Christianity or Bust

I found an interesting article linked on Fark today.

The Newsweek article briefly discusses theories on what faith various mainstream comicbook superheroes are. That article, in turn, links to its source material at BeliefNet which has more detailed articles, which I haven’t read yet because I’m not that attached to comics other than Hellboy.

Here’s the Fark discussion about the article including from people who think they know about other characters not covered by the articles.

On Sunday’s service, we read A Confession of the Christian Faith, commonly known as The Creed of Saint Athanasius. Byron read this reading and preceeded it with a little bit of history of this particular creed.

Towards the end, I was awestruck with the realisation that I’ve been too harsh on Mike Mignola in a previous post. Well, on the spirtual accuracy aspect, that is. I still think 16 pages of exposition was too much.

Here’s the bit of dialogue that was spoken by the priest from Hellboy: The Island:

There he sits at the right hand of God the Father Almighty. From there he shall judge the both the living and the dead… and those who have done good shall enter into everlasting life… and those who do evil… into the fire. Amen”.

I’m not scanning my comic because I don’t want to damage it’s spine.

Mignola seems to have based his dialogue on the last stanza of the creed:

Who suffered for our salvation, descended into hell,
rose again the third day from the dead.
He ascended into heaven, he sitteth on the right hand of the Father, God Almighty,
from whence he shall come to judge the quick and the dead.
At whose coming all men shall rise again with their bodies,
and shall give account for their own works.
And they that have done good shall go into life everlasting;
and they that have done evil into everlasting fire.
This is the Catholic Faith, which except a person believe faithfully,
they cannot be saved.

Yes, the language is a little strange eg “sitteth”. So this is probably because of different translations etc. and picking the right translation of the creed would sound much close to the Mignola dialogue.

Maybe the problem is with me rather than the source material. I’ve never really studied the whole salvation by grace versus salvation by works issue.

One cool thing about our church (and most small churches) is that it’s small enough for people to ask questions. Unfortunately, I was busy with supper duty last night. Now my mind is blank and I don’t remember what I was going to ask Byron.

This article Drawing on greatest story ever told for a cracking cartoon is about Phil Watson, an Australian Christian Cartoonist.

The convention he is working at starts today and runs for three days. Here’s a link to it.

Well, my copy of Hellboy: Strange Places finally arrived. It’s set after the events of Conqueror Worm, the previous trade paperback, where at the end Hellboy quits the Bureau for Paranormal Research and Defenseand decides to visit Africa while clearing his head.

Normally when things are released that I’ve been waiting for a long time, I get really excited but end up disappointed. In this trade paperback, there are two stories: “The Third Wish” and “The Island” and some artwork that writer and creator Mike Mignola rejected. I enjoyed one story and hated one.

*** Spoilers ***

In “The Third Wish”, three mermaid sisters ask their grandmother, the fish-witch, Bog Roosh, for a wish each. In return, she first demands that they drive a nail into the head of her enemy, Hellboy. You can tell they will succeed.

The witch has had a vision that Hellboy is killed and that Hellboy’s stone first, the Right Hand of Doom, will be used by someone to unleash Ogdru Jahad, the Seven God’s of Chaos upon Earth, and result in the destruction of Earth. To prevent this she decides to cut him to pieces and give various body parts to Hellboy’s enemies as gifts and proof of her superiority and finally, to hide the Right Hand of Doom in the belly of a whale. You can tell that Hellboy isn’t particularlly thrilled with the idea or that it would work.

Part of me thinks that some aspects of the story are predictable but it’s still a very good Hellboy comic. In particular, I love the bit when Hellboy cracks “Lady, I hate to interrupt but you’re literally boring me to death” as he waits to be killed.

Also Hellboy once again proves that he’s a real softie at heart and there’s a tale of redemption.

“The Island” starts of really strong. Hellboy emerges from the sea and gets drunk with what turns out to be the apparitions of sailors until he sees they are just skeletons. Hence the picture above.

It all goes downhill from there.

Normally one of the strengths of Mike Mignola’s work is his understanding of Christianity. In particular, “The Wolves of St August”, was a favourite and villians have been a clear evil parallel to Christianity (eg the Seven Gods of Chaos are group of demons who are seven yet one. Rasputin’s words to his disciples are based on the words Christ said to his).

Anyway, the main villain in this story is about to be executed by a priest’s men when the priest declares that the good will receive eternal life and the evil will perish. The idea of divine grace is pretty amazing in any religion. Perhaps this isn’t a fault of Mignola and that the priest didn’t want the villain to find grace.

Besides that, I still didn’t enjoy this series. There is just way too much exposition from the villain… 16 pages of it including about 6 1/2 pages about the “true” creation of the world and mankind. 16 pages of exposition isn’t nullified by Hellboy smugly commenting about this excess.

On a more positive note, unexpectedly, a few enemies from Hellboy’s past appear briefly. I really didn’t expect any family faces since he had left the B.P.R.D.

This week, Hellboy: “Strange Places” came out.

I still haven’t bought my copy. Although I’ve seen it available at Minotaur in Melbourne, I hate how Minotaur put on their hard-to-remove barcoded theft-proof pricetags.

Waiting until next week to buy it when I’m in Sydney has the advantage in that there’s a really attractive goth checkout lady.

I don’t think Hellboy creator and writer Mike Mignola is a Christian but he seems to have an overall solid understanding and respect for the beliefs.

While googling, I found this free sample comic Truewell’s Annointed. Truewell is a Christian organisation… and that’s pretty much all I have read up so far.

Oh yeah, that thing is meant to be an angel on the cover.