I am a Catholic cartoonist. I read as many Catholic comics as I can. I love the fact that they exist, but they usually sort out into a few camps: 1. The ones that work well as serious comics, 2. The ones that read like textbooks, 3. The ones that push humor so hard that they're borderline blasphemy.
The Catholic Cartoon is different from all of these.
The Catholic Cartoon is about a priest name Fr. Otto and his parish. Though made in the present day, the comic appears to sire from the 1940s- 1960s. The comic gives one the sense that it is something that could have existed in America during that time period, had American culture not been so secular. The humor is reminiscent of Peanuts and Family Circus, mixed with a vision of children playing "ring around the rosey" at a church picnic.
The Catholic Cartoon is a document of the spirit of a world. A world that exists within a parish where the parishioners are trying their best to show Christ that they love him by keeping his commandments (John 14: 15-31). This is a world for which people would clamor, if they only knew how much happiness it provides.
The Catholic Cartoon is not the Catholic comic I would make. It's the comic that everyone needed but no one knew it.
When prelates stamp their feet and call faithful Catholics "rigid, bitter neopelagians," Fr. Otto and his parishioners are the type people they're talking about. But, through this comic, the reader sees the truth. The truth that, if you actually knew faithful Catholics like Fr. Otto, et al., you'd see that they are not like this at all.
The Catholic Cartoon kills with kindness. It is the smile of the faithful before they are persecuted. It is their continued joy under persecution. It is their joy when, despite persecution, they can, finally, be around other Faith Catholics. It is the representation of the Catholic world that used to exist, and still exists in small pockets.
Joshua Masterson has captured this world for us. And, for that, we owe him a hats off.
-George Tautkus
The Catholic Cartoon Collection No. 1 is available for purchase here.
Comments
Post a Comment