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

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 medic...
1 comment
Read more

Finally, the Xbox 360!!

So as I mentioned in a previous post, I received an Xbox 360 for Christmas from my dad. A great present it was! I've had 3 weeks to enjoy it so I guess I can give you my impressions of it now. First the controller. In truth, I haven't felt a controller this comfortable in my gaming life before. As a child who grew up on the 8-bit generation, with just a directional pad and 2 buttons, there was quite a learning curve getting used to using two analog sticks at the same time. You might say, "Hey Lam, how bout the PS2? You have that machine, and that has analog sticks". True, but of the twenty or so games I have for that, all of them used either only 1 analog stick, or allowed the option to switch on to the directional pad. Using 2 sticks at the same time was at first just uncomfortable. This made for all sorts of trouble as I was playing Gears of War . Luckily for me, I had computer controlled teammates that watched my back. I love the Media Center capabilities...
6 comments
Read more

MAX PAYNE was oh so PAYNEFUL!!!

What a failure this was. An EPIC FAILURE~! And I'll tell you why. This movie had everything going for it which was why it made the failure seem so huge. It had star power. It had a very competent director. The visual style was there. It had a simple storyline... a storyline that was basically fuck-proof because it's so basic. The effects (when there were any) were also pretty great. So where did they go wrong? Pacing. If the first two-thirds of the film was like the last third, I think it would have been a fine film. Not great by any means, but fine. I mean, there was hardly any action in the first hour. It was all talk and build up. Every 5 minutes I was saying to myself, "okay, something cool is gonna happen now". But it never came. I think had they added 2 or 3 big action sequences during that hour, that it would have helped the film breathe and flow better. I mean, didn't they realize that the source material was an action game? Max Payne is ba...
7 comments
Read more