The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 1926: The Crusaders #5, 1975

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Today's featured artist is Fred Carter, who, according to the few bits of writing about him I can find was an illustrator for Chick Publications in from the 70s until at least 2001. The article above that talks about a new series of Chick Tracts redone with all black characters refers to Carter as a "black pastor" and "one of the world's best illustrators," and I have to agree that Mr. Carter is a really gifted artist, and brings that gift to his visions of suffering and redemption.

I have to say, up front, as I did in my last review of a Crusaders issue, that I find the overall message of this comic, and of Chick in general, to be absolutely disgusting. It's the worst kind of Christianity, and flies in the face, as I understand it, of what being a Christian person means.

That said, this comic offers a really lovely way of articulating how we can appreciate a piece of art while wholly disagreeing with the overall intention (stated, in this case) of the work and artist themselves.

First, it's surprisingly racially sensitive. One of the core teachings stated in the comic is that of racial equality. Of the two main characters in The Crusaders, one is a black man. However, the story does hinge on the guys helping to convert a Jewish man in Israel to Christianity. And the Holy Land is supposed to get invaded by an army of evil Asian people. So let's perhaps take that racial equality with a grain of salt. It's racial equality if all races decide to follow Christianity.

Second, Carter uses some amazing visuals to represent Heaven, even using contemporaneous deep space nebula pictures to offer a way of visualizing the Gates of Heaven. I've talked a little about this before when I wrote a piece for Sequart that explores the relationship between Christianity and comic books. In that piece, I talked about how Mike and Laura Allred's adaptation of The Book of Mormon adds visual metaphor to written text, offering another layer of teaching and interpretation. Carter's use here of an interstellar photograph to illustrate the Gates of Heaven is a clever updating of a difficult idea.

Third, and I noted this last time, Carter draws one fine-looking male physique. Both Tim and James are, to be blunt, hot. Perhaps working this devoutly for God confers special attractiveness powers? I am, of course, always wary of comics that are explicitly, as this one is, homophobic, yet contain some extraordinarily homoerotic illustrations. That said, Mr. Carter lavishes this kind of detail on all of his characters - but Tim and James get some special treatment.

So, a few things to pull out and consider. I think the addition of metaphoric pictorial representation is the most important thing comics can bring to spiritual texts - we are overwhelmingly visual creatures, so using pictures to elucidate some of our oldest metaphysical mysteries just seems smart.

But just to be clear, this comic was put together, and believed in, by some very wrong-headed individuals.

More to follow.

Further Reading and Related Links

Despite being firmly agnostic about just about every spiritual tradition, I tend to think a lot about religion because it impacts every facet of life in the world, despite our protestations of the separation of Church and State, and not always in such great ways. Here's some thoughts I've had.

The 40 Years of Comics Project - Day 335: The Crusaders #2, 1974

What does one even say about such misguided and unpleasant vitriol?

If you're an old-time collector, you know who Jack Chick is. His tracts are infamous, especially amongst those of us who played Dungeons & Dragons in the 80s. I did in fact live through that era in which D&D was banned from schools because they were worried we were going to go crazy like young Tom Hanks (look it up).

I discovered Chick's Crusaders series a couple of years ago when researching Christian comics for a Sequart article. As you might well imagine, they're unpleasant and evangelical, and I really can't imagine them converting anyone to anything except maybe to being against really bad writing. They're optimistic in their expectations, though. There's even a little check box on the inside cover where you can check either "Yes" or "No" to the question "Did you accept Jesus Christ as your own personal saviour?"

I will say this for The Crusaders: the art is gorgeous. Fred Carter's work is beautiful, and, though he likely would be a little horrified at the assessment, quite erotic. His depictions of the two "Crusaders" in the comic are right out of a superhero comic, all muscles and bulges, and one shirtless depiction of "Jim" looks like it's straight (pun intended) out of a Howard Cruse comic.

While the message of the comic, and of Chick's publications in general, is hateful and venomous, comics like this offer a look at the some of the far reaches of the medium. We think of the quality of art as defining whether something is mainstream or independent a lot of the time, but quality of narrative, or subject matter of narrative, is also an indicator. It's unlikely you'll ever see a Chick comic (or an evangelically-inflected comic in general) at a comic store, even at one that carries undergrounds and indies. It's interesting that these comics, by dint of their subject matter, are excluded from the mainstream.

Before finishing, in brief: Tim and Jim, "The Crusaders," journey to a small town where Satanism is taking over. They convert a young lady who is subsequently kidnapped, and the two rescue her and cause the Satanists to vomit with their God-power. There's also a strange moment where the Satanists kidnap a little boy's dog, and Jim gives the boy money to buy another puppy. We see the original dog only briefly again, going under the knife.

Phew. Back to superheroes tomorrow, perhaps?