comics! - Sunstone Magazine

160 u s $7.50s ep 10is

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© 2010

SUNSTONESUNSTONE

Featuring: Sal Velluto, Noah Van Sciver, Howard Tayler, Sam Rodriguez, Emily Muto, Adam Koford, Tyler Kirkham,

Dorothy Delagado, Galen Dara, and Brian Crane.

Featuring: Sal Velluto, Noah Van Sciver, Howard Tayler, Sam Rodriguez, Emily Muto, Adam Koford, Tyler Kirkham,

Dorothy Delgado, Galen Dara, and Brian Crane.

comics!

MORMON EXPERIENCE, SCHOLARSHIP, ISSUES, AND...

September 2010—$7.50

Guest Editor: Theric Jepson

00a_pixel_cover:cover.qxd 4/4/2011 11:45 pM page 2

Salacious, sweet, sad ...

insightful

insulting

and funny.quirky-faithfulD. Michael Quinn

For years, Johnny Townsend has been publishing award-winningMormon fiction in many national magazines including GlimmerTrain, Sunstone, and Dialogue. Now his work is gathered intoseven compelling collections. Find them at Amazon or:

JohnnyTownsend.com

F or members of the LDS Church,the authority to speak for God

rests with the First Presidency, whohold the exclusive prerogative to in-terpret scripture and doctrine for thechurch at large.

This volume should therefore beof interest to church members andscholars looking for official views ondoctrinal questions and contemporaryissues. For readers’ convenience, theexcerpts are arranged alphabetically bytopic and in reverse chronologicalorder to present the most recent state-ments first.

Deep in the recesses ofthe Mormon heart, Jesus

is an experienced but unpre-tentious cowboy who, like ourown rugged fathers, watchesover us with kind and sparingadvice. Enter Frank Windham, ahard-working Mormon, trying tobe good but convinced he’s on theroad to hell. The Backslider is an ex-pression of the human struggle withimperfection and hope of redemp-tion. It is a landmark in Mormon fic-tion, now issued in an illustrated edi-tion on its twentieth anniversary.

The BacksliderANNIVERSARY EDITION

hardback. 440 Pages. $31.95

Statements of the LDS First Presidency: A Topical Compendium

paperback. 544 pages. $34.95

Cowboys and Prophets.

By Levi S. PetersonIllustrations by Micah Clegg

Compiled by Gary James BergeraForeword by Dale C. LeCheminant

www.signaturebooks.com

Page 100b_inside cover:Cover.qxd 9/15/2010 7:21 PM Page 1

SUNSTONE (ISSN 0363-1370) is published by The SunstoneEducation Foundation, Inc., a non-profit corporation with noofficial ties to The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints.

Articles represent the opinions of the writers only.

SUNSTONE is indexed in the Index to Book Reviews in Religionand Religion Indexes: RIO/RIT/IBBR 1975–on CD-ROM.

Submissions may be by e-mail attachment or on IBM-PC

compatible computer discs (MS Word or WordPerfect format).Submissions should not exceed 8,000 words and must beaccompanied by a signed letter giving permission for themanuscript to be filed in the Sunstone Collection at theUniversity of Utah Marriott Library (all literary rights are

retained by authors). Manuscripts will not be returned; authorswill be notified concerning acceptance within ninety days.

SUNSTONE is interested in feature- and column-length articlesrelevant to Mormonism from a variety of perspectives, news

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submission. Short poems—haiku, limericks, couplets, and one-liners—are very welcome. Short stories are selected only through

the annual Brookie and D. K. Brown Memorial Fiction Contest (next submission deadline: 30 September 2010; $5 fee per story).

Letters for publication should be identified. SUNSTONE does not acknowledge receipt of letters to the editor. Letters addressed

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to change without notice.

Copyright © 2010, The Sunstone Education Foundation Inc.All rights reserved.

Printed in the United States of America.

MORMON EXPERIENCE, SCHOLARSHIP, ISSUES, & ARTSEPTEMBER 2010 Issue 160

SUNSTONE

Printed by K and K Printing

FEATURES2 Theric Jepson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GUEST EDITOR’S INTRODUCTION: How to

Become a Mormon-Comics Snob in Five Easy Steps12 Theric Jepson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WHY CHURCH ARTISTS OWE RIC ESTRADA

A THANK-YOU CARD16 Ben Christensen . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RAISING WONDER WOMAN IN MAN’S WORLD24 Brian Crane . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE SUBLIMELY SUBLIMINAL30 Glen Nelson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JAZZ-AGE CARTOONERY, JOHN HELD JR.,

AND THE NEW YORKER40 Theric Jepson & Stephen Carter. . . . POW! ZOT! AMEN!: Mormon Theology in

Michael Allred’s Madman48 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . TIMELINE: A Century of Mormon Comics54 Ardis E. Parshall. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . JOHN PHILLIP DALBY: Musician, Storyteller, Artist68 Michael W. Homer . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE MORMON IMAGE IN COMICS81 Clifton Holt Jolley . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE FUNERAL OF A. FRIBERG AND THE SIZE

OF A MAN and Elegy for A. Friberg: A Poem88 Dallas Robbins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . AND CRUMB SAID, “LET THERE BE GENESIS”

COMICS6 Blair Sterrett. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Various reactions . . .”7 Howard Tayler . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SCHLOCK MERCENARY, etc.8 Todd Robert Petersen

& Pablo Airth. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SPECULATIONIZING14 Noah Van Sciver . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . FAME20 Brandon Dayton . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . RAINMAGIC: An Adapation of a Russian Folk Tale24 C. L. Hanson . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “It had been a long time . . .”25 Kevin Beckstrom . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . GOOD HEAVENS26 Patrick Scullin . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . SUPER SIBLINGS26 Jakob Spjut . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BRINKWATER AND TOAD27 Jakob Conkling & D. Hicks . . . . . . . THE CHAOS SYNDICATE vs. Something that We

Don’t Actually Directly Address!32 Colby Purcell . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . PIONEERS AND BIOSPHERES34 Nicholas West & Sam Rodriguez . . . THE MAN IN THE GROUND42 Simon Shepherd . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “The human auditory system . . .”43 G. English Brooks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE THREE GRAND KEYS46 Nathan Shumate & Jared Greenleaf . . WHAT DOES A PROPHET LOOK LIKE?50 Blake Casselman & B.C. Hailes . . . . DEVIL’S TRIANGLE: I Am Mahan55 Jake Parker . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . THE STAR THROWER60 Galen Dara. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BEING BORN66 Harvey Droke. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . BATES MOTEL REFERRAL66 John Governale . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Darn! Shucky darn! . . .”66 Dave Burton. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Haven’t you ever heard . . .”67 Shawn Boyles & Isaac Stewart . . . . . ROCKET ROADTRIP74 Emily Muto . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . WHITE RIBBON80 Dorothy Delgado. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . “Families can be together forever . . .”84 Nick Perkins . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . HANGING BY A THREAD90 Davey Morrison & Steve Morrison. . VISION94 Tyler Kirkham . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . DOWNFALL

95 . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . Contributors

Front cover art by Sal Velluto and Eugenio Vattozzi Back cover art by Adam Kofford

Special

mega-huge

comic issue!

Back to business-as-

usual next issue.

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S U N S T O N E

H ELLO. I’M THERIC. IT’S 2010. AND I HAVE JUST(indirectly) had an appalling experience.

My wife Lynsey was more disappointed than stunned re-cently when only four women showed up to our ward’s nor-mally vigorous Relief Society book club in July. She wasleading a discussion of Persepolis, Marjane Satrapi’s excellentmemoir in comics. One woman was two hours late. Onepre-announced no-show—who reads 300 books a year andwould never just watch the movie instead—said she’d justwatch the movie instead. To be fair (and because I know thatbookgroup members Karen and Mindy and who-knows-how-many others subscribe to this magazine), our ward at-tendance at all meetings drops during the summer; but forme, who once eavesdropped jealously on this bookgroup’sincisive discussion of a YA novel, I am saddened to thinkthat many of its literate and erudite members apparently sawPersepolis as only a silly picture book. Satrapi is recountingher child’s-eye view of the overthrow of the Shah’s regime!The Islamic Revolution! War with Iraq! Members of herfamily are kidnapped and executed! These are heady topicsand Satrapi handles them with grace, aplomb, humor, andpain. Persepolis, in short, is great art.

Breaking news: It’s 2010, and though not everyone hasheard, the battle over whether comics are art is over.1

Fine-art museums across the country have been spon-soring comic-art shows, and comics have won or beenshortlisted for most major book awards. A 2009 studyfrom Simba Information, a market research and analysisgroup, found that one in ten adult bookbuyers buys

comics. In other words, the English teacher at your localhigh school may be assigning comic books instead ofburning them—where I teach, even history teachers as-sign comics. So if you’re one of the nine in ten whohaven’t bought any comic books lately, consider owningthis mag the first R in your repentance process.2

Just last year—2009—the memoir-in-comics Stitches, byDavid Small, won even more than the 14 awards he lists onhis website, including ALA award nominations, NPR BestBooks, Publisher’s Weekly Top Ten, Amazon.com Ten BestBooks, and accolades from the Washington Post, Los AngelesTimes, and Barnes & Noble. I could name more if you’re stilldwindling in Stitches unbelief.

And 2009 offered plenty more work to convince theskeptical: from R. Crumb’s take on the book of Genesis,3 toSeth’s Babbit-esque George Sprott, to Logicomix— a dizzyingbiography of a mathematician. Or perhaps I could interestyou in comics journalism—2009 saw the release of bookson Katrina and Afghanistan. Or maybe noir murders aremore your style? Or hilarious Canadian action? Run aGoogle search for best and comics and 2009 and see whatyou come up with. It was a good year.

Maybe you’re wondering now why your university didn’tinclude Winsor McCay or George Herriman as part of thathumanities survey you took freshman year. (Next time thealumni association sends you a letter asking for money, Isuggest you ask them if your hard-earned dough will helpfund a required course giving the kids a foundation inFamous Funnies—the first modern comic book, made ofreprinted newspaper strips4—and Action Comics—the firstsuperhero comic.)

But fear not! I, Theric, am not here to kick sand in yourface! In five easy steps, I can help you learn enough to notonly understand the basics of comics generally, but to be-come your neighborhood’s first genuine Mormon-comicsSnob.

PAGE 2 SEPTEMBER 2010

Guest editor’s introduction

HOW TO BECOME A MORMON-COMICS SNOB

IN FIVE EASY STEPSBy Theric Jepson

THERIC JEPSON is an accidental Mormon-comicssnob. He blogs at MOTLEYISION.ORG where vestigesof his snobdom first came to light. He is the editor ofThe Fob Bible, and his short fiction has appeared inArkham Tales, Dialogue, and other venues.

02-05_Jepson_Intro:a_chandler_kafka 9/15/2010 7:19 PM Page 2

S U N S T O N E

STEP 1: COMICS AS ART

S INCE MY GOAL is to make you a snob, I’m not goingto spend any time convincing you of the validity of su-perhero comics or the Sunday funnies.5 Instead, we’re

going to talk about “high-art” comics. To appreciate themproperly, you need a grounding in theory. Or at least the ca-pacity to fake a grounding in theory. And since we’re beingsnobs, let’s start with a current buzzword in academia: limi-nality. Hey, comics rock the liminal like no other art form!

With comics—or sequential images—the gutter betweenpanels is where the story actually takes place. Words andpictures are placeholders for story—the actual story unfoldswithin our brains.6 As our eyes jump across that little stripof white space between panels, our amazing brain dips intothe liminal to construct a narrative linking the two panels.That’s how comics work. And if you can drop your fancynew vocab onto an unsuspecting dinner guest, he’ll have nochoice but to agree with you.

As Scott McCloud7 says, “in the world of comics, timeand space are one and the same.”8 How is this accom-plished?

Through the liminal.Now, practice saying it in a mirror. Through the liminal.

You’re looking snobbier already.

STEP 2: KNOWING THE SCENE9

I F YOU’VE EVER been a snob in any field, you knowthere are concentric circles of snobbery. Populating theouter circle are those who know only about the excel-

lence everyone else knows; but in the inner circle are thosewho know of the excellence so excellent that only they knowit. I’ll give you some of both.

Chris Ware’s Jimmy Corrigan is one of the most brilliant,complex, and depressing books of any sort I’ve ever read. InThe Guardian, reviewer Phil Daoust calls it “a rare and up-lifting example of an artistic vision pushed to the limits.”And Peter Schjeldahl, in the New Yorker, describes it as “the

first formal masterpiece of [the] medium,” and while we canquibble about the word “first,” nothing else in that quota-tion is arguable. Anyone who, after reading Jimmy, stillthinks comics cannot be great art is not worthy of comicsand should just go read Philip Roth.

Knowing about Jimmy Corrigan is step one in becoming acomics snob. You must read it. Then read it again, if yourheart can handle it. It’s been about eight years since I lastread it, and I still haven’t quite recovered.

If you’re used to simple six-panel pages, you’ll be amazedat the complexity and precision of Ware’s pages. He throwsaround unique and ingenious layouts that can challenge thenewcomer, but, should you need additional motivation toread his work, rest assured that reading Ware will encourageyour brain to form new neural pathways, thus staving off de-mentia by up to five years for every hour spent reading.Guaranteed.

Next, read Craig Thompson’s Blankets, the best young-love story in any medium since, I don’t know, Romeo andJuliet? Thompson’s beautiful, flowing lines are exactly how Iwish I could draw.

To be a proper snob, you must know that ArtSpiegelman’s Maus took a Pulitzer. You must know thatGene Luen Yang’s American Born Chinese won the Printz andis the best immigrant story in recent memory.10 You alsoneed to read some Will Eisner if you want to be taken seri-ously. Reading Kate Beaton’s hilarious historical webcomicsand Jeff Lemire’s wrenching paper comics, and Seth’s (onename—like Madonna) cold hermetic retro-ish works willgive a Canadian dimension to your snobbery.

Try a few verbal jabs to put the other snobs off their game,

SEPTEMBER 2010 PAGE 3

Joseph Lambert’s Turtle, Keep it Steady! finds a brilliantway of representing music in visual form

Is Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis too “childish” for yourward’s Relief Society book club?


S U N S T O N E

obvious-but-unspoken facts like, “Daniel Clowes is over-rated,” or “R. Crumb doesn’t suck nearly as much now thathe’s an old man,” or “All Jason11 characters look the same.”

Now that you’re familiar with some of the better-knownnames, it’s time to delve into the names of top-notch artistsof whom lesser geeks remain ignorant. Try these party-friendly phrases: “Tom Neely’s The Blot offers a master’scourse in composition.” “Did you see Dan Zettwoch’s oldchurch bulletins?” “Graham Annable’s Burden was the moststartling exploration of sibling rivalry I’ve ever read.”“Joseph Lamber’s Turtle, Keep it Steady!—best musical comicever?” “I’m not sure if Thomas Ott is inherently awesome orjust German.” “Besides being too French for its own good,Nicolas de Crécy’s Glacial Period degenerated into clichésand moralizing.”

Congratulations, you can now hold your own in any con-versation.12

STEP 3: FAKING THE BASICS OF MORMON COMICS

N OW THAT YOU’RE an expert in comics generally,you need to become an expert in Mormon comics.Just a few casually placed obscure-yet-earthshatter-

ingly-important facts will be enough to confirm your exper-tise. Imagine with me:

SCENE: Mormon-minded minglers mingle. YOUare approached by WERF13 who is holding a copy ofthe day’s paper. YOU see the comics peeking out, soYOU ask:

YOU: Been reading the comics?WERF looks embarrassed.YOU: Did you know that the fellow who does

Pickles is Mormon?WERF: Really?YOU: Sure. (Sigh here.) Shame he didn’t begin

syndication in 1992.WERF: Um. Why not?YOU: Well (Sniff here.), as you know (Arch eye-

brows here.), 1992 was a banner year for Mormonsin comics. That’s the year Mike Allred started pub-lishing Madman, and he went on to become theWarholian pop master of modern comics.14 It’s alsothe year James Owen started publishingStarchild,15 and you know how terrific that series is.And, perhaps most important, it’s the year BradTeare’s Cypher arrived in book form. He has ten vol-umes worth of Cypher planned and (Lean in con-spiratorially here.), I hear he’s started work on itagain.16 That was also the year Shauna MooneyKawasaki illustrated her first kids’ book.17 Wouldthat she published comics more provocative thanthe ones she draws for The Friend!18

WERF: Uhhh.

Having exhausted your knowledge, excuse yourself to getanother gourmet organic root beer, leaving the impression-able WERF thinking that if you know this much about justone year, you must know everything about everything.Occam’s razor insists.

STEP 4: NAVIGATING THIS ISSUE

S UNSTONE, OF COURSE, has always published panelcartoons, from the greats like Pat Bagley and CalGrondahl, and more recently Jeanette Atwood’s get-

ting-better-every-month take on the Book of Mormon. So it’snatural that SUNSTONE should now present a smattering ofwhat Mormon comics looks like today.

The first thing to note is the breadth of style in thesepages: So many Mormons making comics of so many dif-ferent kinds! Look at Galen Dara’s earthy mysticism (page

60). Witness Nick Perkins’s bobble-headed NationalTreasure (page 84). Then ask yourself: How couldthey be more different?

And this collection is just a smattering of what’sout there. Check out Elna Baker’s autobiographicalcomics on her website (ELNABAKER.COM). Thrill atthe competition between Ryan Ottley and Ethan VanSciver for Most Popular Superhero Artist du Jour.Jake Parker just released his first book, MissileMouse, and his entry on page 55 just proves thathe’ll only get bigger and better with each comingyear. Howard Tayler gets Hugo nominations like hisbrother gets fleas.19 Speaking of getting bigger,Ethan’s brother Noah is looking like a strong con-tender for Indie Artist of the Coming Decade. AndJoshua Smeaton? Alas, I only learned about him theday after submissions were due. He seems cool.Maybe next time, Joshua. Maybe next time.20

Don’t worry about navigating this issue; just let itflow. Skip around. Read what strikes you; then flip a


In an attempt to capture the meaning of life, the hero of Brad Teare’sCypher runs off the edge of a cliff. Ain’t that the way it always goes?


S U N S T O N E

few pages and read some more. Expect to be surprised. Bewilling to read your favorites six or seven times—and theones you hate twice as many times.

STEP 5: ASK—WHAT DO YOU KNOW ABOUT MORMONCOMICS? WOULD YOU LIKE TO KNOW MORE?

C ONGRATULATIONS! I CAN already see somegeeky muscles popping out on your brain. Feelsgood, doesn’t it? And things that feel good make us

want to share them with those we love. So buy extra copiesof this issue for your friends and family.

Also, type some of the names from the table of con-tents into Google21 and joyfully learn that KevinBeckstrom produces an online strip about Nephitefamily life (ZARAHEMLATIMES.COM), that Adam Kofordhas produced hundreds of gags with his oldtimey hobocats (APELAD.BLOGSPOT.COM), that Patrick Scullin justgot a Super Siblings book out, and that Brandon Dayton’sSUNSTONE entry is related to his Green Monk22 thing.Won’t that be exciting! Then you can send that info onto your friends and family too! And if your efforts bringjust one soul into Mormon-comics snobdom, how great

will be your joy?Pretty dang great.And keep your eyes open as we move into the future.

Dorothy Delgado is working on a book-length project abouther experiences as a young widow; the Morrison brothersare also working on a larger project while Blair Sterrett hashis fingers in about a million different projects. What else?Just watch—you’ll see.

So read this issue. Share this issue. Then go forth and readsome more.

It’s a great big Mormon-comics world out there.

NOTES

1. Like Japanese soldiers wandering out of the Philippine jungle.2. The second R is read!3. See a review on page 84. Though Crumb’s The Book of Genesis is often

called “controversial,” I’m not really sure who’s supposed to be mad about it.Fact is, it may well be the best thing he’s ever done. Though maybe I shouldpoint out that I say this as someone who generally despises Crumb, even if heis widely considered a master of the form.

4. Actually, Yellow Kid strips were compiled into a book first, but that waslong enough before Famous Funnies that they feel like a different phenomenon.

5. I am quick to point out, though, that examples of great artistry exist inboth formats. Watchmen is the superhero comic with the reputation that justwon’t stop and I’ve got bets down that Peanuts will survive as one of the mostadmired pieces of twentieth-century American art one hundred years from now.

6. Not to suggest that comics have to tell a story. They don’t. But I thinkcomics are most powerful when used as a medium of narration, so that’s whatwe’re going to discuss.

7. Namedropping is important in being a snob. I hope you’re taking notes.8. As long as we’re talking about Scott McCloud, I should mention that it’s

no longer possible to be a serious student of comics without having read hisUnderstanding Comics. It’s a treatise on comics in comics form. Just as it shouldbe.

9. I’m talking U.S. and Canada here, primarily. Any mention of otherartists will be purely accidental.

10. Or is that Shaun Tan’s The Arrival? They’re both so good I can’t choose.11. Again, one name—like Madonna.12. Just remember this snob trick when someone asks you about something

you’ve never heard of before: Roll your eyes and say, “Oh. That.” You can getaway with that about four times per conversation, which is generally ample.

13. To the best of my knowledge, the only gender-neutral pronoun to comeout of BYU.

14. They’d better. Sheesh. Anyone who claims to know anything aboutMormon comics but doesn’t know Mike Allred deserves a smack. The only timeMormon comics has become national news is when he quit some high-payinggigs to draw Book of Mormon comics.

15. While Starchild has long been Owen’s flagship, honestly he’s best knownin the business not for his art or writing but for his rabid self-promotion.(Which I find remarkable since I made arrangements at the 2009 Comic-Con tointerview him later, yet he’s never returned my emails. How does that qualify asrabid self-promotion?)

16. Don’t hold your breath. Teare’s mostly pursuing painting these days, butyou can see his classy scratchboard-style monthly in The Friend. He has alsodone a lot of art for SUNSTONE and Dialogue.

17. I know picture books technically aren’t comics, but come on! It’s ShaunaMooney Kawasaki!

18. Kawasaki may be the most recognized artist in Mormon circles. Lookher up. You’ll recognize her line quality immediately.

19. Joke! Love ya, Randy.20. And, after finalizing this essay but before going to press, I learned that

the new guy in my ward also draws the crowdsourced webcomic Midtoon. Thesmallness of our world only proves how dang big it is.

21. In a public, well traveled corner of your house, I presume.22. Only five bucks at BRANDONDAYTON.COM!


Comics is going through a stage where it seems like everywork needs to include some meta elements. David Small’s

Stiches is no exception.


PAGE 6

B L A I R S T E R R E T T

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PAGE 7

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Continued on page 11

08-11_petersen:a_chandler_kafka 9/15/2010 7:24 PM Page 8

P A B L O A I R T H



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Con

tinue

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8



S U N S T O N E

R IC ESTRADA WAS BORN IN CUBA ON 26February 1928. When he was nine years old, he was“trying to decide what I would be when I grew up.

And I said, either I will be a truck driver, because that willhelp me drive all over the world and see places, or I’ll be areincarnation of Jesus Christ. Those were my two choices.And I struggled with that for about a year when I was nineyears old. Oh! Oh! There was a third choice. Or maybe Icould be another incarnation of Tarzanof the Apes, and I could swing ontrees.”

This desire to aim high revealed it-self in 1941 when, at age 13, Ric gainedhis first publication credit, drawing thecover for Cuba’s premiere magazineBohemia (which survived the revolu-tion and is still publishing today).

When Ric turned 19, his uncle pro-vided the money, and his uncle’sfriend—a fellow named ErnestHemingway, who liked his typewriter,his guns, and his Cuban friends—cutthrough red tape at the consulate tobring him to New York City. Ric wouldspend most of his life in America andcome to call it home.

In New York, Ric began the work forwhich he’s best known today: comics.He drew for everyone from EC to DC,including stints rendering DC’s flag-ship characters: Superman, Batman,and Wonder Woman.

But this is a Mormon story, and asanyone who’s ever read a Mormonstory knows, this story needs a conver-sion:

RIC ESTRADA: Did I tell you the storyof my conversion?

THERIC JEPSON: No, you didn’t.

RIC: Well, I was living in Germany at the time, working as apolitical cartoonist and journalist in West Berlin, whenBerlin was still divided. And one day I got into serioustrouble and I slapped my boss—

THERIC: Whoops.

Superman, Batman, Wonder Woman . . . Ether?

WHY CHURCH ARTISTS OWE RIC ESTRADA

A THANK-YOU CARD

All

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es: r

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AdA

By Theric Jepson

12-13_Jepson_estrada:Feature temPlAte 9/15/2010 7:23 Pm Page 12


S U N S T O N E

RIC: —and I was so ashamed of it that I cameinto my room, I got on my knees, and I said,“Lord, I’m so lost. I’m not this kind of person.Please find me.” And, next day, two Mormonmissionaries knocked on my door and I knewthat was the answer. Very dramatic.

It took me three years while I studied thebooks. I read the Book of Mormon through sev-eral times. I read the Doctrine and Covenants. Iread some of the literature they gave me, andthree years later, back in my home turf, I joinedthe Church.

T HE NEWLY MINTED Brother Estrada,then 40 years old, applied the faith ofhis childhood to his new religion and

soon the evidence began to manifest itself inhis work. While he was working for OurFighting Forces, the editor found himself shorta story for the issue and asked Estrada to writeand draw something to fill the space. Estradachose the Mormon Battalion as his subject.

In a similar way, a story about the fall of theJaredite civilization, “Peace with Honor,” filleda suddenly open space in another DC war-comics magazine. It was this incidental workthat led to what may be the most widely dis-tributed Mormon comic of all time.

RIC: When I wrote “Peace with Honor,” amissionary brought the comic book to ElderHugh W. Pinnock of the Seventy and said,“Look at this! This fellow must be aMormon.” Because it said in the subtitle, “based on the Book of Mormon.” So HughPinnock phoned me from Salt Lake City andsaid, “I’m in charge of the New Testamentstories for children. I’ve looked into yourbackground and see that you’re an activeMormon, and I’d like you to illustrate thebook.”

THERIC: Well, that’s cool.

RIC: Not only was it cool—let me tell you the other partof the story. They offered me a certain amount of moneyfor the book—it had about three hundred drawings—andI said, “Look, this work is going to take me at least sixmonths to do. I don’t think I can live on that amount ofmoney.” I broke it down for them, giving them a min-imum price per picture and they saw that indeed the sumwas twice as much as they had offered. We negotiatedand they accepted my price. Then, a few months later,the editor of the Church magazines called and said, “Ric,you’ve done us a great favor because the Church—not

out of malice, but out of not really knowing what art-work is worth—has been underpaying its artists. As ofnow we’ll start paying the proper amounts.”

THERIC: Oh. Well, good for you!

RIC: Well, it was nice and good for the ones who fol-lowed me.

NOTE

1. This interview originally appeared in a different form on A Motley Vision(motleyvision.org). Quotations have been lightly edited for clarity and space.Ric Estrada passed away on 1 May 2009.

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S U N S T O N E

The making of an Amazon in Mormonville

RAISING WONDER WOMANIN MAN’S WORLD

By Ben Christensen


tured Wonder Woman on the cover of Ms. Magazine,3

holding her up as a symbol of feminism. In recent years,Wonder Woman writers have incorporated this sense of con-tradiction into the character’s in-story portrayal. She is anambassador for peace who will fight viciously, even killwhen necessary, to achieve that peace. She is a harsh critic of“Man’s World” who wears (until recently) a symbol of thatworld, the American flag. She carries a lasso she uses to forcevictims to reveal the truth but hides her own identity, dis-guising herself as government agent Diana Prince. I like thisportrayal of Wonder Woman because it seems the onlyhonest way to approach the character, and it makes her com-plex in a way that Superman and Batman are not.

Steinem’s criticism of the revised history, that it duplicatesSuperman’s history, makes me wonder whether Diana’s up-bringing on Paradise Island is a necessary part of what makesher Wonder Woman. After all, the Amazons themselves em-body many of her contradictions: warriors for peace, a matri-archal society of women who wear bracelets to remind themof their past bondage to men, an island nation created totransform humanity who remain isolated from all but a se-lect few. “Three thousand years they stayed on their littletropical island while women were treated like cattle all overthe world,” observes a character in a recent story written bylong-time Wonder Woman scribe Gail Simone.4 Consideringher upbringing in this society of contradictions, no wonderDiana grew up to be the complex character she is.

Is it possible, then, for a Wonder Woman raised in Man’sWorld to be the ideal of womanhood Gloria Steinem haslauded in the past? Or will her new background as an or-phan spirited away from her dying homeland make her apale copy of Superman? I’m eager to see how the storylineplays out—whether writer J. Michael Straczynski can con-vincingly prove Steinem wrong, or if in fact Wonder Womanwithout Paradise Island is not Wonder Woman at all.

M Y WIFE, JESSIE, and I have three children: twodaughters and a son. In order to be near extendedfamily, we’re raising them in Utah. And not just

T HE RECENTLY-PUBLISHED WONDER WOMAN#600 introduces a new storyline that radically altersthe title character’s look and history. The Greek gods

manipulate time in such a way that, in the new history,Wonder Woman’s Paradise Island was destroyed when she wasa baby. Thus the young Princess Diana had been raised in theoutside world—Man’s World, as her sister Amazons call it.This new storyline has received mainstream attention largelyfor its cosmetic changes to Wonder Woman. Reflecting hernew urban upbringing, the heroine has a new look, completewith trendy haircut, leather jacket, and, most notably, pants.

While most commentators focus on the costume change,Gloria Steinem, who has long promoted Wonder Woman asa strong role model for girls, is more concerned with thechange in Wonder Woman’s history than in her clothes. “It’san exact copy of Superman who came as a baby from the ex-ploding planet Krypton,” Steinem says. “This destroys herhome, her Amazon mother and sisters, and gives her noplace to go to gain strength and create an inspiring story-line.”1 I’ve been reading superhero comics for long enoughto know this story with its altered timeline won’t last morethan a year or so, but Steinem raises interesting questionsabout exactly what makes Wonder Woman the powerfulcharacter she is.

Wonder Woman has always been a character of contra-dictions. Her earliest adventures in the 1940s, written by hercreator, William Moulton-Marston, are dominated both byimages of female strength and female bondage—the primaryreason the heroine carries a lasso seems to be so villains canuse it to tie her up. In a 1962 issue of Justice League ofAmerica, Aquaman notes, “While we don’t have a permanentchairman—when it comes to cleaning time, we all agreeWonder Woman is boss.”2 Yet ten years later, Steinem fea-

BEN CHRISTENSEN is the author of two personalessays published in Dialogue: A Journal ofMormon Thought, two scholarly articles on li-brary services for LGBTIQ patrons, and three shortstories included in The Fob Bible.

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Utah, Utah Valley—home to BYU, the MTC, andsome of the busiest OB/GYNs in the world. TheLDS Church permeates everything here, fromgrocery stores that proudly advertise beingclosed on Sundays to new homes that comestandard with basement food storage bunkers.

In some ways, this is good. I like the Church’sdoctrine of personal revelation, which allowsevery woman and man to commune with the di-

vine. I like that Mormon culture values educa-tion and the arts. But I can’t ignore the fact thatour daughters will grow up being taught thatmen have presiding authority over them whilealso hearing testimonies about how womenare more spiritual than men. How can Jessieand I possibly raise our children with healthyconcepts of gender equality in this environ-ment? In many ways, Utah Valley is theepitome of Man’s World.

To make matters worse, despite Jessie’sand my conscious rejection of the more sexist aspects ofMormon culture, many of our life choices seem to reinforcethem. For example, I am an uncloseted gay man who haschosen to marry a woman and raise children with her. Jessieis a straight Mormon woman who has chosen to marry a gayman and raise children with him. Although our firstdaughter, Sophie, is not yet old enough to have the vaguestidea of her dad’s sexual orientation, eventually she will be,and I can’t help but wonder how she will interpret her par-ents’ decision to marry, and how it will impact her identity.Will she view her parents’ marriage as evidence of their ded-ication to the patriarchal model and “traditional marriage”?Will her mother’s decision to marry a gay man teach her thatbeing sexually attractive to her partner is unimportant? Willher father’s decision to marry a woman teach her to devalueher own sexuality? These questions haunt me.

Alison Bechdel’s Fun Home, a memoir in graphic-novelform about Bechdel’s relationship with her closeted gay fa-ther, gives me a captivating peek into what Sophie’s lifemight be like. It would be shortsighted and even sexist to as-sume I can read Bechdel’s past as a precise map of Sophie’sfuture—reducing each to “the daughter of a repressed gayman” limits the two women to a single aspect of their lives,defined by their relationship with a man—but there is valuein examining the parallels, particularly when it comes to thecommonalities their fathers share beyond sexual preference.Maybe I can learn from the elder Bechdel’s mistakes, benefitfrom his daughter’s insights. For example, Bruce Bechdel is arepressed man who vents his frustration through angry out-bursts, often directed at his children. A particularly poignantpassage describes Bechdel’s labyrinthine house as a metaphorfor her father’s unpredictable moods:

PANEL 1CAPTION: My mother, my brothers, and I knew

our way around well enough, but it was impossible

to tell if the Minotaur lay beyond the next corner. ILLUSTRATION: Her father angrily throwing a plate

from the dinner table, with a small caption pointingout the permanent scar it made on the linoleum.

PANEL 2CAPTION: And the constant tension was height-

ened by the fact that some encounters could bequite pleasant.

ILLUSTRATION: Her father reading to her at bedtime.DAD: …and at each pull the elephant’s child’s

nose grew longer and longer.

PANEL 3CAPTION: His bursts of kindness were as incan-

descent as his tantrums were dark. ILLUSTRATION: Her father silhouetted in her bed-

room doorway, having just turned off the light. DAD: aea . . . won’t you be my pony girl? Marry

me, carry me, far across the sea. eYOUNG ALISON: Don’t turn out the hall light.5

Before I became a parent, I was never a short-temperedperson. Even now, in my interactions with coworkers andthe consultants I supervise, with my siblings and parents,with Jessie, I very rarely get angry and never raise my voice.Yet, with my children, I am all too often the MinotaurBechdel describes her father to be. I stop short of throwingdishes, but it seems to me at least that my anger is just as de-structive. I yell at the slightest aggravation, furiously de-manding that my children respect and obey me. I know thethings I say hurt them, and I do it anyway. Perhaps I’mgiving my actions too much weight, but when I imaginethem from a child’s perspective, each angry word seems toshake the world with the force of a bomb. Once I walkedinto the bathroom to find Sophie laughing because she hadhit her brother’s head against the bathtub wall, making himcry. I was appalled at how she could find humor in his pain.“That’s not human,” I muttered, knowing she could hear. Afew minutes later, as I helped her dry off, I asked if she knewwhat she had done wrong.

“I hit Timo.”“And?”“And I laughed at him when he was crying.”“And what does it mean when you laugh at someone

who’s crying?” I asked, hoping she would remember how Ihad previously explained that this tells people you don’t careabout their feelings.

“It means I’m not a person,” she said matter-of-factly. Myheart dropped into my stomach.

I suspect that as Bechdel says of her father, my moments ofcruelty are made all the more distressing by my moments oftenderness. When I am in control of myself, I try to compen-sate for my minotaurness by pouring on the compliments, thehugs, the time spent reading to Sophie while she rests herhead on my chest. What does this bipolar parenting style do

S U N S T O N E


to a child? Does it teach her that she has to tiptoe over brokenglass, to perfectly please the Man for fear of his wrath?

Another commonality I share with Bechdel’s father is per-fectionism. And like him, I extend this demand for perfec-tion to my children. I compulsively point out every trivialfailure. “Sit properly.” “Close your mouth while chewing.”“Why are you crying? The reason you’re crying isn’t logical.”“Why can’t you remember not to put your toothbrush up-side down in the cup? That’s disgusting.” Unsurprisingly,Sophie has adopted my perfectionism. The distress thiscauses her sickens me. I suspect the reason she’s crying isnot the illogical reason she’s managed to vocalize throughtears but despair at yet again having failed to live up to myimpossible standards. I can see how desperately she wants toplease me, yet I don’t acknowledge, nearly as often as Ishould, how completely she does please me. Perhaps theworst is that I’m teaching her that her value is determined byhow much she pleases the male figure in her life.

Still, I can’t help smiling when I see how fully she’sadopted some of my values. Once I found her vehementlyarguing with her cousin over whether or not there’s any suchthing as “boy toys” and “girl toys.” He didn’t want to playwith what he deemed were girl toys, but Jessie and I hadtaught Sophie that girls and boys can play with whateverkinds of toys they want. This explains why it’s not un-common to see her in a princess dress, superhero cape andmask, pink purse hanging from her arm while she plays withtrucks in the mud.

In my efforts to raise a strong, independent, healthyyoung woman, I’m my own worst enemy. My efforts are asschizophrenic as those of Wonder Woman’s creator whocouldn’t decide whether he was writing a female empower-ment narrative or a bondage fetish fantasy. In WonderWoman’s case, later creators molded these contradictionsinto a wonderfully complex character, similar to the wayAlison Bechdel has drawn from the shortcomings in her re-lationship with her father to create a beautiful narrativeabout identity and redemption.

Like Wonder Woman, Bechdel is a champion of truth.Instead of a golden lasso she uses black ink on white paper,but the result is just as magical. She captures the contradic-tions of the world with her pen and forces them to reveal thetruth. When I read about Bechdel growing up in a smallPennsylvania town no less Man’s World than Utah Valley,and with a father no less complicit in that world than I, andI see the strong woman she’s become, a powerful truthemerges: Sophie will not forever be defined by me. Just asAlison Bechdel far surpasses the limitations of her up-bringing, so will Sophie.

A S I READ Fun Home, I am touched by Bechdel’smercy toward her father. Even while enumeratinghis failures, she expresses a palpable love for him.

Throughout the narrative, she references the story of Icarusand Daedalus, noting at the beginning that “In our partic-ular reenactment of this mythic relationship, it was not me

but my father who was to plummet from the sky.”6 The finalpage of the book returns to this metaphor:

PANEL 1ILLUSTRATION: Front grill of the truck that killed

Bechdel’s father. CAPTION: He did hurtle into the sea, of course.

PANEL 2ILLUSTRATION: Bechdel as a child, jumping off a

diving board into a pool where her father waits withopen arms.

CAPTION: But in the tricky reverse narration thatimpels our entwined stories, he was there to catchme when I leapt.7

In this final image, Bechdel recognizes that, like her fa-ther, she too will sometimes fail. At once, she shows mercyfor his failures that have hurt her and allows him to showthat same mercy toward her. This kind of give-and-takemercy rings true to me—there is not one perfect beingdoling out the mercy but a web of imperfect beings freely ex-changing it.

I see this same mercy from Sophie. I might be yelling ather one minute but the very next minute, she accepts myapologetic hug and tells me she loves me. The least I can dois show her the same mercy when she fails to meet my highexpectations. I always do eventually; what I need to do is getthere more quickly, showing mercy in the moment of trans-gression. But even as I recognize what I need to do to im-prove, I also recognize that even my best efforts will fallshort. Sophie’s mercy helps me feel better about my short-comings, but it does little to actually make up for them. Howthen can I succeed in raising a Wonder Woman within theMan’s World of my own creation? To answer thisquestion, I look to the mercy humankind shows bynot forcing me to raise my daughter in a void, withonly my influence to mold her. Were I to applyBechdel’s Rule (originally applied to movies inher comic strip Dykes to Watch Out For8) tomy portrayal of Sophie’s life thus far, my narrative wouldnot pass muster:

1. Does it have at least two women in it?Well, I’ve at least mentioned both Sophie and Jessie.

2. Do the two women talk to each other? Basedon what I’ve shown thus far, they apparently donot.

3. Do they talk about something besides a man?Uh oh. My entire account of Sophie’s life focuseson her relationship with me. Let me check. . . Crap,I’m a man.

The problem is that this is a personal essay, therefore I amthe protagonist, the center of attention, but this isn’t an ac-curate presentation of reality. In real life, the world doesn’t


S U N S T O N E


revolve around me. The protagonist of Sophie’s life isSophie. I am but a supporting character—thankfully one ofmany.

Chief among the women Sophie interacts with is hermother. Jessie embodies that complexity I admire in recentportrayals of Wonder Woman—not because she’s the idealwoman or the perfect parent, but because she’s not. Like allhuman beings, or at least the interesting ones, Jessie is ajumble of contradictions. On the one hand, she loves tocook and bake, serves faithfully in whatever calling theChurch gives her in Primary or Relief Society, and finds thatbeing a mother brings her a lot of joy. On the other hand, shehas a master’s degree in Spanish and teaches college courses,she actively participates in Mormon women’s literary com-munities such as Segullah and Exponent II, and is generallyuncomfortable around children. She incorporates her pas-sion for learning into her parenting by teaching our kidsabout the literature, culture, and cuisine of a differentcountry every week. At the same time, sometimes she justwants the children to go away so she can have some peaceand quiet while reading blogs. She consciously lives princi-ples of the gospel that many mainstream Mormons don’t doso well at—demonstrating responsible stewardship of theEarth and its natural resources, eating meat sparingly, andtreating all human beings according to the Golden Rule, re-gardless of religion, race, nationality, or sexual orientation.Still, every now and then she abandons her green, neo-hippyliberalism and drives the kids to McDonald’s for HappyMeals. Jessie is not the living example of womanhood thatSophie should aspire to become. She’s just one woman.

As it turns out, many of the supporting characters inSophie’s life are women. Among Jessie’s and my closestfriends, to whom Sophie has and will continue to be ex-posed throughout her life, are a survivor of rape who has

managed to turn her tragedy into an appreciation ofthe beautiful world around her; a PhD candidate whosomehow grew up in Utah Valley and come out bothardently feminist and Mormon; and a mother of fiveyoung children who is actively pursuing her dreamsof acting and singing professionally. Among Sophie’s

aunts are a nurse who works for PlannedParenthood and marches for gay rights; a dance in-structor who runs a successful studio together with

her husband and children; and women with variousother successes achieved both in and out of thehome. Sophie has no shortage of strong female rolemodels to learn from. As I contemplate the various

women in Sophie’s life, I begin to think it is not so im-portant that I shield her from the imbalanced conceptsof gender she’ll inevitably pick up from Utah Valley

Mormonism and myself. More important is to provideher with multiple influences that together form a balancedconcept of gender. Sophie is an intelligent little girl. She

doesn’t need me or Jessie or anyone to teach her the one truedefinition of womanhood; as she grows up surrounded bywomen who each approach their lives differently, she’ll

figure out her own definition.Perhaps the secret to the success of the current Wonder

Woman storyline will be found in a detail Steinem has over-looked. She says that Diana’s new origin has destroyed “herAmazon mother and sisters.” But although the queen of theAmazons is dead in this revised history, early chapters makeit clear that several of Diana’s Amazon sisters survive asrefugees in Man’s World. In fact, it is her Amazon sisterswho have raised her. Wouldn’t these women pass on thewonderful contradictions of the Amazons to their youngcharge? It is not so much where Diana grows up as who shesurrounds herself with that makes her Wonder Woman. Inthe introduction to a Wonder Woman book published in1972, Steinem asks, “[Do] women really have to live in acommunity by themselves—a separate country like ParadiseIsland—in order to be both happy and courageous?”9

Perhaps it is better for the Amazons to be integrated intoMan’s World. With enough Amazons, it might cease to beMan’s World. Bearing this in mind, I have hope that J.Michael Straczynski’s experiment might produce an inter-esting Wonder Woman after all. And to a much greater ex-tent, I hope that Sophie will learn from the Amazons in herlife what she can’t learn from the Man’s World she’s growingup in.

Meanwhile, I will keep trying to be a better parent, or atleast to reduce the instances of being an actively bad one.And I will continue to enjoy the moments of mercy, thetimes when I’m able to overlook Sophie’s imperfections andwhen she forgives me mine, when we’re able to cuddle upon the couch and enjoy an issue of Super Friends—a chil-dren’s comic that, to my delight, features a broad-shoul-dered yet curvy, strong, feminine Wonder Woman whowould never ever act as chairwoman of housekeeping forher fellow superheroes.

NOTES

1. Cited in Jocelyn Noveck, “Wonder Woman’s New Duds SparkInterdimensional Ire,” Associated Press, 2 July 2010, http://www2.tbo.com/con-tent/2010/jul/03/wonder-womans-new-duds-spark-interdimensional-ire/ (accessed23 July 2010).

2. Gardner Fox, “The Origin of the Justice League!,” Justice League ofAmerica #9 (February 1962). Reprinted in Justice League of America ArchivesVolume Two (New York: DC Comics, 1993): 63–89.

3. You can buy a poster of this cover at http://store.msmagazine.com/mswonderwomanposter.aspx. The cover reads “Wonder Woman for President.”

4. Gail Simone, “Depths, Part Five: Early Release,” Secret Six 14(December 2009). Reprinted in Secret Six: Depths (New York: DC Comics,2010): 143–165. Incidentally, Secret Six is an excellent series that has beennominated for a GLAAD Award for its portrayal of a lesbian lead character.

5. Alison Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic (New York: MarinerBooks, 2007), 21.

6. Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, 4.7. Bechdel, Fun Home: A Family Tragicomic, 232.8. Reprinted with a little background on the origin of the rule at

http://dykestowatchoutfor.com/the-rule. Bechdel credits a friend, Liz Wallace, forthe rule itself, so maybe it would be more accurately called Wallace’s Rule.

9. Cited in J. Caleb Mozzocco, “Gloria Steinem on Wonder Woman (Pt.3),” Every Day is Like Wednesday, 22 March 2010, http://everydayis-likewednesday.blogspot.com/2010/03/gloria-steinem-on-wonder-woman-pt-3.html(accessed 23 July 2010).


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S U N S T O N E


C REATING AND PRODUCING a daily syndicatedcomic strip is something I dreamed of doing since Iwas a child. And now I have been writing and

drawing the Pickles comic strip for more than 20 years, and Ifeel very blessed to be able to do it. But still, there is sometruth to the saying, “Be careful what you wish for. Itmight come true.” Cranking out a comic strip sevendays a week, 365 days a year, and still keeping it freshand funny is a relentlessly difficult task. Yet I still get athrill out of seeing my thoughts and drawings in thenewspaper and on the internet each day, and Iwouldn’t want to give it up.

Years ago, shortly after I began doing Pickles, I wasdrawing one of my characters, Opal, reading a maga-zine. I debated about how to render the cover of themagazine. Should I make it just a generic, non-spe-cific cover or should I draw it as an actual cover of anexisting magazine? I ended up depicting it as aRedbook magazine, since I thought that was one thatOpal might read. Soon after it was published I gotword that the editor of Redbook would like the orig-inal artwork of that strip to frame for their office. Icomplied with that request, but it got me thinking,why am I giving free publicity to Redbook magazine?So, the next time I had occasion to have a character inPickles reading a magazine I decided to make it theEnsign, the official publication of the LDS Church, ofwhich I am a member. I got a lot of positive responsefrom members of the Church—and also a request forthe original from the editor of the Ensign. Since then Ihave continued to feature the Ensign in my strip fromtime to time. Sometimes I show Nelson, thegrandson, reading The Friend or wearing a CTR T-

THE SUBLIMELY SUBLIMINALBy Brian Crane

shirt. And now I often depict a picture of an LDS temple onthe wall. I do this as kind of a nod to my LDS readers whostill seem to enjoy looking for these Mormon icons. And asa former ad man, I guess it is my humble way of doing alittle subliminal advertising for the Church. Not that theyneed my help.

C . L . H A N S O N

It had been a long time since either of them had had a decentmeal, and Elder Jensen’s companion was looking at him funny . . .

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K E V I N B E C K S T R O M

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J A K O B S P J U T

P A T R I C K S C U L L I N

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J A K O B C O N K L I N G & D . H I C K S

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S U N S T O N E

I N THE 11 APRIL 1925 ISSUE OF THE NEW YORKER—seven weeks after that magazine began publication—animage titled “The Rumrunner’s Sister-in-law” appeared.

It was drawn by John Held, Jr., a Mormon.Over the next eight years, 125 of Held’s cartoons ap-

peared in the pages of the NewYorker. Being more or less the officialillustrator of the Jazz Age, Held’swork could be found just abouteverywhere in those days. He regu-larly contributed covers and car-toons to books and to the era’s mostpopular magazines: Life, Vanity Fair,Harper’s Bazaar, House and Garden,and Redbook.

Most of Held’s images aboundwith budding youth, vivacious1920’s fashion, and colorful urbanchic. His cartoons for the NewYorker, on the other hand, take theform of etchings and woodcuts,looking like throwbacks to a muchearlier age. Held’s Mormonnesspeeks out of these peculiar NewYorker cartoons in ways that aren’tapparent in his other work. Theyevoke a very Mormon view ofAmerica’s shifting morals and theconsequences of vice. How did theseimages find their way into the NewYorker, of all places?

Held was something of a prodigy. He sold his first cartoonat the age of nine, and at 15 sold one to Life magazine. Thenat 16 he landed a job at the Salt Lake Tribune as a sports car-toonist. Held proudly maintained throughout his life that hehad no formal art training and that he had only two

teachers—his father and Mahonri Young, who also workedat the Tribune until he moved to New York City where hetook a generation of Mormon artists under his wing.

Held’s father, Switzerland-born John Held, Sr. was also anartist. An early Mormon educator named John R. Park dis-

covered him while travellingthrough Europe in search of talent.Park legally adopted Held, Sr.,brought him to Salt Lake City, andgroomed him to teach art at DeseretUniversity, a position Held, Sr. de-clined. Instead, he started a suc-cessful career as a local illustratorand engraver, contributing illustra-tions to George Reynolds’s 1888The Story of the Book of Mormon.

Looking at a few of the cartoonsHeld, Jr. did for the New Yorker,one first notes their upright tone.They illustrate the consequencesof contemporary vices—gam-bling, drinking, smoking, andwomanizing—in the stylistic guiseof Victoriana. “The Drunkar’s Wife”(19 December 1925) shows awoman nervously taking a mantleclock to a pawn broker in themiddle of the night. This tone is asharp contrast to the other NewYorker cartoonists of the era—no-tably Peter Arno, William Steig,

and James Thurber—who cheerfully embraced theProhibition-bashing, sexually adventurous era of the 1920sand early 30s.

Held’s cartoons had titles such as “The Fate of theCigarette Fiend” (28 November 1925), “The Wayward Son”(27 March 1926), and “She’s Only a Lassie Who Ventured onLife’s Stormy Path Ill-Advised” (28 July 1928).

But Held was a humorist first, his pictoral melodramasshowing just enough cheek to allow the reader some ethicalwiggle room. It’s doubtful that turn-of-the-century Sundayschool teachers, even Mormon ones, lectured on the utility of

Everything you’ve ever wanted to know about

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GLEN NELSON is is director of Mormon Artists Group,which creates artworks and books with LDS artists, pro-duces events and exhibitions, and publishes a newsletter,Glimpses, in which this article first appeared(MORMONARTISTSGROUP.COM).

By Glen Nelson

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a hat pin in the defense of womanly virtue, as Held’s 8February 1930 cartoon illustrates. Still, there is no denyingthat his background informs the cartoons with a certain eth-ical air and sensitivity to the victims of moral wrongdoing—destitute wives of alcoholics aren’t particularly funny, after all.

Held sometimes even slipped LDS imagery into his car-toons. A ZCMI store sign hovers in the background of “TheSubtle Usage of the Clove” (20 June 1931), and the Salt LakeTemple and Tabernacle stand behind Brigham Young in“What Do You Mean a Two Time Man? Said Brigham Young”(23 January 1926). In “The Street Sweeper’s Christmas” (12December 1925), an angel appears to a crying sanitationagent rummaging through garbage for a toy. The angel is ariff on the Nauvoo Temple’s 1846 angel Moroni.

How did Held sneak all of these cartoons past the maga-zine’s editors? Was he trying to pull a fast one? Quite the op-posite. The legendary founder and first editor of the NewYorker, Harold Ross, was fully in on the joke. Ross’s familyhad moved to Salt Lake City when he was seven, where hebecame Held’s high school classmate.

Unfortunately, Held’s life hit the skids in the 1920s. He losthis considerable wealth during the Great Depression, victimof a fraud scheme, and consequently suffered a nervousbreakdown. By 1932, the Jazz Age was over, America had ahangover, and Held was finished drawing New Yorker car-toons, his last appearing in the 17 September issue of thatyear. He moved to Wall, New Jersey, in 1945; spent the re-mainder of his life on a dairy farm, occasionally publishing acartoon; and died of throat cancer in 1958.

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S U N S T O N E

I MAGINE FOR A MOMENT: YOU’RE WALKINGdown the street when you impulsively slip into a comicbook shop, something you may not have done since you

were fifteen. Upon entering the shop, you notice not thelarge-bosomed, life-sized plastic sculpture of the heroine dujour, but a comic book cover advertising a garish male figurewrapped in a white bodysuit, a jagged red exclamation pointslashed across his chest. The guy at the counter scratcheshimself and says in a nasal voice, “Oh, Madman—good stuff.That Allred. . . .” So you pick it up and open to a randompage where you see a tree full of cows, a crowd milling reck-lessly beneath it. You read the dialogue.

LARGE, SHIRTLESS, LAVA-LAVA-ED MAN: Mahana,you ugly thing. Get out of that tree!

HIPSTER DUDE: Poor guy! His wife turned intothose cows up there.

WOMAN WRAPPED IN BANDAGES: You mean. . . ?GIRL WITH PONYTAIL: Yes. He now has a seven-

cow wife.BIG BLUE ALIEN: What’s a mahana?DOUBLE-CHINNED, GEEKY FELLOW: I dunno. I

don’t speak the lingo, Johnny.1

At this point, obviously, you have no choice but to ponyup the cash and dive into the extraordinary Mormon comic-world of Madman.

M ICHAEL ALLRED IS probably best known inMormon circles for The Golden Plates, his graphic-novel adaptation of the Book of Mormon. But

much of his worldly fame arises from his comic characterMadman, a reanimated corpse who interacts with aliens,changelings, a man made of vomit, and a scientist whogrows himself a giant brain by repeatedly injecting a seruminto his tongue.

If you think this milieu sounds like a great environmentin which to play with Mormon theology, you would be ab-solutely right. To the initiated reader, Madman is a kind of

Mormon Wonderland where LDS doctrines and stories takeon bizarre shapes and work strange wonders. During an in-terview with Theric Jepson, Allred has explained, “Overtime, Frank Einstein [Madman’s normal-guy name] has be-come me, or at least my filter to express myself. And so heoften becomes my sounding board.”2

At first, it isn’t easy to identify Madman’s Mormon under-pinnings. After all, the hero starts the series by eating a guy’seyeball. Cutting off arms, heads, scalps, and foreskins weMormons can understand, but eyeballs? Though Frank dis-plays spiritual propensities early on as he reflects on the ex-istence of God, the first unmistakable hint that a Mormon isat the story’s helm is the appearance of a fellow who callshimself “Nephite.”

In fact, three Nephites appear at various points in thestory. The first Nephite, who could pass as Legolas’s olderbrother, shows up in a jungle-marooned temple to saveFrank and his buddies from an army of “Lamanites” and in-troduce them to the alien they’re supposed to be rescuing.While Frank explores the Wee Isles, the second Nephite, aQuasimodoesque character, stumbles out of an alley to warnFrank that an attempt will be made on his life. The thirdNephite, a young Clint Eastwood, drops the recentlyshrunken Frank into a well (a baptism metaphor?), bringingforth a full-sized hero.

However, the Nephite characters are only surface mani-festations of the series’ deeper Mormon currents. Indeed,Frank Einstein’s very existence is an exploration of one ofMormonism’s foundational doctrines—the premortal life.

Frank is often horrified by how fluidly he can carry outviolent acts (the eyeball incident is only the beginning).He can’t remember much about his pre-reanimated self,but he has a feeling that he wasn’t very nice, possibly evenevil. He worries about how his former life affects him notonly physically but spiritually. “If I kill someone . . . do Igo to hell? Forever?” he asks after he has killed at leasttwo people (not to mention the many in his previous life).

Most Mormons have probably had a few similar thoughts.“What kind of spirit was I in the pre-mortal life? Was I valiant?

We’re all mad here . . .

POW! ZOT! AMEN!MORMON THEOLOGY

IN MICHAEL ALLRED’S MADMAN

MIc

hae

l al

lred

By Theric Jepson and Stephen Carter

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S U N S T O N E

Was I a fence-sitter?” Since Satan was able to entice one thirdof the hosts of heaven to support his plan, it seems that spiritswere capable of making bad choices, of hurting themselvesand others. In other words, we were capable of sin then, just asFrank was in his former life. Do those sins carry over to ourmortal life? How much of who we are and how we act is a re-sult of actions from a time we can’t remember, and how muchof that will we be held responsible for?

While on tour with a circus in Madman Comics #4, Frankgets caught up in a fight with a skinless strongman. As theybattle their way through a cruise ship, Lehi’s famous utter-ance, “It must needs be that there is an opposition in allthings,” takes center stage as Frank poses questions aboutthe eternal nature of conflict that the Church curriculum de-partment might do well to include in the next GospelDoctrine manual.

“If good wins over evil once and for all, or vice versa,what then? Where’s the conflict? Where’s the challenge?Doesn’t adversity lead to appreciation? But then, a worldwithout ugly horror would be terrific, wouldn’t it?”

Allred says that he often puts ruminations like these inMadman because “it’s a terrific way to get people talking andasking questions. Theology is in almost all entertainment. Iwant my beliefs to be reflected in my work.”3

Frank provides a full-color example of one reason youshould follow the prophet’s counsel to keep a journal. Alovely girl named Joe, who doesn’t seem to mind Frank’s blueskin, falls in love with him while reading his ruminations.

But as with any superhero’s love interest, rocky times lieahead. In Madman Atomic Comics #7, as Joe descends in abubble to congratulate Frank on saving the universe, somebad energy, floating around from a recently defeated villain,gathers together and destroys her. Devastated, Frank takesoff in his rocket ship and crashes on a Dune-like planet. Heheads off alone into the extraterrestrial wastes with a gas canand a mute robot in tow, only to be eaten by a giant sandworm—which promptly explodes.

After many pages of wordless wandering, Frank meets aused-spaceship salesman and is about to close a deal on avessel resembling George Jetson’s car when a flying saucerbeams a woman down. Frank gasps: it’s Joe! No, wait. It’sLuna, a member of the Atomics who tried to save Joe. Thefigure’s appearance shifts from one woman to the other as itapproaches until Frank embraces and then kisses the femmeamorphous. The used-spaceship salesman marries the pair ina ceremony in which Frank and Joe/Luna kneel across fromeach other at an altar; then the happy couple flies blissfullyaway in a spacecraft.

In the following issue (where words finally re-appear), welearn that Luna had gathered Joe’s life essence into herself,becoming two females in one body while still managing tolook great in a Spandex costume. Thus Frank becomes theworld’s first polygamous superhero. “Another example ofhow my interests are filtered, although hopefully subtly,through Frank,” says Allred, who is descended from thesecond wife of Mormon polygamist Reddick Allred.

Sometimes Allred’s Mormonism is not so subtle. As Frankwanders through his childhood home in Madman AtomicComics #11, a disembodied voice gives a speech that seemslifted straight from the fourth lesson of the old missionarydiscussions. “We all lived as spirit children before we weresent to this Earth to receive bodies and gain individual expe-riences,” it says. “With death, our spirits temporarily leaveour bodies and go beyond the Veil to the Spirit World, whichis divided into Spirit Prison and Spirit Paradise.” WhenFrank gets to the attic, he meets a male-ish being withpurple skin and red hair. The being introduces himself asZacheous. “We were the best of friends in the pre-exis-tence,” he says, both of them being spirit “children of heav-enly parents who live in glory on the celestial planet ofGolob.” Zacheous is busy administering to those in SpiritPrison, but the veil is particularly thin at this moment, al-lowing him to tell Frank that he has his own special mission(to save the universe again, in case you were wondering).

Upon hearing news from beyond—that both his prede-ceased earth parents and his heavenly parents love him andare proud of him—Frank can only reply, “You’re blowin’ mymind, man!”

S O THE NEXT time someone asks you aboutMormonism, maybe you should open the “King-SizeSuper Groovy Special Issue” of Madman and show him

or her the first page, where our hero battles a giant robot.“That’s what we do every week,” you can say. “You fight robots at church?” your interrogator may ex-

claim, “That’s so cool. Where do I sign up?”Depending on how hard up your local missionaries are

for baptisms, you may or may not turn your conversationpartner over to them at this point, suggesting that they makea few cybernetic additions to their lessons. Or you can behonest and say, “Actually, take a look at the little blue textboxes on the page.”

“Who am I?” reads your victim. “Where did I come from?Why am I here? Where am I going? What is it all about?”

“That’s what we talk about every Sunday,” you explain.“In the fun wards, anyway.”

As Allred says, “Most of my closest friends in the Churchare up to discuss pretty much anything.”4

Then turn to the second-to-last page where Frank getsblasted by dynamite set off by a fish-skinned mad scientist.“Progression is the key to all existence,” Frank reflects as hecareens through the air. “We are all, in fact, eternal beings. Oursouls lived before this mortal realm. But we must progress.”

Mormonism in a nutshell from a Madman.

NOTES

1. J.L. Allred (w) and Nick Dragotta (a), “Find a Penny Pick It Up.”Madman Comics #8 (May 2008), Image Comics.

2. Interview with Michael Allred, Thmazing.com, http://thmazing.com/allred_interview (accessed 7 September 2010).

3. Ibid.4. Ibid.

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S I M O N S H E P H E R D

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G . E N G L I S H B R O O K S

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1929 FloydGottfredson beginshis 40-year careerdrawing MickeyMouse comic strips

1975 Captain Canuck, oneof the world’s few allegedLDS superheroes, first appears in print (though it’snot clear if he was Mormonduring that first appearance)

1987 Before becoming themost recognizable artist of

safe Mormon cartoonery, ValChadwick Bagley published

the unfairly unpopular Goblin

with a small syndicate basedin Canada

1988 Sal Velluto gets his first pro-fessional gig drawing Marvel’sPower Pack; because he once putthe heroes’ father in a BYU sweat-shirt, rumors exist to this day thatthe Power Pack is LDS

1990 Brian Crane’snewspaper strip Picklesenters syndication

1947 John Philip Dalby’s“Stories of the Book ofMormon” begins appearingin the Deseret News

1976 First appearance

of the Ric Estrada

co-created Powergirl

A Century of

MormonComics

1925 John Held, Jr.’swork first appears inthe New Yorker

1992 First issues of Madman(Mike Allred) and Starchild(James A. Owen), and the firstappearance of Cypher (BradTeare) in Heavy Metal magazine(curiously, this is also the yearJake Parker invented MissileMouse who wouldn’t get hisown book until 2009)

1910 19801991 Dr. Deseret,

a drug-addicted

Mormon warrior,

makes her debut

in Captain

Confederacy.

1947 HenryAnderson publishesthe first Mormoncomic book. TheFirst Americans, withHerald PublishingHouse

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1990 Brian Crane’snewspaper strip Picklesenters syndication

2006 Amy Reeder Hadley publishesFool’s Gold, her high-school manga,which eventually leads to an exclusivecontract with DC working on projectslike Madame Xanadu and Batwoman;she still hasn't published the thirdand final volume of Fool’s Gold

1994 Ethan Van Sciverpublishes the hypervio-lent Cyberfrog; he will goon to become one of themost significant artists ofDC’s current era, with notable runs on GreenLantern, Flash, and others

A Century of

MormonComics

1992 First issues of Madman(Mike Allred) and Starchild(James A. Owen), and the firstappearance of Cypher (BradTeare) in Heavy Metal magazine(curiously, this is also the yearJake Parker invented MissileMouse who wouldn’t get hisown book until 2009)

2000 HowardTayler’s SchlockMercenarybegins appearing online. It hasdebuted newmaterial everyday since

team up withNathan Hale(no relation)2008

Shannon andDean Hale

to releaseRapunzel’sRevenge

2003 Ryan Ottle

y

takes

over Invin

cible

and immediate

ly

becomes

a fan-

favorite

artist

2009 Elna Baker publishes amemoir that incudes imagesof her sweet cartoon self; cartoonistas know all thisprose is just a dry run for herupcoming autobiographicalcomic to be published byScholastic

2000 20101991 Dr. Deseret,

a drug-addicted

Mormon warrior,

makes her debut

in Captain

Confederacy.

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S U N S T O N E

W HO IS THE MOST PROLIFIC ILLUSTRATOR OFthe Book of Mormon? Not C.C.A. Christensen,with his brightly colored 1890 paintings. Not

Minerva Teichert with her wonderful pastels. Not even ArnoldFriberg with his muscle-bound old men and striplings.

My candidate for that title is a man you have possiblynever heard of and whose work you almost certainly havenever seen: John Philip Dalby.

Phil Dalby was born in Idaho in 1919, spent his youth inColorado, and served a mission to the North Central Statesfrom 1939–41. He remained an active member of theChurch his entire life. He was in his first semester of studiesat the University of Utah when Pearl Harbor was attacked.When he left school to enlist in the army, his particular tal-ents led the military to send him to the Army Music Schoolin Virginia, where he served in the 707th Army-Air ForceBand until his 1945 discharge.

Subsequently, he attended San DiegoState, where he earned his B.A.; theUniversity of Utah, which awarded hima master’s; and the University of Oregonwhere he earned a Ph.D. Phil sang (bari-tone), directed choirs, directed the bandat Utah State Agricultural College (nowUSU), and taught or served as an admin-istrator at community colleges in theChicago area and in Florida until his re-tirement in 1970. Then he and his wifeBarbara served a mission at BYU-Hawaii.

Phil passed away in 2004 at the age ofeighty-five.

While an undergraduate at San Diego,he began to draw a comic book version ofthe Book of Mormon—predating by al-most 60 years Mike Allred’s GoldenPlates, which is often touted as the first

Book of Mormon graphic novel. Phil’s work, “Stories of theBook of Mormon,” began publication in the Church Newssection of the Deseret News on 1 January 1947, and ranweekly until May 1948. After that it ran sporadically, appar-ently according to the time Phil had to devote to it: some-times it ran weekly but then disappeared for a month or two.The last installment I have been able to find appeared on 8August 1953.

Phil began the comic series with the Book of Ether, headedinto 1 Nephi, and carried the story at least through 3 Nephi 16:7.

Each of his strips filled half a full broadside newspaperpage; the Church News was not then printed in tabloid size.Early in its run, the Deseret News offered scrapbook coversfor people who wanted to clip the strips and paste them intothe book, encouraging parents and Primary teachers to usethe comic strips to help interest children in the Book ofMormon.

Before Living Scriptures, before the Book of Mormon Reader, before Michael Allred, there was . . .

JOHN PHILIP DALBY

By Ardis E. Parshall

MUSICIAN, STORYTELLER, ARTIST

ARDIS E. PARSHALL is an independent historicalresearcher, writes a history column for the SaltLake Tribune, blogs at KEEPAPITCHININ.ORG,and teaches her ward’s gospel doctrine class.

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Hey, that nice man, Norman, was right. His mother is home. You can see her through the window.

H A R V E Y D R O K E

J O H N G O V E R N A L E D A V E B U R T O N

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S U N S T O N E

M ORMON COMIC BOOK CREATORS HAVEbrought forth their own representations of theBook of Mormon and of some important episodes

in Church history. These works are similar to those ofChristian artists who have depicted the Bible and Christianhistory. Perhaps the most familiar recent religious comic se-ries is the adaptation of the evangelical Christian bestsellerLeft Behind, but there are many other examples as referencedin the Guide to Christian Comics and on various websites.Even indie comic artist Robert Crumb has recently releaseda graphic novel of the Book of Genesis.

Although LDS comic book creators have produced thistype of material, the most recognizable comic book depic-tions of Mormonism are produced by non-LDS artists whousually depict Mormons in a nineteenth-century UtahTerritory setting. Some depictions are positive, but manystories use their Mormon characters as exotic villains or atleast suspicious outsiders. Although, like Christianity,Mormonism as a religion has been targeted in the comicbook format, these types of attacks are surprisingly rare.

The first Mormon comic creation was published in 1947by Herald Publishing House (owned by the ReorganizedChurch of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints, nowCommunity of Christ): Henry Anderson’s The FirstAmericans, subtitled “A Pictorial Version of the Book ofMormon.” It was the first comic book version of the Book ofMormon and focused on the connection between the peopledescribed in that book and the Native Americans. Sporting afull-color cover, the book consisted of forty-eight two-colorpages (green and white, red and white, blue and white)telling a very condensed version of the Book of Mormon.The volume begins with the story of Lehi’s family’s immigra-tion to the American continent shortly before the destruc-tion of Solomon’s Temple (c. 586 BCE.) and ends with

Moroni’s burial of gold plates in the Hill Cumorah (c. 400CE). It also includes a short history of the Jaredites, who im-migrated to the American continent as part of the dispersionfollowing the building of the Tower of Babel (c. 2100 BCE.)

Other Mormon creators have published comic book adap-tations of Mormon history and the Book of Mormon. In 1948,Deseret Book Company published Blazing the Pioneer Trail, astand-alone comicbooklet written by Floyd Larson and illus-trated by Forrest Hill, presenting a faith-promoting accountof the Mormon migration to the Great Basin in 1846–47.Deseret Book also published Eileen Chabot Wendel’s Storiesfrom the Golden Records series, which included The Jareditesand Nephi the Valiant. They contained comic book-styleepisodes adapted from the Book of Mormon.1

But Ricardo Leon “Ric” Estrada (1928–2009) was the firstMormon comic book artist who produced Mormon-themedmaterial for a major comic book publisher. Often dubbedthe “father of Mormon comics” for many years Estradaworked for DC Comics illustrating war and romancecomics. In 1972, he wrote and illustrated “The MormonBattalion,” in No. 135 of Our Fighting Forces. This story em-phasized the loyalty of Mormons who volunteered for mili-tary service during the Mexican War even after they hadbeen driven from their settlements in Illinois. Two yearslater, Estrada provided a fill-in story in No. 169 of DC’s GICombat with “Peace with Honor,” depicting Shiz andCoriantumr battling to the death, which he credited as“adapted from the Book of Mormon.” Thereafter, the LDSChurch retained Estrada to illustrate New Testament Stories(1980). Other well-known Mormon comic artists, such asBrad Teare, who has illustrated the graphic novel Cypher,and Sal Velluto, who has worked for Marvel, DC, and manyother comic book companies, have also been retained by theLDS Church. Velluto is an illustrator and Teare an art di-rector for The Friend magazine.

During the same period Estrada was working, LDS artistRichard Comely created Captain Canuck. Although theCaptain was not specifically identified as Mormon, he occa-sionally prayed for strength, causing some readers to assumethat he was a member of Comely’s church.2

From Sherlock Holmes to Godzilla

THE MORMON IMAGEIN COMICS

By Michael W. Homer

MICHAEL W. HOMER is a lawyer, HonoraryItalian Vice Consul in Utah and a member of TheBaker Street Irregulars. He thanks Sal Velluto, Jean-Paul Gabilliet, Massimo Introvigne, and ThericJepson for their suggestions and sources.

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Classics Illustrated #110, “AStudy in Scarlet” (1953)

Illustrerade Klassiker, “A Study in Scarlet” (1974)

A

Brigham’s many faces

Een Studie in Rood (P&TProductions, 1995)

Brigham meets Tex (Sal Velluto)

A Study in Scarlet (SelfMadeHero, 2010) La Grande Missione (1955)


In 1992, Mike Allred—who has worked for Marvel, DC,Tundra, Image and other comic book companies—createdthe critically acclaimed Madman, in which one of the ThreeNephites (who are mentioned in the Book of Mormon andeventually became the subjects of Mormon folklore) plays apivotal role.3 In 2004–2005 Allred also wrote, illustrated,and self-published a comic book adaptation of the Book ofMormon in three full-color volumes (64 pages per volume).The adaptation was entitled The Golden Plates and subtitled“The Book of Mormon in Pictures and Word.”

Beginning with the story of Nephi, The Golden Plates fo-

cuses on the first two hundred years of the Book of Mormonstory. The third volume contains a short summary of theprophet Mormon’s preparation of the plates for future gener-ations and ends with the promise: “To be continued.”However, no other volumes have since been released. Ahard-cover collection, published in 2005, which combinesthe three volumes, notes that it contains “the First Book ofNephi through the Words of Mormon.” Because Allred in-cluded his testimony on the inside of the front and backwrapper of each issue, he clearly intended The Golden Platesto be used as a kind of proselytizing tract.

N ON-MORMON CREATORS HAVE also producedcomics with Mormon characters and historicalthemes which are better known than the aforemen-

tioned Mormon-created work. For example, many comicbook adaptations exist of Arthur Conan Doyle’s A Study inScarlet, perhaps the most famous anti-Mormon melodramaever published. In this, his first appearance in literature,Holmes solves two London murders by investigating eventsthat had occurred in the Utah Territory several decades ear-lier. The plot revolves around Brigham Young’s attempt tocoerce John Ferrier’s daughter into marriage against her will.“A Study in Scarlet includes not only graphic descriptions ofpolygamy but also chilling tales of clerical abuse andmurder.”4

The first comic book adaptation of A Study in Scarlet wasdrawn by Louis Zansky and appeared in No. 33 of ClassicComics in 1947, together with The Hound of the Baskervilles.Curiously, this seventeen-page adaptation of A Study inScarlet was not included in subsequent printings of this par-ticular volume (in Classics Illustrated) even though the


La Grande Missione (1958) consists offrames taken from the film Brigham

Young (1940, released in Italy 1955).

Jesus #3 (1976) “Il Mormone Rapito,” inwhich Jesus rescues a Mormon bishop from

men who had robbed a bank with thebishop years before.

Tex #277 (1983) “Il VendicatoreMascherato” in which Tex foils a plot by aMountain Meadows Massacre survivor to

destroy the Mormons.

Skorpio #44 (1979), “Raggio di Luna” in which a Mormon boy be-trays the Native American girl he had secretly married.

S U N S T O N E


cover retained an illustration from that story:an index finger drenched in blood with theword “RACHE” (revenge in German) writtenon a wall. The Mormon subplot, however,was not prominent in this adaptation. But in1953, Seymour Moskowitz illustrated a newthirty-page version of the story that delvedmore deeply into the Mormon subplot.5

This Classics Illustrated story includedsome very sinister images of Brigham Youngand other Mormon characters. At one point,Young confronts John Ferrier and asks him“Where are your wives? Call them forth so Imay greet them.” Ferrier responds: “True, Ihave not married. But the women were fewand others had better claims than I. Besides,I am not lonely. My daughter attends to myneeds.” Young then strikes: “It is of thatdaughter I wish to speak to you. ElderDrebber and Elder Stangerson each has ason. She must choose one of these two menwithin a month! It is the order of theCouncil of the Four! Wo [sic] to him whodisobeys their command!”6

In 1976, Bill Barry adapted A Study inScarlet for his syndicated Sherlock Holmescomic strips (the strips were collected into avolume in 1987), but Brigham Young andDoyle’s Mormon subplot device were not in-cluded in the story. A subsequent three-partadaptation, written by Jim Stenstrum and il-lustrated by Noly Panaligan, does not men-tion Brigham Young but Lucy does tellJefferson Hope that “her Mormon faithwould not allow her to marry outsiders.”Thereafter Hope, Lucy, and her father “con-spired to flee the Utah Territory.” During theescape, the Mormons kill John Ferrier,abduct Lucy, and carry her back to Salt LakeCity, where she dies of a broken heart.7

Two other comic book versions of thestory, published in 1995 and 2010, captureDoyle’s Mormon subplot and depict BrighamYoung very ominously. John Ferrier andLucy are brought before the Mormonprophet, who demands that “they becomebelievers in the Mormon creed.” He later tells Ferrier that“the elders of the sacred council of four decreed that [Lucy]should marry one of their sons, Drebber’s and Stangerson’sbeing the most favorable.”8

The American West setting of nineteenth-centuryMormonism was captured not only by Arthur Conan Doylebut also by European storytellers such as BalduinMöllhausen, Karl May, and Emilio Salgari.9 Thus, it is notsurprising that European comic book creators placeMormons in this same setting. In Italy, for example, the pop-

ular comic book series Tex included references to Mormonsas early as 1955.10 Tex Willer is a Texas Ranger who marriesthe daughter of a Navajo chief. Tex becomes their new chiefwhen his father-in-law dies, and he is often accompanied onhis adventures by Kit Carson. Mormons are not always posi-tively portrayed in these stories. The Danites are mentionedin at least one story11 and the Mountain Meadows Massacrein another.12 But Mormons are known as much for their in-dependence as for any malevolence.13 These tales have beenreprinted on numerous occasions.14


Tex #149 (1968) “La Banda dei Mormoni,” in which Tex tracks down bandits who dress as Mormon missionaries.

Tex #276 “La Grande Minaccia” (1983) in which Tex uncovers the story of theMountain Meadows Massacre.

Tex #276 “La Grande Minaccia” in which John D. Lee is executed.

S U N S T O N E


O THER COMIC BOOK creators, usually motivatedby sectarian differences, have been even less kindin their depictions of the LDS Church. Perhaps the

most famous example of a sectarian attack is The Visitors, re-leased in 1984 by Chick Publications. This twenty-two-pagebooklet (less than 5” by 3”) was published in black andwhite, with two panels per page. It contains the story of twoMormon elders who attempt to convince a golden contact tobe baptized. When the elders arrive at the contact’s home,her niece is present, and she asks the elders aboutMormonism’s more controversial teachings (e.g., God wasonce a man, God the Father has many wives, Satan and Jesusare spirit brothers, Jesus was a polygamist, and humans caneventually become gods). Finally, one of the elders becomesconfused and admits that he would like to know the “real”Jesus. The older elder drags him from the home, asking,“How could you be so stupid?” and threatening to report

him to the mission president.However, this pamphlet was amere peashooter compared to thescathing, six-issue attack Chickmounted on the Roman CatholicChurch.15

Other comic books that containreferences to Utah and Mormonsinclude Godzilla, who trompedover Salt Lake City;16 MartinMystère, who visited the FamilyHistory Library;17 and Archie andhis friends, who did some researchin the Salt Lake City PublicLibrary.18 Comic book artist WillShetterly created a female Mormonsuperhero named Dr. Deseret,characterized by her willingness tostand up to polygamous patriarchs


Members of the Church of Snazzy Dressers: Jacob Raven,LDS detective, plays a role in Spider Man: The Lost Years.

Mallory Book is a tough-as-nails Mormon attorney in the She-Hulk’s law office.

Certain that they are about to die, Apollo and Serina decide to marry in a ceremony thatborrows some of its elements from creator Glen Larsen’s Mormon background in Battlestar

Galactica No. 5 (July 1978).

Putting the God in Zilla: Though the temple is shown fallingover on the cover of Godzilla #13, it manages to stay upright

through the end of the actual story. The Church Office Building, however, is not so lucky.

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and by her addiction to performance-enhancing drugs, whoappeared briefly in Captain Confederacy, published by EpicComics.19 Jacob Raven, a Latter-day Saint police detective,has appeared in Spider-Man: The Lost Years and in variousother Spider-Man comic books published by Marvel,20 whileLatter-day Saint lawyer Mallory Book works in the same of-fice as Jennifer Walters, alter ego of She-Hulk.21

Written by non-Mormons, these stories do not focusprimarily on Mormonism, but they do contain images ofSalt Lake City in its more modern setting and presentMormons in a more positive light. Likely these types ofreferences to twenty-first-century Mormonism, togetherwith the more classical nineteenth-century images, willcontinue to be created. Doubtless Mormon creators willcontinue to adapt scriptures (perhaps Mike Allred will re-sume The Golden Plates), explain Church history andteachings (as Sal Velluto is doing in “Lives of theProphets” for The Friend) and include subtle Mormonmarkers in mainstream comic book stories.22

NOTES

1. Eileen Chabot Wendel, Stories from the Golden Records: Book 1, TheJaredites (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1960); Eileen Chabot Wendel, Stories fromthe Golden Records: Book 2, Nephi the Valiant (Salt Lake City: Deseret Book, 1960).

2. Ron Leishman (w) and Richard Comely (a), Captain Canuck #3 (1975),Comely Comix.

3. Mike Allred, Madman Adventures #3 (1992), Tundra Publishing.4. See Michael W. Homer, Arthur Conan Doyle: “A Fine Spirit of Tolerance”

(Spokane: Arthur H. Clark Company, 2006).5. The story was published as No. 110 of Classics Illustrated and paired

with “The Adventure of the Speckled Band” (with the famous “RACHE” tat-tooed on the cover).

6. An expanded version of the story has also been published in European

versions of Classics Illustrated. For example, in 1974, a thirty-two page versionof this Holmes story was published in Illustrerade Klassiker in Swedish. Thisversion contains similar dialogue and presents an ominous image of Young,who many readers worldwide can associate with Mormonism.

7. The story appeared in The Rook (February and April 1982) and Eerie(January 1983) and was reprinted in graphic novel format by both InnovationBooks (1989) and Thorby Comics (1998).

8. See Ricard Longaron, Une étude en rouge (np: P&T Productions, 1995);Ricard Longaron, Een studie in Rood (np: P&T Productions, 1995). IanEdginton (w) and I.N.J. Culbard (a), A Study in Scarlet (London: SelfMadeHero,2010); Ian Edgington (w) and N. J. Culbard (a), A Study in Scarlet (New York:Sterling, 2010). The quotations are from the most recent version of A Study inScarlet, published in 2010.

9. See Michael W. Homer, On the Way to Somewhere Else (Spokane: ArthurH. Clark Company, 2006).

10. “Tex Striscia,” Serie Gialla #5 (gennaio 1955).11. “Tex Striscia,” Serie Gialla #12 (marzo 1955).12. Tex #276 (ottobre 1983); Tex #277 (novembre 1983).13. Tex Raccoltina #149 (giugno 1968); Tex #15c/16 (maggio 1961); Tex

#22b/23 (aprile 1962); Tex #65/66 (marzo 1966).14. Mormon characters have also been depicted in other popular Italian

comics including, La Grande Missione-fotoromanzo Completo #10 (10 maggio1955); Captain Miki #177 (14 novembre 1965); Storia del West #31 (dicembre1969); “Il Mormone Rapito,” Jesus #3 (maggio 1976), GEIS Gruppo Editoriale;Skorpio (anno III No. 44, 8 novembre 1979); and Lancio Story (anno VI No. 45,17 novembre 1980).

French language comic artists have also represented Mormons in theirnineteenth-century western setting. Belgian artist Morris (Maurice de Bevère)drew an image of Brigham Young in “Le Fil Qui Chante,” Lucky Luke #46(1977), based on a script by René Goscinny, and Italian artist Paolo Eleuteri-Serpieri drew “L’èpopèe des Mormons,” Histoire du Far-West #26 (1980), basedon a script by Frank Giroux.

15. See Massimo Introvigne, “Smash! Superman contro il Papa,” 30 GiorniVIII: 12 (dicembre 1990), 28–31.

16. Doug Moench (w), Herb Trimpe (a), Godzilla #13 (August 1978),Marvel Comics.

17. Alfredo Castelli (w), Martin Mystère Extra #22 (luglio–dicembre 2001) .18. George Gladir (w) and Stan Goldberg (a), Archie No. 570 (December

2006), Archie Comic Publications, Inc.19. Will Shetterly (w), Vince Stone (a), Captain Confederacy #1–4 (Nov. 1991–Feb.

1992), Epic Comics.20. Spider Man: The Lost Years, #1, 2, 3, (1995) Marvel Comics.21. She-Hulk, vol. 3, #1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 7, 9, 11, 12 (2004–2005), Marvel Comics. 22. See for example, Battlestar Galactica, #1–5, published by Marvel between

1978 to 1980, based on Mormon writer Glen Larsen’s television scripts; Mormonscience fiction writer Orson Scott Card’s Red Prophet, Tales of Alvin Maker pub-lished by Marvel in 2007; and Twilight: The Graphic Novel Volume 1, publishedin 2010 and based on LDS writer Stephenie Meyer’s best-selling novel.


Two LDS missionaries receive a thorough theological trouncing from a Godmakers-savvy

Christian in The Visitors, a comic-style pamphlet released by Chick Publications.

Archie and the gang visit the Salt Lake City Library where they meet real-life library director Nancy Tessman

and Mimi Cruz of NightFlight Comics.

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SALT LAKE CITY—Funeral services have been an-nounced for famed painter Arnold Friberg, whodied Thursday at the age of 96….Friberg’s breath-taking creation of the parting of the Red Sea wasfilmed for the movie The Ten Commandments . . . . The family encourages the public to at-tend the viewing, knowing how many lives Fribergtouched and inspired. —KSL.COM, 3 July 2010

AN ARTICLE OF FAITH IS SAID TO HAVE HUNGabove the easel of artist Arnold Friberg: “I believein God . . . and DeMille.” Conjoining the Divine

with one of Hollywood’s most shameless showmen was in-tended to be a compliment not to Cecil B. DeMille but toGod. Just so: the art of “A. Friberg”—as he signed hispaintings and often referred to himself—never seemed sohumble as it did grand. Consider his portrayal of the RoyalCanadian Mounted Police, his famous painting of GeorgeWashington in prayer at Valley Forge, or Laman andLemuel shrinking from Nephi, even as they attempted todo what most older brothers have wanted to do to a cockyyounger sibling: kill him.

A friend of the family invited me to the Friberg funeral.Although I was only that friend-of-a-friend and didn’tknow Friberg, I was drawn to the occasion by the power ofhis art in my life. I’d grown up with the Friberg Book ofMormon paintings—they had been completed at about thetime I began early-morning seminary. Then in my mid-20s,I’d been surprised to discover how much his Mountieslooked like Moroni—as did his Indians. His gamblers. Hiscowboys. And so on. Arnold Friberg’s art was the monu-ment that first gave size and shape (mainly size) to myfaith. So, to me, going to his funeral felt a little like coming

full circle, returning me to the faith of my youth in a narra-tive I had long since resized.

After having lived nearly two decades in the “lone anddreary world” of Texas, my wife and I had decided to returnto “Zion.” So I piggy-backed the funeral on to a visit with arealtor in Salt Lake City. But my flight didn’t arrive until halfan hour before the funeral began, so I arrived at theAssembly Hall on Temple Square late. I’d tried to stand byfor an earlier flight, but Delta’s rules have changed. Whatused to be free if you stood by on the same day of your flightnow costs 50 bucks! I would have paid as much as a doublesawbuck, but half a yard seemed too much for the friend-of-a-friend who would not be noticed slipping in the east doorat the back of the Hall.

Along with airline rules, the world has changed. Mygrandchildren are growing up in a world very little like theone Arnold Friberg painted. (Though some will argue itnever was.) Today’s people are smaller. Certainly our heroesare smaller. For all the stature of Barack Obama’s Politics ofHope, his reign cannot compare to the rambling romanticpresidency of Ronald Reagan, which apparently—byObama’s unlikely campaign references to our late cowboypresident—even he knew. A Jake Gyllenhaal looks comicallysmall inside the bloated production of The Prince of Persia,especially when compared to any performance by JohnWayne. Wayne’s unlikely casting as Genghis Kahn was nomore believable than Gyllenhaal’s, but unlike Gyllenhaal,The Duke was bigger than the film.

What Friberg had in mind when he painted Nephi andMormon and the Mounties were the larger heroes of myth,legend, and folklore: the heroes of song and romance, of reli-gion and of Cecil B. DeMille. By comparison to our politiciansor the bourgeois little “stars” of modern romantic films—themere “celebrities” for whom notoriety is synonymous withfame—Friberg heroes are giants, the heroes spoken of in thelonghouse and the sweat lodge and the medicine tent,Beowulf and Arthur and Samuel the Lamanite! These are notmerely great men. These are men whose feats were of suchsize as to inspire campfire audiences to give the time and at-

Super-sizing the art of belief

THE FUNERAL OF A. FRIBERGAND THE SIZE OF A MAN

By Clifton Holt Jolley

CLIFTON HOLT JOLLEY, a convert to Judaism, was acolumnist at the Deseret News, a writer of the SpokenWord, a seminary principal and institute instructor, andan English and religion instructor at BYU and AssociateProfessor of Communications at BYU-Hawaii.

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tention and scope required to create a saga about Arthur orUlysses or Joseph Smith.

B UT THOSE TIMES are past. A modern critic is morelikely to point out Friberg’s occidental ethnocentrism,his art’s discomfiting similarity to Socialist Realism,

and the apparent homoeroticism of his images and imagina-tion. But these are the same critics willing to see a carnal col-lusion in Batman’s mentoring of Robin; who might even arguefor a more than fraternal association between Sir Gawain andthe Green Knight. They know nothing of the “long thoughts”of youth or the willful dreams every boy has of heroism, orevery girl of finding a hero. And if you think that statement issexist, welcome to the world of Arnold Friberg! In Friberg’sromantic world, women are incidental if not invisible.Exceptions to this rule include the occasional Indian maidencaring for a cradleboarded baby, but even the rare Fribergwoman looks bigger and stronger than matinee idols of today.

One may argue that like much occasional art, Friberg’spaintings have not survived their occasions, that their orig-inal audience has outgrown the inspiration the artist soughtin size. Whereas Friberg was impressed by the strut andswagger of Charlton Heston, nowadays we invest stardom inthe delicate brooding of Leonardo DiCaprio. One may alsoargue that Friberg’s vision of heroic stature is of diminishedinspirational importance for girls seeking to discover them-selves in his art or for boys of less than Olympian stature.

But criticism employing the “new” tools of art criticism isnot only off point but also out of time: it fails not only thetimes of the artist but those of his natural audience—thoseseeking the inspiration of size and moment. Not the merelybeautiful—which can be small and articulate—but the sub-

lime that requires pipes and drums and size! What girlgrowing up in the 1950s did not want to date a FribergMountie as big as his horse? What boy chosen last for everyplayground team would not aspire to becoming Moroni orstanding righteously in defiance of the debauched King Noah?

I was such a boy, crippled by polio and anxious to believethat virtue is the only power sufficient to make a champion.I instinctively recognized the metaphor of Friberg’s art andknew that the size of a man is the size of his heart. Thestature of Friberg’s cowboys and Mounties and antiqueMormons was not evidence of the number of pushups theycould muster but an emblem of their heroism and the purityof their hearts. Friberg’s Mounties loved their horses.Friberg’s Nephites loved their Lord.

So no matter how much education has taught me or lifewizened me, I still recognize ironic comment about the sen-timentality of Friberg’s art as too simple, especially becausewe have not discovered a metaphor more inspiring to theimaginations of those so young or so hopeful as to believeJohn Wayne could have been Genghis Kahn anytime hedamn well pleased! Likewise, it’s too easy to compare thepropaganda of the Soviet Social Realists to the unapologeticpropaganda of Friberg’s occasional art. Friberg was asfaithful to his audience as to his commissions.

Like any commercial artist, Friberg went where the com-missions took him. But people didn’t commission ArnoldFriberg if they wanted something intimate: even his smallpaintings were painted big. His size was heroic, his momenthistoric, his canvas a marching order. In his most famouspainting—George Washington praying at Valley Forge—werecognize that although the moment may be reflective, this is aguy about to to do something really big.

Shortly after the democratization ofPoland, I visited Warsaw and Gdansk.Everywhere I went, I saw posters of the he-roes of Solidarity. I saw not just those I ex-pected of Lech Walesa and the priests whohad marched with him, but of the twocharacters the revolutionaries had taken asthe standard bearers of freedom and theirown confidence in capitalism: John Wayneand Ronald Reagan. No, not RonaldReagan in his presidential suit and tie butin the cowboy hat and boots of his B-movie career and host of Death ValleyDays. A number of biographies reveal JohnWayne to have personally been less a herothan his media image proclaimed. We nowknow Ronald Reagan couldn’t spell. Bothfacts miss the point: most of us are less in-terested in the men they were than in themen we need them to be.

I don’t know whether Friberg knewabout the National Geographic genomeproject to chart the ancestry of NativeAmericans. The project evidences that all“ . . . and over there, Mr. Friberg, are some of your fans: Helaman, Moses, and Nephi.

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the “Lamanites” are of Asiatic rather than Semitic origin. ButI suspect if he did, he didn’t care—his heroes don’t look anymore Jewish than they do Chinese. He was not, after all,painting people. He was painting people’s dreams, their vi-sions, and their faith. And in such art, race is like reality: asubstance of things hoped for, an evidence of things not seen.

A.FRIBERG WAS buried not in his Mormon templeclothes but in a uniform of the Royal CanadianMounted Police. Size and drama persisted even at

the end, designed by the artist himself in the instructions hegave before his death. But however resplendent in red, hedictated that he be memorialized and interred in Zion. Itmay have been years since Book of Mormon stories weremore than art for Arnold. Nevertheless, he staged his lastmemorial in the place where he knew he would be remem-bered. The family had thought as many as 2000 might at-tend the well-publicized event on Temple Square. Althoughfewer than 500 showed up, the smaller audience was no dis-honor to the reputation of the man. Everyone knows andwill remember his art.

When I told my 34-year-old son I was going to Friberg’s fu-neral, he didn’t recognize the name. His generation is perhapstoo far separated from the creation of the art and the man whohelped give shape to the myth. But when I showed a few of thepaintings to his son, my seven-year-old grandson, Aaron ex-claimed: “That’s Nephi! Do you know the story, Papa?”

I do. And I know the name of the man-who-knew-the-man . . . or at least whose art made you believe he did.

At Friberg’s funeral, many good and inspiring things weresaid about the man and his art and the expanse of his influenceand vision. But at the end, not words but song, spectacle, andritual took him to his grave.


A troupe of Mounties and a bagpiperplaying “Amazing Grace” escorted the black,horse-drawn hearse that carried Friberg tothe Salt Lake Cemetery; appropriatepageantry for an artist who was a kind of ar-gument against the Hudson River School ofpainting—not in size, but subject. Whereasthose artists diminished people to after-thoughts in the vast canvases of their bucolicscenes, Friberg’s heroes were more dramaticand prouder than any mere tree or valley orriver running through it.

As I watched the procession pull awayfrom the west gates of Temple Square, I re-membered Friberg’s misquotation ofDelacroix: “What moves men of genius, orwhat inspires their work, is not new ideas,but obsession with the idea that what hasbeen done before is not enough.” The geniusFriberg was speaking of was his own. And asI stood at the gates of Temple Square to seethe body of Arnold Friberg so splendidly re-moved, I realized that A. Friberg was likely

discovering the gates of heaven to be disappointingly small. But only until he—painter for The Queen, God, and

Cecil B. DeMille (in ascending order)—is permitted to re-paint them.

ELEGY FOR A. FRIBERGBeat the drums. Bring out the black horses.

Carry the caisson. March the red blouses. Tell the people to come: The one and many who loved him. Tell the critics: “We’ve forgotten your names.”

Beat drums. Play pipes. Grace now saves him.

Death may now take him:His name now large as his frames.

His art: long thoughts to amaze.Beat the drums. Lead the black horses.Play grace on the pipes. Then away.

—CLIFTON HOLT JOLLEY

Please: a little less bicep than when I posed for Nephi.

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S OMEONE WAS BOUND TO DO IT EVENTUALLY.And R. Crumb is the one. He, the best known oficonoclast comic artists, tackled one of the most

revered books in Western culture: the book of Genesis.During a four-year almost-monastic effort, Crumb illus-trated all fifty chapters of Genesis—all of them—fromGod’s creation of the heavens to Joseph’s death and burialin Egypt. He says,

I, Crumb, the illustrator of this book, have, to thebest of my ability, faithfully reproduced every wordof the original text, which I derived from severalsources, including the King James Version, butmostly from Robert Alter’s recent translation, TheFive Books of Moses.1

The cover, which evokes the color and style of theClassics Illustrated books from Crumb’s childhood, pro-claims, “The First Book of the Bible Graphically Depicted!Nothing Left Out!” and “Adult Supervision Suggested forMinors.”

As with any R. Crumb adventure, adult supervisiongoes without saying. But for those who know only theSunday School version of Genesis, or who simply sufferfrom cultural amnesia, Crumb’s approach will indeed be arevelation.

With his singular artistic vision, Crumb, godfather ofthe “underground comix” movement during the late 60sand 70s, has inspired literally thousands of comic artists.Featuring such characters as Mr. Natural, Devil Girl, Felixthe Cat, and Joe Blow, his comic stories didn’t simply pushthe boundaries of good taste; they ignored them. Many of

his stories are filled with pornographic perversities, earthyobsessions, racial stereotypes, social satire, and just plainindecent fun where censorship is the only offense. Withsuch a long history of unscrupulous sequential art,Crumb’s turn to Genesis may seem odd. But in the intro-duction, Crumb shares what attracted him to the firstbook of Moses:

I, ironically, do not believe the Bible is “the word ofGod.” I believe it is the words of men. It is,nonetheless, a powerful text with layers of meaningthat reach deep into our collective consciousness,our historical consciousness, if you will. It seemsindeed to be an inspired work, but I believe that itspower derives from its having been a collective en-deavor that evolved and condensed over many gen-erations.2


DALLAS ROBBINS is a freelance writer living inSalt Lake City and is a frequent contributor to theSalt Lake City Weekly and Sunstone. You can readhis latest random thoughts at WWW.DALLASROBBINS.COM.

Not your Relief Society president’s Bible

. . . AND CRUMB SAID,“LET THERE BE GENESIS”

By Dallas Robbins

Imag

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One of Crumb’s primary sources on Genesis, Robert Alter,provides additional reasons for the irreligious to take thebook seriously,

Nowhere else in ancient literature have the quirki-ness and unpredictability of individual charactersand the frictions and tensions of family life—siblingrivalry, the jealousy of co-wives, the extravagance ofparental favoritism—been registered with such sub-tlety and insight.3

The same statement could be applied to Crumb’s ownoeuvre. His unpredictable, fractious stories and charactersseem to have laid a uniquely appropriate groundwork forapproaching the utter strangeness and startling quirkiness ofGenesis. His gritty, earthy style reminds the reader thatGenesis is a work of literature not bound by the constraintsof theology or good manners.

Crumb’s rendering itself is inspiring, with his detailed, al-most obsessive pen marks and the unflinching portrayals ofmoments when one is tempted to look away. The art some-times has a woodcut quality, utilizing stark contrasts and

subtle shades, mirroring the emotional complexity of thestories in the harsh landscape of ancient Palestine. The text,often taken directly from Genesis, could have slowed thestory with its ancient diction, but the panels are perfectlymatched to it, creating flow, tension, and more than a fewsurprising and delightful moments.

One such delight is the anthropomorphic portrayal ofYahweh and his messengers, who walk into scenes fromstage right or descend from the sky without warning. Thisimage of an embodied God is already familiar toMormons, but seeing it played out in context gives addedmeaning to the relationships among God and those hecreated in his image.

I was often moved by the expressions on familiar charac-ters in familiar situations—for example, the resignation andreticence in Abraham’s eyes as he holds a sacrificial knifeabove his son, crying to God, “Here I am!”

Another moment that took me by surprise is Jacob’swrestling the angel until the break of dawn. The earthinessof the panels is comical but reminded me that our mortalframe, when in competition with immortal desires, shouldn’tbe afraid to break a little sweat and roll around in the dirt.

As for love and sex, there are poignant moments, as seen inIsaac and Rebekah’s sharing a bed together in joyous intimacywith the accompanying text, “Isaac found solace after thedeath of his mother.” But there are also visceral moments ofsexual confusion—as when Lot’s daughters bed him, be-lieving that they are the last of humankind, hoping to “keepalive seed from our father.” The art evokes sadness while atthe same time respecting the women’s desperate rationale.

As with any biblical re-telling, the temptation to “fill inthe blanks” is always in the background, and one maywonder if Crumb took too many liberties. “In a few places Iventured to do a little interpretation of my own, if I thoughtthe words could be made clearer,” he admits, “but I refrainedfrom indulging too often in such ‘creativity,’ and sometimeslet it stand in its convoluted vagueness rather than monkeyaround.”4 While his images may surprise many readers, hiswritten interpretation is kept safely in an appendix, offeringhis own Midrashic take on several of the stories.

But whether he “monkeyed around” too much or too little,his illustration of the ancient text is a challenging, but re-warding, introduction to Genesis or Crumb or both. In thislatest creation, Crumb is at the height of his comic powers,showing that sequential art is not just for superheroes or indieposeurs. Crumb reminds us that as an art form, comics havethe ability to contain the intimate and the epic, giving us re-newed insight into familiar stories.

NOTES

1. R. Crumb, The Book of Genesis (New York: W.W. Norton & Company,2009), vii.

2. Ibid.3. Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses. (New York: W.W. Norton &

Company, 2004), xii.4. Crumb, The Book of Genesis, vii.


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CONTRIBUTORSADAM KOFORD (back cover) is involved in the 700Hoboes Project and Conan vs. Bear. He curates awebcomic entitled the Laugh-Out-Loud Cats atHOBO-TOPIA.COM, and has been featured on BoingBoing TV and is a regular contributor to DRAWN.CA.

BLAKE CASSELMAN (pg. 50) is a screenwriter andcomic book writer. Along with his work on the Devil'sTriangle graphic novel series, his short fiction can befound in the anthology, Pandora's Nightmare:Horror Unleashed. He lives in Salt Lake City, Utah.

BLAIR STERRETT (pg. 6) received an undergraduatefrom BYU and a masters from the Center for CartoonStudies. He directs The Lost Media Archive, anephemeral/kitch film and music preservation project,and is working towards becoming a college professor.

BRIAN C. HAILES (pg. 50) is author and illustratorof Dragon’s Gait and Devil’s Triangle. His new se-ries, Continuum, will be published in 2010. He isfinishing Passion & Spirit: The Dance QuoteBook. See his work at HAILESART.COM.

BRANDON DAYTON (pg. 20) has worked as awriter, animator, illustrator, storyboard artist, andChristmas-light hanger. His mini-comic GreenMonk was nominated for the YALSA Great GraphicNovels for Teens Booklist.

BRIAN CRANE (pg. 24) worked in advertising andpublishing before creating Pickles, a newspapercomic strip, syndicated in 1990. It appears daily inover 650 papers around the world. He and his wife,Diana Long, have 7 children and 8 grandchildren.

C. L. HANSON (pg. 24) writes for “Main StreetPlaza” (LATTERDAYMAINSTREET.COM) and “Lettersfrom a Broad...” (LFAB-UVM.BLOGSPOT.COM), and isthe author/illustrator of the novel Exmormon (EX-MORMON.NET). She lives in Switzerland.

COLBY PURCELL (pg. 32) owns four kids and adoting husband, and gets paid to play the piano. Shemakes webcomics for fun. Lint (PURNICELLIN.COM/LINT) was her first comic and Pygmalion in Space(PURNICELLIN.COM/PYGMALION) her second.

DAVEY MORRISON (pg. 90) is a writer, actor, andfilmmaker, recently editing Out of the Mount: 19From New Play Project. Published in The Provo-Orem Word, and awarded first prize in theMormon Artist Young Writer’s Contest.

DOROTHY DELGADO (pg. 80) has been addictedto Calvin and Hobbes since she was barely able toread. A self-taught artist, she currently works as amassage therapist, doing comics on the side. Herwebsite is CONFESSIONCOMICS.TUMBLR.COM.

EMILY MUTO (pg. 74) is a comic artist from Seattle,specializing in Japanese-style manga. She has an on-going webcomic called “The Way to Your Heart” EMI-ART.COM/TWTYH. Several of her other completedcomic projects can be found at EMI-ART.COM.

GALEN DARA: (pg. 60) atheist mommy sitting at theback of the church with a sketchbook. Permablogger atTHE-EXPONENT.COM; GALENDARA.BLOGSPOT.COM;and MININGTHENOOKS.BLOGSPOT.COM. Will soonlaunch a webcomic at THENOOKS.COM.

ISAAC STEWART (pg. 67) has a BFA in industrialdesign, but does not design factories, a common mis-conception people have. He recently completed illus-tration and cartography for Brandon Sanderson’s TheWay of Kings. His website is ISAACSTEWART.COM

G. ENGLISH BROOKS (pg. 43) teaches writing andliterature, and is a student in UNR’s Literature andEnvironment program. In his spare time he enjoysMexican radio, squinting at birds, and inventingpoorly attended high-altitude marathons.

HARVEY DROKE (pg. 66) illustrated for his LDS mis-sion newsletter and then began drawing professionallyin magazines and newspapers in Washington D.C. In2008, he published a compilation of his political andsocial comics called Comictures.

DAVE BURTON (pg. 66) drew cartoons for the NavyTimes in Washington DC during WW II. His paintingshave been shown at many galleries throughout Utah.He lives in the SLC Avenues district with his wife Ora.They recently celebrated their 70th year together.

D. HICKS (pg. 27) first ventured in commerce withthe purchase of a pumpkin patch. This failed. Hefound God 15 years ago, though they are still negoti-ating some details. More of Hicks’s work can be foundat HERETICSOFCLOUDGAZING.BLOGSPOT.COM.

HOWARD TAYLER (pg. 7) created SCHLOCKMERCEN-ARY.COM in 2000, new installments appearing onlineevery day since then. Howard paints 28mm miniatures,plays table-top role-playing games, and shifts plates ofmetal around at the gym with sisyphean zeal.

JAKE PARKER: (pg. 55) comic book artist, anima-tion designer, and family man.

JAKOB CONKLING (pg. 27) has no formal trainingor accredited degrees in writing or art. His previouscomic works can be found doodled on very importantreports made during very important corporate meet-ings. Email: [email protected].

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S U N S T O N E


STEVE MORRISON (pg. 90) graduated from BYUwith a BFA in illustration. He has created illustrationsfor NPR, Highlights Magazine, National StorytellingMagazine, and the Core Knowledge Foundation. Hiswebsite is STEVEMORRISONILLUSTRATION.COM.

JAKOB SPJUT (pg. 26) teaches engineering atQuinebaug Valley Community College in Danielson,Connecticut.

JOHN GOVERNALE (pg. 66) of EXCEEDINGLYCURIOUS.COM, uses drawings by dead artists for hiscartoons. He expects that someday one or more ofthem will punch him in the schnoz for LDS-ifyingtheir work.

KEVIN BECKSTROM’s cartoons (pg. 25) have beenpublished in numerous trade publications, newspa-pers, newsletters and magazines, including the NewEra. Beckstrom has three cartoon blogs: GoodHeavens, Zarahemla Times and Beckstrom Buzz.

NATHAN SHUMATE (pg. 46) edits and publishesArkham Tales, a PDF magazine of weird fiction(ARKHAMTALES.COM), reviews genre movies at ColdFusion Video Reviews (COLDFUSIONVIDEO.COM),and blogs at NATHANSHUMATE.COM.

JARED GREENLEAF (pg. 46) freelances in illustra-tion, with a job history in graphic design and anima-tion; he is also a closet comicbook artist. He cur-rently attends BYU’s graduate art program. He liveswith his wife Keiko and their three kids.

NICHOLAS WEST (pg. 34) writes comic books—that’s “graphic novels” to you NPR listeners, but re-ally, they’re just comics, people. His work can befound at WESTCRITIC.BLOGSPOT.COM

NICK PERKINS’s work (pg. 84) has appeared in theUtah Statesman and the Herald Journal, and theDavis County Clipper for the past ten years. Hewrites and draws a webcomic called Cooties. See hiswork online at CARTOONISTA.WORDPRESS.COM.

NOAH VAN SCIVER’s work (pg. 14) has appeared inMome, Mineshaft, Not My Small Diary, and regu-larly in The Comics Journal. His first graphic novel,The Hypo, about Abraham Lincoln’s young adulthood,is in progress. His website is NOAHVANSCIVER.COM.

PATRICK SCULLIN (pg. 26) holds an M.F.A. in il-lustration from Cal State Fullerton. He has workedas a business owner, freelance artist, and staff de-signer for advertising and creative agencies. Read hisweekly webcomic at SUPERSIBLINGSCOMICS.COM.

SIMON SHEPHERD (pg. 42) participates in localmedieval reenactment groups; plays alto, tenor, orbass recorder as needed; sings baritone/bass; and re-cently played the part of Lorenzo Snow in theKirtland, Ohio, stake production of This is Kirtland!

TODD ROBERT PETERSEN (pg. 8) hasn’t donesomething like this in a long time. He is an associateprofessor of English at Southern Utah Universityand author of the award winning novel, Rift, and theshort story collection Long After Dark.

TYLER KIRKHAM (pg. 94) has worked on titlessuch as Strykeforce, Tomb Raider, The Darkness,Transformers, Amazing Spiderman, X-MenPhoenix Warsong, and Ultimate Fantastic 4. Hecurrently works for DC Comics

SAL VELLUTO (front cover) has been a professionalillustrator for a quarter of a century. He has workedfor major comic book publishers (DC, Marvel) aswell as for many independent ones (Valiant-Acclaim,Cross Gen, Continuity, Penny-Farthing Press).

SAM RODRIGUEZ (pg. 34) illustrates a monthlyfeature for The Friend magazine and the comicclassic The Phantom (published by EGMONT inSweden, Norway and Finland, and by FREW inAustralia).

SHAWN BOYLES (pg. 67) currently lives the dreamof every fourth grader by drawing pictures for avideo game company. Sometimes he gets to color thepictures, too. With crayons. You can visit him on theweb at SPIKETHESURFDOG.BLOGSPOT.COM.

PABLO AIRTH (pg. 9) is a designer and illustratorliving in the Pacific Northwest and one of the creativeforces behind The Peculiar Coloring Book. He be-lieves coloring activities should be introduced to adultsin Sunday School, Quorum and Relief Society lessons.

SUNSTONEFounded in 1974Editors Emeritus

SCOTT KENNEY 1974–1978ALLEN D. ROBERTS 1978–1980PEGGY FLETCHER 1978–1986

ELBERT EUGENE PECK 1986–2001DAN WOTHERSPOON 2001-2008

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WILLIAM STANFORD 2000–2008Editor

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MARY ELLEN ROBERTSONAssociate Editor

CAROL B. QUIST

Section EditorsPHYLLIS BAKER, Fiction Contest Coordinator

LISA TORCASSO DOWNING, FictionALAN & VICKIE EASTMAN, “Righteous Dominion”

JAMES P. HARRIS, “A Place for Every Truth”HUGO OLAIZ, News/UpdateDIXIE PARTRIDGE, Poetry

DALLAS ROBBINS, “In the World”ALISON TAKENAKA, “Margin Notes”MICHAEL VINSON, “Scripture Notes”

Editorial AssistantsJOHN-CHARLES DUFFY, HUGO OLAIZ

Contributing ColumnistD. JEFF BURTON

CartoonistsJEANETTE ATWOOD, JONATHAN CLARK,

Much-Appreciated VolunteersADRIANE ANDERSEN, SUSAN ANDERSEN,

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SHERRI PENDLETON, CAMI THORNOCK, SHARI THORNOCK

THE SUNSTONE EDUCATION FOUNDATION

The mission of The SunstoneEducation Foundation is tosponsor open forums of Mormonthought and experience. Under themotto, “Faith Seeking Understanding,” we examine and express therich spiritual, intellectual, social,and artistic qualities of Mormonhistory and contemporary life. Weencourage humanitarian service,honest inquiry, and responsible in-terchange of ideas that is respectfulof all people and what they holdsacred.

Board of DirectorsMICHAEL J. STEVENS chair, LAURA L. BUSH,

LAURA R. COMPTON, DOE DAUGHTREY, NADINE R. HANSEN, KIM MCCALL

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Th e Su n STo n e ed u caTio n Fo u n d aTio n invites writers to enter its annualfiction contest, which is made possible by a grant from the Brookie and d . K.Brown family. a ll entries must relate to adult Latter-day Saint experience,theology, or worldview. a ll varieties of form are welcome.

Stories, without author identification, will be judged by noted Mormon au-thors and professors of literature. Winners will be announced by 28 February2010 on Sunstone’s website, WWW.Sun STo n eMagaz in e.co M. Winners onlywill be notified by mail. a fter the announcement, all other entrants will be freeto submit their stories elsewhere. Publication is not guaranteed, but winnersagree to give Sun STo n e first publication rights.

PRizeS will be awarded in two categories: short-short story—fewer than1,500 words; and short story—fewer than 6,000 words. Prize money varies(up to $400 each) depending on the number of winners announced.

RuLeS: 1. u p to three entries may be submitted by any one author. Send manu-

script in PdF or Word format to [email protected] by 31OCtOber 2010.

2. each story must be double-spaced. The author’s name must not appearon any page of the manuscript.

3. in the body of the email, the author must state the story’s title andthe author’s name, address, telephone number, and email. The author mustalso include language attesting that the entry is her or his own work, that ithas not been previously published, that it is not being considered for publica-tion elsewhere, and that it will not be submitted to other publishers untilafter the contest. The author must also grant permission for the manuscriptto be filed in the Sun STo n e collection at the Marriott Library of theuniversity of u tah in Salt Lake c ity. if the entry wins, Sun STo n e magazine re-tains first-publication rights though publication is not guaranteed. The au-thor retains all literary rights. Sun STo n e discourages the use ofpseudonyms; if used, the author must identify the real and pen names andthe reasons for writing under the pseudonym.

Failure to comply with the rules will result in disqualification.

2010Brookie and D.K. Brown

Fiction Contest

NOvEMbEr13Mulvanny G2 Architecture

1110 112th Ave. NE Suite 500, 98004

NOr ThWEST bellevue, wa

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