Today we have a treat: a guest blog by my cover artist extraordinaire, Dan Lawlis. When, he is not painting covers, Dan works as a commercial artist. Before that, however, he drew for Marvel and DC Comics. Dan is currently working on a Chrisitan Comic Book called Orange Peal 3.
From the comic Orange Peel 3
Why I Think Christian Comic Books Are So Necessary
Consider your average kid is reading your average comic book, let's say its Batman. You know the story, the Joker is threatening the city, and in comes Batman, he throws his Batwing, it hits the switch that turns off the death ray, and saves the city in the nick of time.
The problem is, it always works out. Batman never faces death, so he doesn't have to confront life. This is fine if you're a little kid. Kids shouldn't have to deal with the real world. But more and more comics are being read by older teens. That's a problem, because those fantasies aren't preparing them for the real world.
These teens get out in the real world, and things don't work out so well. In the real world Batman misses with his batarang and innocent people die. On top of that the jerk usually get's the girl.
Since Batman always wins he can avoid the need for God. The writers can neatly avoid God by filling any need with fantasy. When the kids try to mimic their heroes in the real world and lose, they aren't prepared for that, and they fall apart.
Over the years comic book story lines have grown up in subject matter, that is, the heroes face death more, but they haven't grown up spiritually. What's the result of this development? Well, you can see it all around you. The characters get angry at life. They become bitter, grim, mean, dark brooding types. Batman, Wolverine, even formally colorful upbeat characters like Spiderman and Superman have become more evil looking, grey and colorless.
They weren't colorless during Dan's tenure at Marvel!
Its almost as if they are invoking some dark power to supply themselves with power. In fact, that's exactly what their doing. In the absence of hope in God and heaven, these characters need power to deal with the real world. If you can't get it from God, you go to the other guy.
He's the one that seemingly comes to the rescue, selling his lies that if you just get mean and angry enough, you can have the power to force your will on the world, with no God needed but yourself. The characters become their own God. This is the evil message that is being taught to the kids, to become your own God, and you can bring the world under your power.
Talk about a setup for failure.
The price of failure!
There's only one realistic antidote to this situation. As writers and artists, we have to go into that fantasy world that these poor teens are caught in, and deliver a Christian message that will teach them the way out. It's sort of a rescue mission, descending into that shady comics underworld, looking for lost souls walking around like drug addicted zombies, and seeing if you can help them escape.
Its no accident zombies are poplar right now. Art is imitating life. These teens are literally becoming brain dead zombies in the wake of they're disastrous attempts at dealing with the real world using the hopeless secularist view of life.
The Christian message is the positive one. It says go out and fight for what's right, but you can't lose, because there is always hope in this life, and the next. The bad guys may win the battle, but we have faith that we will win the war. I demonstrated this in the very first scene in my online comic book. My character, in Orange Peel 3, essentially took a beating. But if you notice, he wasn't bitter or angry. He knew he couldn't lose, ever.
This is why we need more Christian characters. A lot more!
Thanks for reading,
Dan
Find out more about Orange Peel 3
Read: Orange Peel 3 (Original version)
Also by Dan:
