Chester Brown's Gospel adaptations

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Brown's depiction of Jesus in the Gospels of Mark (left) and Matthew (right) ChesterBrownMarkAndMatthew.jpg
Brown's depiction of Jesus in the Gospels of Mark (left) and Matthew (right)

Chester Brown adapted Gospel of Mark and part of the Gospel of Matthew to comics; installments appeared in his comic books Yummy Fur and Underwater . Brown ran the first installment of the Gospel of Mark in Yummy Fur #4 in 1987, and left Matthew unfinished after cancelling Underwater in 1997. Brown had planned to do all four of the canonical gospels, [1] but in 2011 stated that it is unlikely he will finish even Matthew. [2]

Contents

Background

Brown's beliefs

Brown was brought up in a strictly Christian Baptist [1] household. [3] Over his career, he has gone back and forth between belief and non-belief in Christianity. [4] [5]

Brown took on his retelling of the Gospels to try to figure out what he really believed. [6]

Gospel of Mark

Gospel of Mark
IssueDatePassages [7]
Yummy Fur # 4April 1987 Mark 1:01-39
Yummy Fur # 5June 1987 Mark 1:40–3:12
Yummy Fur # 6August 1987 Mark 3:13–4:14
Yummy Fur # 71987 [8] Mark 5:1–6:6
Yummy Fur # 8November 1987 Mark 6:6–7:23
Yummy Fur # 9March 1988 Mark 7:24–8:21
Yummy Fur #10May 1988 Mark 8:22–9:13
Yummy Fur #11July 1988 Mark 9:14–10:34
Yummy Fur #12September 1988 Mark 10:35–12:27
Yummy Fur #13November 1988 Mark 12:28–14:52
Yummy Fur #14January 1989 Mark 14:53–16:20

Brown began his adaptation of the Gospel of Mark in issue #4 of Yummy Fur in 1987. It ran alongside his surreal, taboo-breaking Ed the Happy Clown serial, which led readers to expect a similar treat of the Gospel; [9] instead, he provided a straight adaptation, [9] [10] running to issue #14 of Yummy Fur. Brown lays out the story at six equal panels per page, each panel illustrating one verse of the Gospel of Mark. [9] On the final page of the final installment, Brown stops illustrating the story after Mark 16:8 , where the myrrhbearers flee Jesus's empty tomb. The final four panels are of an unnamed old man reciting the final verses against a black background. [11] These four panels are of what scholars believe is an extended ending to Mark's Gospel. [12]

The adaptation became more idiosyncratic as it developed: 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 Morton Smith claimed to have discovered in 1958.

Mark sources

Brown stated he had a large number of sources for his adaptation of Mark. The books he referred to most frequently were: [13]

Gospel of Matthew

Gospel of Matthew
IssueDatePassages
Yummy Fur #15March 1989 Matthew 1:1–2:13
Yummy Fur #16June 1989 Matthew 2:14–2:23
Yummy Fur #17August 1989 Matthew 3:1–4:17
Yummy Fur #19January 1990 Matthew 4:18–4:22
Yummy Fur #20April 1990 Matthew 4:23–5:10
Yummy Fur #21June 1990 Matthew 5:11–7:27
Yummy Fur #22September 1990 Matthew 7:28–8:17
Yummy Fur #24April 1990 Matthew 8:18–8:27
Yummy Fur #25July 1991 Matthew 8:28–9:14
Yummy Fur #26October 1991 Matthew 9:14–9:17
Yummy Fur #27January 1992 Matthew 9:20
Yummy Fur #29August 1992 Matthew 9:18–9:30
Yummy Fur #31September 1993 Matthew 9:31–10:42
Yummy Fur #32
entire issue
January 1994 Matthew 11:2–12:45,14:2-14:12
Underwater # 2December 1994 Matthew 12:46–13:58
Underwater # 3May 1995 Matthew 14:1–2,12-23
Underwater # 4September 1995 Matthew 14:24–31
Underwater # 5February 1996 Matthew 14:32–15:28
Underwater # 6May 1996 Matthew 15:29–16:12
Underwater # 7August 1996 Matthew 16:13–17:9
Underwater # 8December 1996 Matthew 17:10–27
Underwater # 9April 1997 Matthew 18:1–19:1
Underwater #10June 1997 Matthew 19:1–20:2
Underwater #11October 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." [14] 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". [3]

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". [3]

As Brown has pointed out, starting with the full-issue installment of Matthew in Yummy Fur #32, he deliberately changed Jesus's third-person references to himself to first-person references in the dialogue. [15]

Matthew sources

Amongst the books Brown cited for his Matthew adaptation are:

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. [2] He stated they were "poorly done". [11]

Reception

The Gospel adaptations have generally been well-accepted by fans and critics. John Bell calls them Brown's most important uncollected work. [17]

To Francis Hwang of City Pages , "the paradox of faith is brilliantly, heartbreakingly depicted" in the Gospel of Matthew. [3]

Relation to Brown's other work

Religious and biblical elements have found their way into almost all of Brown's work:

See also

Related Research Articles

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The Gospel of Mark is the second of the four canonical gospels and of the three synoptic Gospels. It tells of the ministry of Jesus from his baptism by John the Baptist to his death, burial, and the discovery of his empty tomb. There is no miraculous birth or doctrine of divine pre-existence, nor, in the original ending, any post-resurrection appearances of Jesus. It portrays Jesus as a teacher, an exorcist, a healer, and a miracle worker. He refers to himself as the Son of Man. He is called the Son of God, but keeps his messianic nature secret; even his disciples fail to understand him. All this is in keeping with Christian interpretation of prophecy, which is believed to foretell the fate of the messiah as suffering servant. The gospel ends, in its original version, with the discovery of the empty tomb, a promise to meet again in Galilee, and an unheeded instruction to spread the good news of the Resurrection of Jesus.

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<i>Ed the Happy Clown</i> Graphic novel by Canadian cartoonist Chester Brown

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<i>Underwater</i> (comics)

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<i>Mary Wept over the Feet of Jesus</i>

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References

  1. 1 2 Juno, pg 143
  2. 1 2 Rogers, part 3
  3. 1 2 3 4 Hwang, Francis (1998-12-23). "Graven Images". City Pages. Archived from the original on 2012-10-04. Retrieved 2011-04-26.
  4. Seth Interviews Chester Brown, hosted at sequential.spiltink.org. Retrieved 2011-05-15.
  5. Walker, Benjamin; Chester Brown (2011-05-17). "The Difference Between Giving and Taking (a conversation with Chester Brown)" (Interview: Audio). Retrieved 2011-05-23.
  6. Epp, Darell (2002-01-29). "Two-Handed Man interviews cartoonist Chester Brown". twohandedman.com. Archived from the original on May 9, 2008. Retrieved 2011-04-23.
  7. Underwater #7. pages 26–27
  8. The indicia for this issue doesn't state the month
  9. 1 2 3 Coody 2018, p. 107.
  10. Ng Sat Tong (31 March 2010). "Old Wine in New Wineskins: The Gospel According to Chester Brown". The Hooded Utilitarian. 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.
  11. 1 2 Coody 2018, p. 108.
  12. Coody 2018, pp. 109–110.
  13. 1 2 Yummy Fur #15, page 24
  14. Ng Sat Tong (31 March 2010). "Old Wine in New Wineskins: The Gospel According to Chester Brown". The Hooded Utilitarian. Retrieved 2011-04-07.
    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
  15. 1 2 3 Underwater #7. page 26
  16. Underwater #9. page 26
  17. Bell, page 160
  18. The Little Man, page 163

Works cited