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Wednesday, December 22, 2021

Tales of Jesus ....as a superhero!

National Lampoon was an American humour magazine that ran from 1970 until 1998. The magazine itself featured long text pieces of surreal satire with some actual news items and (more importantly) also featured some amazing comic strips with art by the likes of Ralph Reese and Barry (Windsor) Smith. It would be fair to say that the humour of the magazine often went way beyond what was considered acceptable even for the 1970’s. It was in 1972 that the cheerfully blasphemous National Lampoon magazine introduced the superhero comic strip “Son O God” , written by Sam Kelly and Michael Choquette with art (on most issues) by the legendary Neal Adams. The strip featured 2 or 3 page parody’s/ satires of religion with something to offend everyone with our hero fighting Catholicism, the antichrist Pope and even the “scourge” of Islam (their title not mine). Possibly not the most Christmassy of items to feature a few days before the big day, but it is interesting to see that this type of work was published in the 1970's and that people then seemed to be strong enough in their own beliefs not to blow up the National Lampoon offices. Or maybe they just had the sense to know that this was only a daft wee comic strip.

14 comments:

  1. Well, this is a new one for me! A bit of Neal Adams work that had passed me by. Love the wolf in sheep’s clothing on the front cover and all the other little in-jokes buried in the artwork.

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    1. I liked that little touch as well with the wolf in sheep's clothing, very clever. Adams did a few similar strips for National Lampoon including a Deadman parody that had nothing at all to do with the DC character of the same name.

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  2. I wonder if Marvel's Son Of Satan 'inspired' this in some way. I'm too lazy to check the dates, so someone else can do it for me. Like Baggsey, this is the first time I've heard of this strip.

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    1. Not sure on that one kid but Barry Smith's strip "Norman the Barbarian" ( the world's last heterosexual man) was a parody of Conan so it may have been similar with SoG.

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  3. Incidentally, this is now showing in my blog-list as having been posted 14 hours ago, but a couple of hours or so ago, your previous post was still in my blog-list. Perhaps go into your settings and adjust the time zone, McS?

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    1. Actually I checked your blog as soon as I added this and it appeared there minutes after I added it. I did this very late ( or early depending on your perspective)at around 2:30am as I had to work late on some urgent work so took time out to add this after I had finished . As I type this (12:30 am)it shows as being in your blog for 21 hours which is about right.

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    2. That's very strange, because I check various blogs several times a day and constantly refresh my browser to see if any new posts (or comments) are showing. I can guarantee that from my end (oo-er, missus) your post wasn't showing in my blog list at 2.30am, nor was it visible to me until just before I first commented on it.

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  4. I checked on my phone and tablet and both showed the same info.on you blog for me. I certainly checked it at 2.30 ish as you mentioned baggsey's blog wasn't appearing on your blog on Ian's blog and mentioned mine as well. Strange but no hassles Kid.

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    1. Next time you publish a new post, McS, send me a comment or email and I'll check whether it's showing at my end. Also let me know if it shows in my blog-list at your end. Baggsey's previous post is still showing in my blog-list, not his recent one, and I notice that some blogs will show an old post, but when I click on them, a new post has been published but hasn't registered in my list yet. Not sure why these things happen.

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  5. Merry Christmas to you and yours, McS - and to you too, CJ.

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  6. This material is in desperate need of a reprint tome of some kind. Perhaps one with all of the Adams stuff which is pretty hefty. I'd include Frank Springer's take on the Son O' God as well. A belated Merry Christmas and a timely Happy New Year!

    Rip Off

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  7. Thanks Rip. I agree a collection of these would be great. I haven't seen Sprjngers strip only Adams and Bary Smiths work

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