Comics + born again Christians + a Baldwin brother = TOTAL BITCHIN’ FUN!:
THE USUAL SUSPECTS star STEPHEN BALDWIN is launching a series of graphic novels to help his spread the word of Christianity to teenagers.
The born-again Christian is the brains behind the SPIRIT WARRIOR series of comics, which follows the fortunes of a group of God-loving skateboarders.
He explains, “There’s really not a lot of stuff out there in the media or in products that are available to kids that represent the Christian thing that’s relevant.
“There’s nothing that’s hardcore and fun that can really compete with a lot of stuff that’s similar. If you go to a bookstore to their graphic novel section if you look at the Christian stuff it’s pretty dorky and cheesy stuff.
It’s not as hip and edgy and cool.
“Spirit Warriors is the story of six or seven kids that are out there; they’re gnarly skateboarders that are edgy kids who are living out their faith in Jesus Christ.
“It’s all about how they’re battling the supernatural and the spirit realm each and every day between the forces of good and evil and darkness and light..”
I bought the first volume of Spirit Warriors out of curiosity and because I’m trying to build a popular materials library in my husband’s congregation (yes, he’s a Lutheran pastor, go figure). I heard some negative comments about the art from a few librarians, but it actually looks pretty good to me. Definitely not your usual Sunday School type material. So many Christians (including quite a few members of our church) distrust comics as a reading format; one pastor I know called them “the work of the Devil.” I’m trying to combat that attitude with Baldwin’s book and some others such as Marked by Steve Ross and Robert Luedtke’s books. We’ll see if I’m successful.
But yeah, Spirit Warriors is fun for me to read.
“they’re gnarly skateboarders that are edgy kids”
This sounds like every completely un-hip person trying to sound hip.
My sister encountered Stephen Baldwin at AA meetings. She says he’s a complete dick. But maybe that was before he got right with the Lord and all that. Because, you know, that makes folks so much more socially well-adjusted. Yeah.
Did he really say “gnarly”? Maybe there was a sense of irony in how he said it that just didn’t come across in writing. Or maybe he just sounds like a complete tosser.
My wife’s very involved in a local church with a great bunch of kids who’d piss themselves laughing at some old fart like this trying to be “down with the kids”. Baldwin should just shut up and let the material do the talking.
I wonder if Jesus will be running around swinging a sword like Conan the Barbarian:
“I’d always imagined Jesus was the sweet, cuddly, loving dude, and suddenly I find out he makes Conan the Barbarian look like Conan the wimp. He didn’t come with a guitar singing Kum Ba Yah. Jesus brought a sword to the earth, and he is still swinging it.”
http://socialitelife.com/2006/08/11/jesus_is_one_loving_dude.php