The webcomics blog about webcomics

When Art is Important

Gary wrote an interesting post meant to start a discussion about the importance of art in webcomics. The discussion was interesting; the general consensus was that the art should match the style of the strip.

But I like to think that the art is sometimes the best part of a webcomic — little details are what make me laugh. So, I’d like to present a counter point to those minimalist strips that Gary cited. I present the to you The Holy Bibble.

The art style is distinctive, more of a cut-paper glued onto a background, or maybe the felt boards that some of us learned Bible stories on. Luckily, the art isn’t actually cut felt, because then we wouldn’t get the depth of detail that exists in the The Holy Bibble. (Though, Sunday school lesson plans from the Holy Bibble would not be very… G-rated.)

Two major examples of this detail that I’d like to share with you are this:

  1. In which Cain is reciting Gothic Poetry, and the Devil answers his “prayers.” Notice Abel in the third panel, walking fuzzily in the distance. In each subsequent panel, we see exactly how Cain murders Abel — unwittingly.
  2. Another, this time when Cain is settled in the Land of Nod with his wives, and he thinks about his family back home, thinking that their life is better than sitting in a hot tub with anime chicks. If you look carefully at the artwork, you can see that Eve is carrying around a baby in her old age, one of her daughters is heavily pregnant and worried, and one young child is bullying another.

In both of these examples, the artwork supports the joke — the art is the punch line. What’s interesting about this comic is that they are working from a source text, and so they have to make their work compelling for something other than the storyline. The artwork is a good example of this.

But they’re not above reinterpretation of the Bible, in fact, it is their goal. Cannan and Lucas, the writer/artist team, have a mythology going. They are making this comic because they are prophets, after all. That makes it so much better than other similar projects out there.

And I’m sure that they’re sure I’m about to be smitted. (smitten? smote? I am not a wordbeast yet.)

[…] BUT NOW The Holy Bibble is having a Happy Annibirthday celebration and giving away wallpapers. Do you have yours yet? It has the same impecible attention to detail I originally praised the Holy Bibble, and I love it. […]

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