Broken Frontier

This is an Inter-Review—a review and an interview in one!

Today we speak with writer Eric Peterson ( Save the Babies), and co-writer/artist Ethan Nicolle ( Chumble Spuzz, The Weevil), the creative combination behind the outrageous new action-comedy online event, Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun.

This story, which you will die and not be comforted by the blood of Christ if you miss, is currently being serialized, two full pages a week, at the Bad Karma Productions website or at JesusChristStory.com. The first issue (26 pages) is complete, with the second well under way.

Broken Frontier took a look at the first "issue", and chatted with the two crazies who thought this thing would sell.

Broken Frontier Review: In a world after Robert Kirkman’s Battle Pope, Garth Ennis’ Preacher (amongst his Ghost Rider, and, hell, half his whole oeuvre), and, most recently, Tim Seeley’s Loaded Bible, you wouldn’t think there was a whole lot left to say about Jesus Christ in the modern world, the reality of an all-powerful patriarchal God, and religious figures kicking ass and taking names in superbly alpha male ways.

Well, you’d be wrong: Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun has a lot in common with the above-mentioned books, cannibalizing the best of each, but then, frankly, it gives the topic a central storyline that far surpasses the missed potential of other Christian-based parodies. For one, instead of amped-up Popes or having JC fight supernatural creatures of the night or even belong to an ages-old, secret, inbred cabal, writers Eric Peterson and Ethan Nicolle offer up a much more classic, sheer giddiness-inducing scenario. They allow Jesus to ask himself the two questions every Westerner asks bloody everyone: If you could go back in time and kill Hitler, would you? And: If God is all-powerful and all-seeing, how can he allow such horrors as (insert-name-of-horror-here) to happen?

And, don’t ya know it, Jesus can travel back through time! So off he goes, demanding a new virgin birth to take place in Russia, 1910; and then, when he comes of age in 1939, Germany invades Poland and the newly reborn Jesus moves to change things for the better—by killing lots and lots of Nazis, and gunning for Hitler himself!

BROKEN FRONTIER: Okay, boyos, where the flibbity mcjibbets did this idea come from, and why in Big Daddy G’s name did you decide Jesus vs. The Third Reich was a concept whose time had come? Not that I don’t think it’s freakishly wonderful, mind, but I want you two talking! Give us the lowdown.

ERIC PETERSON: Hiya, Broken Frontier! The idea for Jesus as a time-traveling action hero came out of a mini-comic I worked on with Val Hochberg (another Bad Karma artist, who has a book called Kick Girl). We were offering the book as a test during Comic-Con 2007, and sold out. So I figured this was an idea worth pursuing. Then Ethan came on board as artist and co-writer, and we started fleshing it out. Like...a lot. The Nazi thing was one of about five different scripts that were written to try and find a cool first issue. Ethan and I are kind of impatient when it comes to movies, comics, stories in general—so we thought we'd just go for it and do one of the loudest subjects in the bunch…The Holocaust.

ETHAN NICOLLE: Yeah, the idea was Eric's in the beginning, and the two of us just built on it. It's a big "what if" story...starting with what if Jesus was as confused by Christianity as your average nihilist teenager and decided to try to do things differently, after brooding about it in heaven for a couple thousand years. From there, logically, we decided he may as well start with killing Hitler.

BF: Yeah. Okay. You guys are psychos. Anyway, name the story (any medium) that most influenced you on JC: ITNOTG.

EP: Crap. Just one? Rambo 4. Doctor Who. Die Hard . Any of those, pretty equally.

EN: The Bible.

BF: Ha! I walked right into that one. (Though this reminds me that I need to see Rambo 4…)

BF Review: Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun is currently serialized online, two pages per week, at the JesusChristStory.com. The first issue, titled "Hollow Cost", has recently wrapped and the second issue is now well underway. Throughout, we see Jesus grumble his way across heaven, have a heated, philosophical heart-to-heart with his proud papa (a God that looks suspiciously like a well-aged Marlon Brando), meet a slew of vapid, clueless angels, and then we’re off to not chew bubble gum. For those who have read Ethan Nicolle’s previous comedy GNs, Chumble Spuzz: Kill the Devil and Chumble Spuzz: Pigeon Man and Death Sings the Blues, there’s still his signature pitch-perfect expressions, animation-quality action and attention to detail. For those who’ve come across Eric Peterson’s Save the Babies, there’s a similar rhythm of insane fight choreography, outlandish villains, and a nearly punk-esque approach to Jesus’ adamant refusal to accept anything but a foot-to-face righting of past wrongs.

BF: So why the choice to serialize online before going to print? And will you be releasing single issues or GN sized chapters as the storylines progress? For that matter, will there be a storyline beyond the current "Hollow Cost" Holocaust angle?

EP: Not to pull back the magical curtain of how comics work, but basically if Jesus Christ issue #1 were to hit stands, we'd have to sell a lot (a whole lot) in order to get a chance at releasing further issues. So in order to do that, people need to know about it before it comes out and web-comics are like the greatest way that I've seen, to spread the news and get people to check it out. So yeah. There'll be single issues, and if the wind is right, then graphic novel collections. "Hollow Cost" is like "Episode 1" of a larger series. There'll be more.

EN: Yeah we just want to get the Bad Karma brand out there as much as we can, and this book seems to stir up a lot of interest. We sold out of them at Comic Con in two days. The free web comic is a way of getting people to the web site and to make everything that much more interactive. The Hollow Cost story is the beginning of one massive story arch, and it will be interesting to see how it all pans out.

BF: Was God meant to look like Brando? Am I getting the face wrong? He looks really familiar….

EP: Eeeeehh, any resemblance to famous people (living or dead) is purely coincidental, right? Ahem. But now that you mention it...

EN: Pffft. Of course not.

BF Review: The dialogue in JC: ITNOTG is flat-out fantastic, the talk between Jesus and God a thoroughly invested tête-à-tête that nevertheless feels fast-paced, impassioned, and over far too soon. Such is all for the best, to motivate Jesus to damn-his-daddy go and take matters into his own hands. You see, there’s another thing that works so well with the book: the pieces seem carefully placed, even though the story unfolds at blitzkrieg speed and never dwells upon a given moment or topic, not without tossing in something laugh-out-loud or wince-out-loud. The last third of the first "issue" introduces a supremely surprising little twist, introducing a character nobody is likely to see coming, and then, a short way into issue #2, yet another chilling, wicked plot screw is turned. Which is all to say: this is exciting stuff.

BF: As co-writers, how does that work between the two of you? The final book seems a surprisingly tight synthesis of the both of your strengths. The action bits are reminiscent of your Save the Babies one-shot, Eric, but they also seemed to match a lot of the visual rhythm and dialogue of Ethan’s Chumble Spuzz.

EP: Thanks! One thing that helps is that whenever one of us hits a trouble spot, and needs an idea, the other person tends to e-mail back like 5 of them. They all may suck, but it just helps to keep us from writing each other into corners. Ethan and I live in different parts of the U.S. but we use e-mail, script software, and a lot of late-night webcam conferencing to beat this stuff out. Ethan doesn't know this by the way, but I've saved hours of webcam footage of us just staring blankly at each other, with our foreheads wrinkled in thought.

EN: (You what?!) I think that more of the plot came out of Eric, and more of the action came out of me. I’d been wanting to do a kick-ass action book for a while, which was probably apparent in the last Chumble Spuzz (there was a lot of people getting shot in that book). The dialogue was pretty evenly written between the two of us. We were both really happy with how well we wrote together. It was a tough process getting to the point that we had a story we liked, but when we did, we were really proud of it.

BF: What challenges (or wonderful surprises) have you discovered working on JC versus your past comic works?

EN: For me, the two biggest challenges have to do with style. The writing style is scary for me, I like to have a full movie-style script written before I start drawing. I have never had the balls to write a series with an open end. While we have an ending for this arc, we don't fully know how we will get there, and so I am trusting Eric to guide me through the hard times on that path. The style of the art is also a challenge for me. I tried somewhat realistic drawing in The Weevil and decided I sucked at it. I went all-out cartoony in Chumble Spuzz. So In Jesus I wanted to try to nudge myself a little closer to realistic again in this book. I tried to draw in a distinctively different style then Chumble Spuzz.

EP: Collaboration is full of surprises. Writing with Ethan, it's kind of like making little jokes to a friend.You want to make them laugh, and it's always a challenge to try and keep things fresh when you're neck-deep in a project like this. Or likewise, in an action scene or a dramatic scene (like the intro stuff in heaven), you can use your co-writer as a bouncing board to see if you're communicating what you mean to communicate. We wrote the God/Jesus scene about seven different times, literally days before Ethan had to start drawing it. And it was pretty scary because I think him and I both knew we weren't getting the right reactions from each other (which is a sign we were missing the mark). Then finally it just clicked. And when it does, it feels great. The panel where Jesus shows his internal conflict to God, during the "I failed" line was a great surprise. I was on my honeymoon at the time I got that page from him, and I freaked out (in a good way). I really get into Jesus' character, and that particular part is what resonates loudest with me. Especially that specific panel. Bullseye for Ethan!

BF Review: All in all, Jesus Christ: In the Name of the Gun is the best damn adult "Jesus" riff in comics I have ever read. There isn’t too terribly much new here, per se, that others haven’t tried and managed to various degrees of success in the past, but Nicolle and Peterson’s little gem far outshines them all in sheer comedy, action, ingenuity in execution and elements, and ultimate effect. You cannot miss seeing Jesus race down a Polish canal, atop the water (but of course), and then up the cascading, fountaining stream of a Nazi soldier’s free-flowing pee, before back-flip kicking the Nazi into unconsciousness at said piss-arch’s apex. Jesus say: "Blood of the lamb, mother-$&^*er."

Incredible art, unerringly comedic, inventive and wild action sequences—this is just about as good as comics get. Ennis and Kirkman re-imagine Wolfenstein with the best animators in the biz and no restrictions put to them. It outdoes Casanova in style and cool factor as though Casanova were a goddamn square. It’s a little bit of everything, and all free online. Go here, take a look, and stand (or sit, or better yet— kneel) in awe.

BF: So what’s next, both online and print-wise for good ol’ Jesus?

EP: I think the plan for now is to keep putting pages up, and keep writing issues so we get ahead. Then try and get as much feedback as possible before the issues start appearing in stores.

EN: The story will continue...and get much crazier as it goes. I think every chapter will be bundled into a printed episode. Then, in the end, a graphic novel.

BF: Give us a hint - name one of the very best moments or things or surprises in store in the near future. If people don’t read it here, they don’t get to know about it!

EN: Hmmm... I want to throw Charles Darwin in eventually.

EP: Agreed. And Albert Einstein and an army of aliens. Also, Atlantis.

BF: Sweet. You guys are already-forgotten gods of comicdom. Thanks for being with us. Peace out.

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Check out the whole comic at the JesusChristStory.com.

And do yourself a favor and read Ethan Nicolle’s other works: Chumble Spuzz: Kill the Devil, Chumble Spuzz: Pigeon Man and Death Sings the Blues, and last but certainly not least, The Weevil.

And also Eric Peterson’s other bad boy brouhaha one-shot comic, with artist Charlie Bink: Save the Babies.