I was living in Wilmore, KY when my mom and dad got me my first comic: David Wilkerson’s The Cross and the Switchblade. It’s a Christian comic, one of the first I believe to be put out by Spire Christian Comics in the seventies, and it’s actually based on the true story of this crazy preacher guy (Wilkerson himself) who goes out to the baddest of the bad neighborhoods spreading God’s word to gang members and the like. Sounds crazy right? Check out the cheese dialog on the cover:
Oh man. Cracks me up every time. I’ll sometimes rummage through my old comic bins–not looking for anything in particular. Just taking a relaxing stroll down memory lane. And every time I come across this one, I just start rolling. You may not find the cover’s dialog that funny. You may find it moving, I don’t know. But for me, it just reminds me of what’s inside… Pages and pages of cheesy dialog gold (“She’s high on heroin!”). And it’s for that reason alone that every time I come across it, I have to read TCATS from beginning to end.
Now my parents have always been good Christian people, and while growing up, they were always trying to be cool when it came to teaching me and my siblings about faith and Jesus. And I’ll give ‘em credit. You hear all the time about certain so-called Christians who run around shoving their beliefs down other people’s throats and beating heads in with bibles, but my rents were never like that. They taught me what was right and what was wrong. And yeah, they always made sure I knew how the good Lord fit into everything, but I never felt forced. I just got a lot of cheesy gifts like this comic. And Christian heavy metal cassette tapes (remember Stryper?).
Okay, so there’s a heavy Christian message in this comic, and in short, that message is that with God and a bible, you can do anything. Now, when I first read it, I was–I don’t know. Seven? Eight? And when I look back and try to remember what my thoughts were on any comic back then, all I remember are pictures, panels and spreads. I didn’t give a crap about the story then. It just had to look cool. Whereas today, I sometimes have to force myself to slow down and take in all the art.
Now TCATS was all penciled by the legendary Al Hartley of Atlas Comics and Archie fame, and for me–an eight-year-old who loves GI Joe and He-Man cartoons–Hartley’s work in TCATS leaves much to be desired. What am I talking about? There’s no spandex! There’s no super-heroes flying around flexing their muscles at bad guys! There’s just some lame preacher running around, and he’s… he’s talking! There’s SO MUCH TALKING! In fact, the only action seems to take place right there on the friggin’ cover! What the ef Mom and Dad? I’m eight friggin’ years old!
So, needless-to-say, my first impression of TCATS is that it’s pretty much doo doo. Now, no offense to the late Al Hartley. As I’ve grown and matured into the thirty-year-old comic book lover I am today, I’ve come to really appreciate Hartley’s work and his overall contributions to the comic book world. And it makes me happy when I think that it was his artwork that turned me onto comics. Because even though there wasn’t much action to TCATS, I still flipped through that effin’ book cover to cover on a daily basis. I mean, it was all I had! And the way Hartley drew people and emotions (check out Maria, the heroin addict girl), I didn’t know it then, but he kinda set a standard for me on how characters and their feelings should be drawn… and in TCATS, he drew them like Stallone arm wrestled: Over. The. Top.
As I grew up and reread TCATS a few more times, I found the story to fit right in with that exaggerated, over-the-top style. I mean, it’s a comic book. Sure, it may be based on a true story, but just go on and forget about that. If you want to enjoy this book for the cheesy gem that it is, then you got to read it as if Preach is an overconfident, egotistical Tick-like character, and you gotta read Nicky the gang leader as being Eric Estrada, because that’s who played him in the movie (Yeah, there was a movie).
Anyway, I’ve still got the same copy my parents gave me from way back when, but I still come across this book every now and then in the quarter box. If you’re like me and get a kick out of stuff that’s really not all that funny, but at the same time really is, then you should pick this up if you get the chance. I guarantee that you won’t have to pay more than 50 cents for it. And if you do, make sure you download some Stryper to listen to while you read it.
“To hell with the devil!”
***
So yeah, that’s the first comic book I ever owned, and it was the only one in my collection for a good long while. Actually, it may have only been just a week, I don’t know. When you’re that age, time just seems to drag on forever.
But eventually, I talked the rents into buying me some more comics. The next thing I got were some trades of Eastmen and Laird’s Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles from a mall bookstore. I was a pretty huge fan of the cartoon back then in the eighties, and Mom and Dad were familiar with the program as well. So I guess they approved the choice. But the comic ended up being a little different from the cartoon I watched every Saturday morning. If you’ve ever read the original TMNT comics, you know what I’m talking about. And if my parents knew what awaited me in those twisted and wonderfully violent pages, my comic book reading days would have been over.
But that’s a whole other story for a whole other post. ‘Nuff said!
