by the name
1 comment
Read more