"The Trumpets They Play!" is an 8-page comic by Al Columbia. A cartoon interpretation of the Book of Revelation featuring his recurring characters Seymour Sunshine and Knishkebibble the Monkey-Boy, it was published in BLAB! #10 in 1998. Its artwork took Columbia six months to complete. The title was taken from a song by his former roommate and Action Suits bandmate Andy Schmidt. [1]
After a title card introducing the upcoming feature as "Seymour Sunshine and Knishkebibble the Monkey-Boy's Big Budget Fiasco", the story begins with a televangelist reading aloud passages from the Book of Revelation describing the seven seals and seven trumpets, accompanied by topical illustrations. The preacher's broadcast is interrupted by a newsflash on the impending end of the millennium. The panel view gradually zooms out slowly from the TV screen to the interior of a high-rise apartment, then out of a window to reveal a panorama of debauchery and random violence. In the background, the meteorite Wormwood flies across the sky.
Meanwhile, Knishkebibble is shown in another apartment reading the Book of Revelation. He decides to take a bath to ward off "pre-millennium jitters". While he is drawing his bath the meteorite strikes the earth, causing all the faucets to spew inky black liquid. He runs out of the bathroom and awakens his sleeping companion, Seymour. They answer a knock at the door and are confronted by a pair of giant, armored locusts. Escaping the apartment, they scramble across rooftops, leap into a conveniently placed roadster, and drive away in haste.
The city is being ravaged by a massive earthquake and an army of grinning creatures carrying long knives. As Seymour and Knishkebibble speed out of the collapsing metropolis, a colossal seven-headed Beast looms in the distance. An army marching under the Beast's flag captures the pair; Knishkebibble kisses the boots of an officer and denounces Seymour, who is dragged away. The Beast is shown seated on a throne towering over a Nuremberg-style rally of men giving the Nazi salute; Knishkebibble and the televangelist are among the throng. In the Beast's hand, a pocketwatch labeled "Years of the Christian Era" approaches 2000. On the outskirts of the city, where mass executions by gun and guillotine are underway, Seymour sits with his limbs tied up and a lit stick of dynamite balanced on his head.
In the final page – the only one in full color – Seymour is shown in a white dress suit and hat, frolicking in a bucolic but strangely empty paradise.
"The Trumpets They Play!" has been cited by critics as an outstanding work, both within Columbia's own output and within the comics medium generally. [2] [3] In a 2002 essay on Columbia, Paul Gravett called it his "most alarming output yet [...] a cartoon apocalypse, a black and white Fleischer Brothers animated film as designed by Hieronymus Bosch." [4] The 2011 book 1001 Comics You Must Read Before You Die listed it at position number 86, and Paste magazine included it in a 2015 article on the seven best Bible-inspired comics. [5] It was included on the syllabus of a 2008 literature course on "The Imagination of Disaster" at Duke University. [6]
According to the Book of Revelation in the New Testament of the Christian Bible, Armageddon is the prophesied location of a gathering of armies for a battle during the end times, which is variously interpreted as either a literal or a symbolic location. The term is also used in a generic sense to refer to any end of the world scenario. In Islamic theology, Armageddon is also mentioned in Hadith as the Greatest Armageddon or Al-Malhama Al-Kubra.
The Book of Revelation is the final book of the New Testament. Its title is derived from the first word of the Koine Greek text: apokalypsis, meaning "unveiling" or "revelation". The Book of Revelation is the only apocalyptic book in the New Testament canon. It occupies a central place in Christian eschatology.
Christian eschatology, a major branch of study within Christian theology, deals with "last things". Such eschatology – the word derives from two Greek roots meaning "last" (ἔσχατος) and "study" (-λογία) – involves the study of "end things", whether of the end of an individual life, of the end of the age, of the end of the world, or of the nature of the Kingdom of God. Broadly speaking, Christian eschatology focuses on the ultimate destiny of individual souls and of the entire created order, based primarily upon biblical texts within the Old and New Testaments.
Jack Ralph Cole was an American cartoonist best known for creating the comedic superhero Plastic Man, and his cartoons for Playboy magazine.
Comics is a medium used to express ideas with images, often combined with text or other visual information. It typically takes the form of a sequence of panels of images. Textual devices such as speech balloons, captions, and onomatopoeia can indicate dialogue, narration, sound effects, or other information. There is no consensus amongst theorists and historians on a definition of comics; some emphasize the combination of images and text, some sequentiality or other image relations, and others historical aspects such as mass reproduction or the use of recurring characters. Cartooning and other forms of illustration are the most common image-making means in comics; fumetti is a form that uses photographic images. Common forms include comic strips, editorial and gag cartoons, and comic books. Since the late 20th century, bound volumes such as graphic novels, comic albums, and tankōbon have become increasingly common, while online webcomics have proliferated in the 21st century.
Babylon the Great, commonly known as the Whore of Babylon, refers to both a symbolic female figure and place of evil mentioned in the Book of Revelation in the Bible. Her full title is stated in Revelation 17 as "Mystery, Babylon the Great, the Mother of Prostitutes and Abominations of the Earth". Revelation 17 identifies the woman as a representation of "the great city which reigneth over the kings of the earth".
Kim Deitch is an American cartoonist who was an important figure in the underground comix movement of the 1960s, remaining active in the decades that followed with a variety of books and comics, sometimes using the pseudonym Fowlton Means.
Al Columbia is an American artist known for his horror and black humor-themed alternative comics. His published works include the comic book series The Biologic Show, the graphic novel/art book Pim & Francie: The Golden Bear Days, and short stories such as "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool" and "The Trumpets They Play!". He also works in other media including painting, illustration, printmaking, photography, music, and film.
The events of Revelation are the events that occur in the Book of Revelation of the New Testament. An outline follows below, chapter by chapter.
The Seventh-day Adventist Church holds a unique system of eschatological beliefs. Adventist eschatology, which is based on a historicist interpretation of prophecy, is characterised principally by the premillennial Second Coming of Christ. Traditionally, the church has taught that the Second Coming will be preceded by a global crisis with the Sabbath as a central issue. At Jesus' return, the righteous will be taken to heaven for one thousand years. After the millennium the unsaved cease to exist as they will be punished by annihilation while the saved will live on a recreated Earth for eternity.
The Seven Seals of God from the Bible's Book of Revelation are the seven symbolic seals that secure the book or scroll that John of Patmos saw in an apocalyptic vision. The opening of the seals of the document occurs in Rev Ch 5–8 and marks the Second Coming of the Christ and the beginning of The Apocalypse/Revelation. Upon the Lamb of God/Lion of Judah opening a seal on the cover of the book/scroll, a judgment is released or an apocalyptic event occurs. The opening of the first four Seals releases the Four Horsemen, each with his own specific mission. The opening of the fifth Seal releases the cries of martyrs for the "Word/Wrath of God". The sixth Seal prompts plagues, storms and other cataclysmic events. The seventh Seal cues seven angelic trumpeters who in turn cue the seven bowl judgments and more cataclysmic events.
The Beast may refer to one of two beasts described in the Book of Revelation.
The Biologic Show is a comic book series written and drawn by Al Columbia. The first issue, #0, was released in October 1994 by Fantagraphics Books, and a second issue, #1, was released the following January. A third issue (#2) was announced in the pages of other Fantagraphics publications and solicited in Previews but was never published. "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool", a color short story with a markedly different art style originally intended for issue #2, appeared instead in the anthology Zero Zero. In a 2010 interview, Columbia recalled that the unfinished issue "looked so different that it just didn’t look right, it didn’t look consistent, and it didn’t feel right to keep putting out that same comic book, to try to tell a story where the style is mutating." The series' title is taken from a passage in the William S. Burroughs book Exterminator!. The passage in question is quoted briefly in a story from issue #0, itself also titled "The Biologic Show".
"I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool" is an 8-page comic by Al Columbia that appeared in the fourth issue of the comics anthology Zero Zero. It was originally created for the never-published third issue (#2) of Columbia's comic book series The Biologic Show. Its title alludes to the 1981 song "I Was Country When Country Wasn't Cool".
"Amnesia" is an 8-page comic by Al Columbia. It was published in the twentieth issue of Zero Zero. Columbia originally created the artwork for a slideshow in a Tales from the Crypt CD-ROM video game being developed by Inscape but turned it into a comic when the game was cancelled.
Punch Trunk is a 1953 Warner Bros. Looney Tunes cartoon written by Mike Maltese and directed by Chuck Jones. The short was released on December 19, 1953.
The seven bowls are a set of plagues mentioned in Revelation 16. They are recorded as apocalyptic events that were seen in the vision of the Revelation of Jesus Christ, by John of Patmos. Seven angels are given seven bowls of God's wrath, each consisting of judgements full of the wrath of God. These seven bowls of God's wrath are poured out on the wicked and the followers of the Antichrist after the sounding of the seven trumpets.
Revelation 15 is the fifteenth chapter of the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse of John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle, but the precise identity of the author remains a point of academic debate. This chapter includes the hymn of Moses and the Lamb and introduces the seven angels who appear with seven plagues.
Revelation 17 is the seventeenth chapter of the Book of Revelation or the Apocalypse to John in the New Testament of the Christian Bible. The book is traditionally attributed to John the Apostle, but the precise identity of the author remains a point of academic debate. This chapter describes the judgment of the Whore of Babylon.
Amnesia: The Lost Films of Francis D. Longfellow Supplementary Newsletter No. 1 is a 2018 comic book by Al Columbia. Printed in an oversize 11" x 13" format, it is a 24-page collection of posters allegedly created for animated cartoons by the (fictional) titular director/producer and his company, Podsnap Studios. Some of the "lost films" feature Columbia's recurring protagonists Seymour Sunshine and Knishkebibble the Monkey-Boy, who are depicted here as cartoon characters performed by voice actors. The posters also contain references to earlier Columbia stories such as "The Trumpets They Play!" and "I Was Killing When Killing Wasn't Cool", presenting them as Longfellow's creations and tying them into Amnesia's fictional universe.