New Adventures of Jesus (Paperback)

by Frank Stack (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly
After nearly 40 years, Stack's wry and hilarious strips featuring the Savior have been collected into a tome certain to polarize readers. Considered the first underground comic strip, Stack's take on Jesus offers readers a messiah who is every bit the Old Testament superhero of Sunday school fame, only his human side is what truly shines out. This Jesus is very much a modern man in disposition, resurrected to do his holy thing, yet irritated by such hassles as the police, military idiocy, horny collegiate groupies, Jerry Bruckheimeresque Hollywood blockbusters that distort his story and blacks who are disgusted to find out that he's not a "brutha." The collection drips with the uncertainty and disillusionment common to '60s-era undergrounds, and as the stories move on through the decades it becomes readily apparent that Jesus' second coming has had little-to-no-effect upon the population, and nobody knows that better than he does. Depending on how the individual reacts to a world-weary depiction of the figurehead of the most influential religion of the past two millennia, Stack (Our Cancer Year) wrote a fascinating work for the open-minded. (Dec.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist
Proving so would probably be impossible, but even its compiler, Stack's friend and fellow Texan cartoonist Gilbert Shelton (Wonder Warthog, 1981 and The Fabulous Furry Freak Brothers, 2004), allows that the stapled-together The Adventures of Jesus (1964) may be the first underground comic. Its stories reappear here, along with those from three larger, classier Jesus comics and later ones including the previously unpublished "Jesus Meets Intellectual Property Rights." At first, Stack injected modern gags into retold "Stories from the Good Book," but after a Second Coming story, he turned his creation to satire of militarism, academia, the cops, big business, and other institutions usually suspect to sixties idealists. The intention is always to pillory everything but Jesus. The results are irreverent and sacrilegious but not blasphemous. Indeed, seldom outside of scripture is Christ portrayed as so fully human as Stack renders him. Stack's drawing style is frizzy like a head of long hair, full of cross-hatching and nervous lines, reminiscent of Jules Feiffer's, Bob Blechman's, and Harvey Kurtzman's stuff. A must for underground-comics mavens, in particular. Ray Olson
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

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Product Details

• Paperback: 160 pages
• Publisher: Fantagraphics Books (January 3, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1560977809
• ISBN-13: 978-1560977803
• Product Dimensions: 9.6 x 7.2 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.5 out of 5 stars See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #710,797 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars UNDERGROUND MASTERPIECE, February 10, 2007

By	Tim Janson (Michigan) - See all my reviews (TOP 50 REVIEWER)

The New Adventures of Jesus collects forty years worth of Frank Stack's milestone underground comic strip. R. Crumb provides the foreward and Gilbert Shelton the Introduction to the volume. What more could you ask for than three of the great legends of underground comics all joining in on this book. Shelton founded Rip Off Press in 1968 and was soon joined by old friend Stack and his hilarious strip.

If you haven't read these strips before they are about, well...Jesus and his adventures in different eras from biblical times right up through the modern day. Jesus is confronted by his father over being too frivolous with his powers after the whole water into wine incident and later, in camel form (because it's very hot in the desert) he encounters his old archenemy Satan. A couple of passing sheiks are perplexed at why the devil is arguing with a camel!

Some of the strips are just one-pagers while other stories are quite a bit longer. Once such longer story is Jesus Meets the Armed Services. Jesus is picked up by a couple of MPs who think he's just another hippy avoiding military service. He soon finds himself forced to register for the draft. Needless to say his registration testing is a riot and quite perplexing to those in charge. Even being the Prince of Peace cannot get him out of the registration, despite his repeated protests. He's finally had enough when his head is shaved and brings down a little divine retribution on the draft board office. It's a fantastic story, both funny and poignant with its anti-war message. In other tales, Jesus goes to faculty party at a large university and later visits Hell.

It's interesting to see the development of the character and the development of Stack's skills over the many years of the strip. His earliest work is somewhat reminiscent of Sergio Aragones in its simplicity of the drawings. But over the years his work became much more detailed but never lost its social relevancy. It's truly a masterpiece of the underground comics movement and we can all thank Fantagraphics for bringing this material to the masses.

Reviewed by Tim Janson

3.0 out of 5 stars Subtly humorous religious satire, October 18, 2007

By	C. Huddleston - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

This is a counter-culture series of comics about the second coming of Jesus, told in a really amusing style as though Jesus comes back in modern days and nobody really pays attention to him. He decides not to do the end of the world thing just yet, instead he hangs out and soaks up the 60s culture in America, becoming a university professor, getting a girlfriend, and basically getting into minor trouble.

Frank Stack has a wonderful, loose style of drawing, though the text in the balloons can be really hard to read at times. The humor is very subtle, it didn't make me laugh out loud but I was chuckling inside a lot of the time. I loved the way Stack made Jesus' halo a subject in many of the stories.

If you have a good sense of humor when it comes to religion, you might enjoy this book.

0 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Vote for Jesus (comics, that is), June 24, 2008

By	martin cohen (los angeles, ca USA) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)

I bought one of the originals of these many years ago and lost it. I am very glad to see this republication and enjoy reading the ones I missed.

Good stuff!