Saturated Street Scenes - Hershey, Pennsylvania

Behind the Scenes of a Clip Art Comic Strip

The process is a two-person operation. I, Dave, pick a topic and have Jesus and either Ann, Lisa, Carl, Kevin or Satan, talk about it. Then I hit Katie on a chat window and ask her to come and approve it. (She works in the back of the building, looking out over the canal, while my stand-up desk in the front has a street view. We stopped working in the same area a few months back as being on the phone in the same room can be very distracting.) It's about 50/50 as to which comics get approved. If she laughs out loud, up they go. If she makes a face that says, "Hmmmm, I don't know," then they get refined. If she walks away in disgust, I pursue her, asking indignantly, "WHAT?" That's pretty much how it works here in the comic studios of RFB.

Now I know that putting words in the mouth of Jesus, even a clip art Jesus, will give some devout people pause, and there was a time in my life when I might've found the notion a touch on the sacrilegious side, but only a touch, and only for a very brief period in my life when I thought I had a good handle on what was "godly" and what was not. (People who are super-sure of their righteousness are anything but righteous, I've come to believe. Spiritual pride is the most deceptive of all the prides.) But there are some people who find a clip art Jesus saying anything other than the words he spoke in the New Testament to be an affront that they must correct. One email that took me to task for "using the Lord's name in vain" (with a long and twisted explanation of what "vanity" really is) signed off with a line that suggested that the writer had done his duty to God by letting me know where I was in error.

The negative comments on the comics are far outweighed by the positive ones, but the sincerity, passion - and in some cases, vitriol - of the negative ones makes me think I might have really pissed some people off. The comic is called "Coffee with Jesus," not "Thus Saith the Lord," and I think most people understand that they are only comics, though occasionally they might be teaching tools, perhaps even a small soapbox. There is truth in all humor, or so the saying goes.

Without the Internet this comic would've never caught on, of course. The potential to reach millions is there, and that's really cool. Another beauty (or curse) of the Internet is that we can all fire off our opinions quickly and easily about everything. Don't like it? Let the person know! Right now! While your passion is hot! Bang that keyboard and give them a piece of your mind! It's a two-way street. If you had to write me a letter, in longhand, and put it in an envelope, then spend money on a stamp and put it in the mailbox, I'd never hear from you. But now...so easy. Another curse (or beauty) of the Internet is that you can do a "who is" search on a domain name and find out who registered it, what their phone number is and where they live. So I just rented a post office box and changed the contact info on all our websites. The email and phone number are still there, and that's fine, but I will rest easier knowing my family won't ever get to meet a person so stirred to anger by a clip art Jesus that they felt the need to confront the author. (I considered purchasing privacy protection for all our websites, but at ten bucks a pop and a growing list of domain names, the post office box was cheaper.)

People are passionate about their gods, some to a scary degree. I have a hard time not responding to the angry people on Facebook, and Katie says "Let the community police itself." She's right. If I let the negative comments sit there and not jump on to debate them, other readers will quickly take control. It's cool to know that people are getting it. One gentleman from North Carolina got in touch and offered to try to get the comic distributed in some independent weekly papers; you know the kind - left of center and a bit edgy - usually free. We took him up on his offer after speaking with him by phone. We'll see what happens. Meanwhile, as I type this, I can hear the server that hosts our main site restarting itself every ten minutes, which I assume is due to increased traffic arriving there from Facebook.

You know how giant ministries (we won't name names) are really mega-money-making corporations disguised as ministries, jealously coveting that tax exempt status? Radio Free Babylon has always taken the opposite approach. We intend to someday be a mega-money-making ministry disguised as a corporation, gladly handing over to Caesar the things that are Caesar's.