The Bible in the Funny Papers

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Adam and Eve discussing women’s liberation, Methuselah happily listening to Golden Oldies, metal detectors for animals entering Noah’s ark, Moses with the tablets of the law being questioned by civil libertarians, King David increasingly exaggerating Goliath’s proportions with each re-telling of the story. The names are familiar, but their activities are not. At least not to those who know them only from the Bible. But for the millions who daily read the comic pages, biblical personages are among the many characters that populate what has been called “the preeminent form of popular humor in America in the twentieth century.”¹

Eight years ago, I began collecting comic strips that deal with the Bible. Actually, I have a number of “collections”; others cover ancient history, ministers, ethics and Judaism. But by far the largest is my biblical collection, containing over 300 individual cartoons. Approximately two-thirds relate to the Hebrew Bible.

The basic tools of my trade are few: a newspaper and a pair of scissors. The methodology is simple: cut, organize and, sometimes, make slides. The uses of the collection are varied: the topic of papers at professional meetings, an audiovisual complement to public talks, a welcome change of pace in classroom lectures and (not to be overlooked) a graphic means of documenting certain tax deductions for the IRS.

I know that I am not the only person who maintains such collections. But my collection, coming as it does from the newspapers I regularly read, is unique. And to that extent my analysis uniquely complements the work of other comics researchers.

By far the largest number of items in my collection (over 100) comes from “Frank and Ernest.” The next group accounts for about 60 cartoons all together: “B.C.,” “Peanuts,” “Family Circus,” “Dennis the Menace,” “Herman” and “Prince Valiant.” Weighing in with two or three examples each are “The Far Side,” “Kudzu,” “Wizard of ID” and “Bloom County.”²

Four topics dominate: Noah and the ark, Moses and the Ten Commandments, Adam and Eve and the creation of the world. Together they account for about three-quarters of all the references to the Old Testament in my collection. Other topics or individuals referred to more than once are Methuselah, David and Goliath, Proverbs (specifically, 15:32 and 20:13), general observations on prophecy, Daniel, Jonah and Bible translations.

Given the number of colorful, even memorable events in the Old Testament, it may seem surprising that so few events dominate. But an examination of the criteria that govern selection may explain why. First, the topic must be generally known by the comic-reading public. Second, the topic must be easily portrayable in comic strip format. Third, the incident or individual often relates to contemporary concerns. This last criterion is the most difficult to formulate, but we can recognize it in, for example, Adam and Eve’s interest in women’s rights, 032Methuselah’s firsthand acquaintance with the favorite old songs of a later generation, Noah’s security precautions and the lawgiver Moses’ conflicts with those most resistant to the imposition of regulations.

The portrayal of biblical personages and events is usually consistent with the overall tone or style of the cartoonist. “Dennis the Menace” and “Family Circus” project a warm environment, populated with sometimes cranky but basically loving adults and somewhat mischievous but well-meaning children. We have no trouble accepting the questions they raise or the biblical images they project. The questions they raise are not profound nor are their images complex. They are cute, entertaining and mostly reassuring. They rarely challenge.

We expect a more confrontational attitude—between cartoon and reader and between cartoonist and subject—in strips like “The Far Side” and “Bloom County.” The images they portray are often troubling and challenging, but ultimately they sustain rather than demean the biblical material they cover. Their weirdness is too self-conscious to be revolutionary; their irony can lead to doubt and questioning of widely accepted platitudes, but it is not likely to result in rejection.

“B.C.” and “Prince Valiant” are among the relatively few comic strips set in the past. The Stone Age setting of B.C. may account for the frequency of creation and Garden of Eden themes in this cartoon. Particularly noticeable are references to the serpent of Genesis 3. As any reader of “B.C.” knows, snakes are among the regular inhabitants of this cave-dwelling society. As is the case in Genesis, they can hold their own in conversation with any human (even if they are regularly clubbed by one of the females, perhaps as retribution for the trouble they caused Eve!).

The elegantly drawn “Prince Valiant” is set in the days of King Arthur. Among the numerous quests undertaken by the eponymous hero of this strip is the search for a new trade route to China. Along the way, he and his companions meet a subterranean-dwelling people who were just then emerging from centuries below the earth. Their odd way of life was the means by which they escaped a great flood. Apparently, unbeknownst to the author or authors of Genesis 6–9, other humans in addition to Noah survived that cataclysm!

“Peanuts” and its creator Charles Schulz are probably the first names that come to mind when we think about religious themes in cartoons.³ In my survey, “Peanuts” does not dominate numerically or quantitatively. But it is certainly among the leaders in terms of quality. There is a unique, somewhat quirky charm that Schulz has endowed his characters with, characters that we have come to know well and even identify with over the course of more than 40 years. In one respect, Schulz is among the most adventurous cartoonists in his 033introduction of biblical themes because he does not limit himself to well-known incidents. Instead, he regularly cites chapter and verse as a way of drawing his readers into material they might otherwise be unaware of. In the above list, for example, the references to Proverbs 15:32 (“Those who ignore instruction despise themselves, but those who heed admonition gain understanding”) and 20:13 (“Do not love sleep, or else you will come to poverty; open your eyes and you will have plenty of bread”), come from “Peanuts.” Elsewhere, Schulz refers to 1 Samuel 7:12 and 26:20 and 2 Samuel 1.

“Frank and Ernest” occupies a special niche among comic strips that refer to the Bible. It is the only cartoon in which God himself regularly appears. And what a deity he is! Taller than the angels, but a little dumpy; omnipotent, but in constant consultation with his host; omniscient, but somewhat bemused by the actions of his creations. Here is a God we can love, engage in conversation, even commiserate with. In short, the God of “Frank and Ernest” presents some of the characteristics of the Old Testament deity without being a caricature of that infinitely more complex divine being.

Despite their positive portrayal of the Bible, these cartoons are not immune to criticism, especially from those who fail to see any connection between humor and religion.

One reader wrote a letter to the editor of the Greenville, South Carolina, News-Piedmont, objecting to a Peanuts cartoon sequence in which Charlie Brown suggests curing a bump on Lucy’s wrist by hitting it with a variety of different Bible translations. Under the heading “Strip Found Blasphemous,” the reader wrote:

“When I read that [cartoon], was stunned. My blood ran cold. I wonder if Mr. Schulz is aware that what he is doing, making fun of the Bible like that, is the blasphemy against the Holy Ghost? This is very serious, let us not be partakers with this kind of foolishness.”

This was answered two weeks later by another letter that more nearly reflects my own views:

“Although … the letter denouncing the Peanuts cartoon for ‘blasphemy against the Holy Ghost’ failed to make my blood run cold, it was more than a trifle ridiculous. Mr. Schulz, the cartoonist, was making fun of folksy home remedies, not of the holy scriptures. … It just goes to show that some people will find sacrilege in their own shadows. That’s one of the virtues of a cartoonist, that 041he can look at life with an attitude of gentle humor, instead of swelling into self-righteous bombast at harmless trifles.”

Comic strips sometimes offer surprises of their own. One of the pleasantest surprises for me has been the way in which a few of the cartoons exemplify a phenomenon scholars hypothesize about and occasionally demonstrate: namely, the tendency for a more famous person or event to attract stories originally attached to lesser individuals or occurrences. “Frank and Ernest” provides two such examples. In the first, Joshua’s soldiers complain that his stopping of the sun over Jericho will prolong their battle day without any increase in pay. Joshua’s stopping of the sun has thus been moved from the lesser-known Gibeon (where it occurred, according to Joshua 10) to the well-known Jericho (mentioned in Joshua 2 and 6). In the second case, “Frank and Ernest” has transferred the writing-on-the-wall scene from the reign of Belshazzar (so Daniel 5 of the Hebrew Bible) to the time of the more recognizable monarch Nebuchadnezzar. This example is particularly appropriate because most scholars agree that a similar substitution was in fact made in the Bible itself—in Daniel 4—where a proclamation of Nabonidus is attributed to Nebuchadnezzar.

Collecting these cartoons is enormously entertaining and instructive. Most of all, it serves to remind me that beyond the thousands for whom the Bible is an object of study are the millions for whom it is a living, often lively, subject of inquiry.

Adam and Eve discussing women’s liberation, Methuselah happily listening to Golden Oldies, metal detectors for animals entering Noah’s ark, Moses with the tablets of the law being questioned by civil libertarians, King David increasingly exaggerating Goliath’s proportions with each re-telling of the story. The names are familiar, but their activities are not. At least not to those who know them only from the Bible. But for the millions who daily read the comic pages, biblical personages are among the many characters that populate what has been called “the preeminent form of popular humor in America in the twentieth century.”1 […]