Sunday, July 2nd, 2006
Jack Chick Does Tokyo
The fine folks at Sadly, No! have done it again. It seems that the naughty tentacles of the species Fundigelicalis talibani Christii (F. talibani Christii) are poking their way into the not-so-virginal hole of manga.
The result? Serenity: New Bad Girl in Town. Think of it as Souped-up Chick Tracts on Crack. Even the most fair and reasonable reviews I could find complained about the simplicity of the plot, the thinness of the characterization, and even the disappointing crudity of the artwork - apparently, the artist is capable of drawing much better than the effort demonstrated in this series. Check out some sample pages from Volume 1 to see what I mean. Then realize that there are five volumes of this drek currently available, with a promise of more to come.
Put more eloquently than I by S,N! commenter Christopher:
Oh, hey, Elendil gave us a preview, I think I’ll just take a look inside and JESUS CHRIST MY EYES! That is the BIGGEST difference between cover and interior art quality I have ever seen. Seriously, somebody should sue them for false advertising. I mean, you buy what looks like a competant Amerimanga and you open it up and it looks like the illustrations from an airplane safety card. Pastor Calvin especially looks like he’s going to pull down his mask and place over his face before helping any other passengers who may need assistance.
And, Vishnu’s blood, is that an endorsement from Stan “The Man” Lee? Jesus, I hope he was just talking about the script, because the art is just inexcusable.
Frankly, the script’s not much better. I keep hoping a Christian will write a nice Christian story about helping people, but there’s an unrepentant atheist who’s still a nice guy and a good Hindu family. But all I get is prettied up Chick tracts. Bleagh, Bleagh I say!
The only thing this series has going for it is that at least the Modern-Day Pharisees Christians here show some semblance of fallibility, unlike Chick’s Godlike (sorry) "Christians." The characters in Serenity are a bit closer to Marguerite "Christian Mommy" Perrin than to a certain Nazerene carpenter.
Stinger:
I think I’ll just take a look inside and JESUS CHRIST MY EYES!
