Rob Liefeld Draws The Apocalypse?
Every now and then the wide net I cast with my Google Reader feeds turns up a genuine surprise. Yesterday it was this:
A southern California megachurch pastor has teamed up with popular comic book artist Rob Liefeld to create a graphic novel series on the end times.Phil Hotsenpiller, teaching pastor of Yorba Linda Friends Church, describes the biblically-inspired series as "24 meets The Da Vinci Code meets Left Behind."
Reading a little further, I found it interesting that the series was described in two seemingly opposed ways:
It's not intended to be a theological book though Hotsenpiller has eschatological knowledge. Rather, it serves as entertainment both for Christians and non-believers.
vs.
With a professional artist like Liefeld and a story like the Bible, the megachurch pastor views Armageddon Now as a powerful tool for God's Kingdom and a "cultural key."
Now, I sincerely do not want to rush to judgement here by assuming a link between Liefeld's overtly religious work with any sort of assumed homophobia. When Liefeld stated that he "can't wait to someday undo" the relationship between Shatterstar and Rictor in X-Factor, he also claimed he has "nothing against gays, [he has] gay family, nuthin' but love here". Fair enough, I'll happily take him at face value until I have direct reason to believe otherwise. After all, Liefeld has to pay the bills like anyone else, right? I can't claim to know what I would do if someone backed a truck full of easy money up to my door and asked me to draw something with which I didn't necessarily agree. Any story worth telling includes viewpoints and goals in opposition to one another regardless of the teller's own opinions.
The article goes on to explain:
Hotsenpiller realized the widespread interest on the topic of end times when he held his first Prophecy Conference in 2006. It was a Labor Day weekend and he didn't know what to expect. Some 7,000 people showed up. They heard him speak about the Islamic emergence, the antichrist, rapture, the seven-year Great Tribulation and the final judgment. At that time, Liefeld was in the audience.Liefeld, whose works include X-Force and Youngblood, actually regularly attended Yorba Linda Friends Church but Hotsenpiller had never met him and was unaware of who he was.
Following the Prophecy Conference, Liefeld approached the pastor and proposed working together to produce a graphic novel.
I'm sorry, but my immediate reaction to evangelical key-words like "antichrist" and "Great Tribulation" is to roll my eyes and dismiss the speaker. I have places to be and people to see and hard-line fundamentalists are not among them. Harshly editorial, perhaps, and I know that there are many queer Christians with sincere beliefs, but they aren't generally the sort to wind up apocalypse groupies and anyway I'd rather be honest than polite. So, while I'm not going to say, ah, yes, this proves!!1! that Liefeld thinks of the queer communities in one way or another I am also disclosive enough to say that I do feel it provides some potential context for his statements.
To be fair, the minister he's working with on these books has this to say at the end of the article:
"I think the Christian perspective is one that says 'we have prophetic Scriptures that tell us about the end of time. It's not that we want the world to end but we want to be prepared and, in the meantime, we should be doing all we can to preserve our world, to be kind to one another, to do good and to preserve peace ... and to live out a true honest Christian life."
If he's sincere in that then bully for him. That last clause may elide a whole lot of moral stricture, however, and where I grew up it would be code for a lot more don't's than do's. I also can't help but notice that the website for the Yorba Linda Friends Church specifies that they believe in the unerring truth of the Bible - so no shrimp cocktails at the White Party, ladies - and full-immersion baptism, two tenets which are often the hallmarks of closet fundamentalists. In none of what I could turn up about the Armageddon Now series does anyone say that the books are specifically anti-gay in their portrayal of the causes of the "end times," but in my experience homophobia and the inherently exclusionary language of Rapture theology are so inextricably intertwined that in most such settings I've encountered the absolute best-case scenario would be that Liefeld is a sincere ally to the queer communities who must endure a lot of homophobia from people who are his peers in his faith. If that is the case, the very best I can muster is to feel a little sorry for the guy and to hope it doesn't sway him away from his "nuthin' but love" stance over time.
Klarion
Posted to editorial on 17 December 2009
· Comments (6)
Other stuff like this: Armageddon, Rob Liefeld, Shatterstar
Christianity is one mythology I've had more than enough of, thank you very much. Though I didn't realize everyone in the 'end times' would need such massive shoulderpads.
> massive shoulderpads
But how else can they defend themselves from the brimstone?
My take is that while I am not eager to judge someone for their religious convictions, it does raise some questions for me. If this is the kind of theology in which he believes, is it even possible for him to be sincere when he says that he has "nuthin' but love"? I hate to put it like that, but my experiences have left me with quite a matched set of multiply-reinforced preconceptions about the sort of person with a strong interest in religious prophecy: namely, that they are not generally our friend.
"With a professional artist like Liefeld"
Oh, my sides ache :D
I have very little time for Liefield and his work. As an artist he makes a great Levis model. His desire to "undo" Shatterstar's homosexuality is pretty shoddy wether he considers it homophobic or not - just the fact that he feels it should be undone speaks volumes.
I am concerned that this comic could be a bit of fundamentalist propaganda but really couldn't say if Liefield is enough of a draw these days to get it much in the way of publicity.
Rob Liefeld lost any cultural and artistic relevance about 15+ years ago. Add to that his obvious homophobia and need for attention and you have another Christian poster boy like Kirk Cameron that people will remember they "used to like" but now no longer care about.
You lost me at "Rob Liefeld".
Unless it's something like "Rob Liefeld helps the orphans" or "Rob Liefeld contributes to Cancer Foundation", I'm pretty much tuning out anything that has "Rob Liefeld" and "Comics" in the same sentence. He's the boy who cried "Credibility".
Christians should spend more time helping people suffering now rather than worry about the Apocalypse anyway...
I saw "Rob Liefeld", I died inside. I can't take anything he does seriously. I just can't care about him. He wants to pair up with the Christian church? Ha, well that's just peachy, idn'it? About the apocalypse? Yeah. Peachy.