Monday, May 4, 2009

It's A Wrong Idea: Don't Fuck with the Jesus, Mang!

Many years ago, Rick Veitch (he only became Roarin' later) was fired from Swamp Thing by the Vertigo bigwigs for blasphemy. All he wanted to do was show a cartoon horror salad monster giving comfort to Our Lord and Savior at the moment of His greatest sacrifice! Surely no one could could foresee that might cause offense. Anyway, "The Roarin' One" has received and completed a commission to reproduce the cover image for that lost issue, and here it is.



It may be instructive to compare it to this image from Jim Starlin's "The Death of Captain Marvel" which while equally bizarre in its combination of pulpy kidstuff and beloved religious iconography managed to get published.



The lesson here, I guess, is you can rip off the Pieta and replace Christ with a masked blond hunk from space, but don't have a compost boogieman give Him a cuddle.

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