- Chester Brown's Gospel adaptations
-
"Chester Brown's Gospel adaptations" thematic stories 
Brown's depiction of Jesus in the Gospels of Mark (left) and Matthew (right)First appearance Yummy Fur #4 (April 1987) Created by Chester Brown Publication information Publisher Vortex Comics
Drawn and QuarterlySchedule irregular Title(s) Yummy Fur
UnderwaterGenre Christian
Based on the GospelsPublication date April 1987 Creative team Creator(s) Chester Brown Chester Brown's "eccentric adaptations"[1] of some of the Gospels appeared in his comic books Yummy Fur and Underwater starting with the Gospel of Mark in Yummy Fur #4 in 1987.
So far, Brown has finished his Gospel of Mark but not his Gospel of Matthew, and hasn't tackled the other gospels. The stories have been on hiatus since 1997. Brown had planned to do all four of the official gospels,[2] but in 2011 stated that it's unlikely he will finish even Matthew.[3]
Contents
Background
Brown's beliefs
Main article: Chester Brown#Religious beliefsBrown was brought up in a strictly Christian Baptist[2] household.[4] Over his career, he has gone back and forth between belief and non-belief in Christianity.[5][6]
Brown took on his retelling of the Gospels to try to figure out what he really believed.[7]
The Gospel of Mark
Appearances of The Gospel of Mark Issue Date Passages[8] Yummy Fur # 4 April 1987 Mark 1:01-39 Yummy Fur # 5 June 1987 Mark 1:40-3:12 Yummy Fur # 6 August 1987 Mark 3:13-4:14 Yummy Fur # 7 1987[9] Mark 5:1-6:6 Yummy Fur # 8 November 1987 Mark 6:6-7:23 Yummy Fur # 9 March 1988 Mark 7:24-8:21 Yummy Fur #10 May 1988 Mark 8:22-9:13 Yummy Fur #11 July 1988 Mark 9:14-10:34 Yummy Fur #12 September 1988 Mark 10:35-12:27 Yummy Fur #13 November 1988 Mark 12:28-14:52 Yummy Fur #14 January 1989 Mark 14:53-16:20 Begun in issue #4 of Yummy Fur in 1987, Mark started as a more-or-less straight, abridged illustration[10] of the Gospel of Mark. The adaptation became more idiosyncratic as it developed, however. On pages 55 and 56 Brown wove into the story a passage from the Secret Gospel of Mark, a highly contentious and disputed document said to have been written by Clement of Alexandria that Professor Robert Morton claimed to have discovered in 1958.
Mark Sources
When asked, Brown wrote in Yummy Fur #15 that he had a large number of sources for his adaptation of Mark. The most books he referred to most frequently were:[11]
- Green, Jay P., Sr. (editor), The Pocket Interlinear New Testament, Baker Book House (1979)
- The New International Version of the Bible
- The King James Version of the Bible
- Gaus, A. (translator), The Unvarnished Gospels, Threshold Books (1988), ISBN 978-0-939660-25-4
- Nineham, D.E., Saint Mark: The Pelican New Testament Commentaries The Gospel of St. Mark, Pelican (1972)
- Laymon, Charles M. (editor), The Interpreter's One-Volume Commentary on the Bible, Abingdon Press (1971)
- Smith, Morton, The Secret Gospel, Dawn Horse Press (1973), about the Secret Gospel of Mark
- Smith, Morton, Jesus the Magician: Charlatan or Son of God?, Harper & Row (1978)
The Gospel of Matthew
Appearances of The Gospel of Matthew Issue Date Gospel of Matthew Yummy Fur #15 March 1989 Matthew 1:1-2:13 Yummy Fur #16 June 1989 Matthew 2:14-2:23 Yummy Fur #17 August 1989 Matthew 3:1-4:17 Yummy Fur #19 January 1990 Matthew 4:18-4:22 Yummy Fur #20 April 1990 Matthew 4:23-5:10 Yummy Fur #21 June 1990 Matthew 5:11-7:27 Yummy Fur #22 September 1990 Matthew 7:28-8:17 Yummy Fur #24 April 1990 Matthew 8:18-8:27 Yummy Fur #25 July 1991 Matthew 8:28-9:14 Yummy Fur #26 October 1991 Matthew 9:14-9:17 Yummy Fur #27 January 1992 Matthew 9:20 Yummy Fur #29 August 1992 Matthew 9:18-9:30 Yummy Fur #31 September 1993 Matthew 9:31-10:42 Yummy Fur #32
entire issueJanuary 1994 Matthew 11:2-12:45,14:2-14:12 Underwater # 2 December 1994 Matthew 12:46-13:58 Underwater # 3 May 1995 Matthew 14:1-2,12-23 Underwater # 4 September 1995 Matthew 14:24-31 Underwater # 5 February 1996 Matthew 14:32-15:28 Underwater # 6 May 1996 Matthew 15:29-16:12 Underwater # 7 August 1996 Matthew 16:13-17:9 Underwater # 8 December 1996 Matthew 17:10-27 Underwater # 9 April 1997 Matthew 18:1-19:1 Underwater #10 June 1997 Matthew 19:1-20:2 Underwater #11 October 1997 Matthew 20:1-29 The Gospel of Matthew started in issue #15 of Yummy Fur in 1989 and continued through to the premature end of Underwater in 1997. As of 2011, it has yet to be finished.
Brown's gospels gained a reputation for being "ingeniously blasphemous" mainly from his Matthew retellings. In contrast to Mark's Jesus, who is "serene and always in control," in Matthew he is a scowling, balding figure, and "there is a more radicalized disbelief and a greater focus on the fleshy and earthly aspects of the story."[12] Brown's depiction of the Matthew's version of the Saviour is "a Jesus that shouts. He's a Jesus that screams," his face "haggard and worn, his dark hair matted and stringy."[4]
The disciples are depicted as awkward, fearful and full of doubt, who are "barely able to reconcile the greatness of God with the miseries of their existence."[4]
As Brown has pointed out, starting with the full-issue installment of Matthew in Yummy Fur #32, he deliberately changed Jesus' third-person references to himself to first-person references in the dialogue.[13]
Matthew sources
Amongst the books Brown cited for his Matthew adaptation are:
- Shaberg, Jane. The Illegitimacy of Jesus: A Feminist Theological Interpretation of the Infancy Narratives. Harper & Row (1987)[11]
- Maccoby, Hyam. The Mythmaker: Paul and the Invention of Christianity. Harper & Row (1986)[13]
- Barnstone, Willis (editor). The Other Bible: Jewish Pseudepigrapha, Christian Apocrypha, Gnostic Scriptures, Kabbalah, Dead Sea Scrolls. Harper & Row (1984)[13]
- Schonfield, Hugh. The Original New Testament. Harper & Row (1985)[14]
Unfinished state
Matthew has been on hiatus since 1997, with the story left with Jesus about to enter Jerusalem. Brown had long said he planned on coming back to the story, but in an interview at The Comics Journal in 2011, he said he would not likely finish it, as his heart was no longer in it.[3]
Reception
The Gospel adaptations have generally been well-accepted by fans and critics. John Bell calls them Brown's most important uncollected work.[15]
To Francis Hwang of City Pages, "the paradox of faith is brilliantly, heartbreakingly depicted"[4] in the Gospel of Matthew.
Relation to Brown's other work
Religious and biblical elements have found their way into almost all of Brown's work:
- "The Twin", a story of young Jesus adapted from a story from the Gnostic text Pistis Sophia, which appears in The Little Man[16]
- Various religious imagery in Ed the Happy Clown, especially Jesus' quote, "If thy hand offend thee cut it off", and the character Chet's religious remorse over having sex with Josie the vampire that leads to him murdering her
- his thinking about buying an issue of Playboy while sitting in church that opens The Playboy
- his battles with his mother over wearing his Sunday clothes in I Never Liked You
- Louis Riel's talking with God in the graphic novel of the same name.
See also
- Alternative comics
- The Book of Genesis by Robert Crumb
- Unfinished work
References
Notes
- ^ Wolk, Douglas (2004-02-18). "On a Mission from God". City Pages. http://www.citypages.com/2004-02-18/books/on-a-mission-from-god/. Retrieved 2011-04-26.
- ^ a b Juno, pg 143
- ^ a b Rogers, part 3
- ^ a b c d Hwang, Francis (1998-21-23). "Graven Images". City Pages. http://www.citypages.com/1998-12-23/feature/graven-images/. Retrieved 2011-04-26.
- ^ Seth Interviews Chester Brown, hosted at sequential.spiltink.org. retrieved 2011-05-15
- ^ Walker, Benjamin (2011-05-17) (Audio). The Difference Between Giving and Taking (a conversation with Chester Brown). Interview. http://soundcloud.com/bwalker/the-difference-between-giving. Retrieved 2011-05-23.
- ^ Epp, Darell (2002-01-29). "Two-Handed Man interviews cartoonist Chester Brown". twohandedman.com. http://replay.web.archive.org/20080509104034/http://www.twohandedman.com/Interviews/Chester/Index.html. Retrieved 2011-04-23.
- ^ Underwater #7. pages 26-27
- ^ The indicia for this issue doesn't state the month
- ^ Ng Sat Tong (July 2004). "Old Wine in New Wineskins: The Gospel According to Chester Brown". The Comics Journal (Fantagraphics Books) (261): 31–37. http://hoodedutilitarian.com/2010/03/old-wine-in-new-wineskins-the-gospel-according-to-chester-brown/. Retrieved 2011-04-07. "Brown's Mark does not read like the work of someone who is challenging received wisdom but an exercise in illustration."
- ^ a b Yummy Fur #15, page 24
- ^ Ng Sat Tong (July 2004). "Old Wine in New Wineskins: The Gospel According to Chester Brown". The Comics Journal (Fantagraphics Books) (261): 31–37. http://hoodedutilitarian.com/2010/03/old-wine-in-new-wineskins-the-gospel-according-to-chester-brown/. Retrieved 2011-04-07hosted at The Hooded Utilitarian
NB: the online version is slightly different from the print version — most notably, the 2004 article includes an image from Robert Crumb's Book of Genesis, which wasn't published until 2009 - ^ a b c Underwater #7. page 26
- ^ Underwater #9. page 26
- ^ Bell, page 160
- ^ The Little Man, page 163
References
- Brown, Chester. Yummy Fur #15. Vortex Comics, March 1989
- Brown, Chester. Underwater #7. Drawn and Quarterly, August 1996
- Brown, Chester. Underwater #9. Drawn and Quarterly, April 1997
- Juno, Andrea. Dangerous Drawings. Interview with Chester Brown. Juno Books, LLC (1997). pp 130 – 147. ISBN 0-9651042-8-1
- Brown, Chester. The Little Man: Short Stories 1980-1995. Drawn and Quarterly, 1998. ISBN 1-896597-13-0
- Bell, John. "Invaders from the North: how Canada conquered the comic book universe". Dundurn Press, Ltd., 2006. ISBN 978-1-550-02659-7
- Rogers, Sean. A John’s Gospel: The Chester Brown Interview part 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8. The Comics Journal. 2011-05-09. retrieved 2011-05-17
Chester Brown Major stories and periods Collected works Ed the Happy Clown: a Yummy Fur Book · Ed the Happy Clown: the Definitive Ed Book · The Playboy · I Never Liked You · The Little Man · I Never Liked You: the New Definitive Edition · Louis Riel · Paying For ItSeries Other comics contributed to Publishers Vortex Comics · Drawn and QuarterlyRelated people Categories:- 1987 in comics
- Christian comics
- Comics based on
- Comics by Chester Brown
- Canadian comics
- Biblical comics
- Unfinished comics
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.
