Broken Frontier

West of Eden hit shelves earlier this year, collecting issues #6-10 of Vertigo’s Testament, the shock-therapy Bible comic from writer Douglas Rushkoff and artist Liam Sharp.  Testament is an edge-of-your-seat thriller that keeps you turning pages and dying to know what happens next.  Even Morrison’s The Invisibles didn’t reward my reading as much as Testamenthas!

Still, the large cast of characters can be confusing, and for those not Bible-savvy, it can be hard to see just how radical Rushkoff’s central ideas are.  West of Eden includes notes to issues #1-10 written by Rushkoff himself, an interesting addition that alerts the reader to just how trippy this exciting story is.  Rushkoff sat down with Broken Frontier to discuss his ideas about gods and comic books.

BROKEN FRONTIER: West of Eden includes notes to issues #1-10!  What inspired you to annotate?

DOUGLAS RUSHKOFF: Most simply, the fact that readers had no idea whether any of the comic book had anything to do with the Bible. Since almost no one has actually read any Bible text, they have no way of knowing if some of the events portrayed in the comic were related in some way to the stories that are in the Bible.

The notes began as a way of letting people know the books, chapters, and verses where they can see these plot points for themselves. Most people are horrified to see me portray Lot as a man who would have sex with his daughters. I have received dozens—maybe over a hundred—very angry emails from religious people, deeply upset that I would make something like this up about an important Bible figure.

So, the notes began as a gentle way of referring people back to the text of the Bible, where they can find these offending passages for themselves.

Other notes are to demonstrate that my interpretations are not random, but based on careful thought and exegesis. So I give some references to Midrash or Talmud, or in other cases historical references from scholarly texts about ancient Egypt. It's really just to show the logic that went into the choices. In the cases where I made very liberal interpretations (such as Moloch commanding Abraham to sacrifice his son) I use the notes to explain why I felt justified in taking such a liberty.

BF:  How did you come to write a comic book?  Who are you trying to reach?

DR: “How” is a big word. In brief, DC Comics found me, and asked me what I wanted to write. I chose the Bible, because I thought it's particularly suited for this medium (see my introduction to the first collection). I believe the panels/gutter relationship in comics has been under-exploited, and a story with humans living in historical time alongside gods living in mythological time seemed the perfect way to experiment with this relationship.

So I don't know that I wanted to write "a" comic book—I wanted to write this comic book.

As far as who I want to reach, I guess I'm thinking that with a Vertigo/DC book I can reach a lot of people who are interested in the occult, narrative, magick, the repression of the feminine archetype... people who should be aware that the Bible addresses and embodies many of these issues.

BF: You ask the question, “What if the stories of the Bible were happening today?”  As we read Testament, the picture that emerges is one of intense struggle, between gods and humans, humans and humans, and gods and gods.  What is everyone fighting for?  What is at stake?

DR: Well, what we're fighting for in the Bible and today is life itself. That's what Torah is really about: life vs. non-life. Pharaoh is head of a death cult, and the escaped slaves are attempting to create a life cult. An open source "religion," if you will, where humans write the laws by which they live. And they keep changing the laws to make them more ethical, more life-affirming, as time goes by.

Today, the most life-threatening gods take the form of currency. Money is not real; it's really not. It's created by a central bank, and based in nothing at all but a number. There's no "value" like gold or silver attached to it. Yet thousands are dying for money right now. Iraq isn't about oil—it's about a currency system that depends on artificial scarcity. That's why we can't use a replenishable energy source. We don't know how to make a "market" for it.  And this very dependence on scarcity is Joseph's invention in the Bible. It's what gets the Hebrews enslaved.

That's why I thought the Bible could be such a powerful document for our time. But most everyone who says they read it actually don't. They just listen to preachers. So the Bible remains relatively undiscovered in this country, where it could be really useful.

BF:  In the first two volumes, we see a struggle emerging between the gods.  The struggle is between the monotheists and polytheists.  You argue that the gods are dependent, not autonomous.  The monotheists are dependent on the “story,” while the polytheists depend on active worshippers.  For much of Biblical history, it seems that humans were proxies in the struggle between the gods. 

Is there something new happening in Testament?  Are humans finding ways to break into timelessness, what you call “godspace”?  Does this mean that there is a third option now, one made by humans?  

DR: Yeah, but I'd be giving away the ending to fully answer this question.

It's clear from just the first two volumes that the "good" gods have invented the One True God, right? They did it as a way of creating a federation, and to stop competing between each other for believers. They figure that monotheism and a nameless, faceless god will be able to become universal, and then people won't have to fight over whose god is best.

But does this really work? Or does this just create a new scarcity for god?

There's certainly a third option for humans, and that is to transcend the need for god or gods, altogether. To accept responsibility for what's going on here, and get to work making the world a better place.

BF:  What does it mean to “hack” reality?  I’ve done some coding in my time, and I can imagine hacking into a system.  But into reality?  Help me imagine doing that.

DR: Just do one thing that's not expected of you.

What's hacking, anyway? Repurposing something—using something in a way it may not have been "intended." I think the ultimate hack of reality is to realize it hasn’t been "intended" to be anything. There's no creator. Just creation myths. If you want the world to be created differently, then go write a new myth. If you want the world to work differently, then change the laws, or whatever is in the way. Nothing is sacred. Only the stuff that people are afraid of need the protection of sanctity.

Reality hacking can be as simple as changing a one-way highway into a two-way street, so that less kids get run over and more stores can be developed on either side. Create a neighborhood out of a former highway. That's good enough for me.

Or create your own local currency. Get people to use it instead of dollars in your community, and watch Wal-Mart go out of business. Easy as that, if you realize it's possible. But most of us don't, and so we suffer and maybe pray a little for things to be changed for us.

BF:  How can we change reality through a comic book?

DR: I'm not sure how to answer that. I suppose the same way you would change it through any book: give people the opportunity to experience an alternative perspective, so that they come to understand that the point of view they've been preserving is rather arbitrary. Give them the opportunity to try on another way of understanding the world. Even provisionally.

Maybe a comic book is less threatening, so people will be more willing to play along.

Issue #15 of Testament is in comic book stores now.