Quick reminder that TESTAMENT can get pretty explicit!
Original solicitation copy for TESTAMENT #2:
“The explosive new series by best-selling author Douglas Rushkoff (Coercion, Club Zero-G) and acclaimed artist Liam Sharp (The Possessed) continues. The authorities strike down anti-war protesters with a wrath echoing that of the angry God who rained fire on Sodom and Gomorrah. Just as Lot couldn't save his wife from turning into a pillar of salt, Jake is too distracted by his lust for Dinah to rescue his true love, Miriam, from an even more horrifying verdict.”
I must admit that I needed to consult Rushkoff’s Chapter Two (#2) Notes to help make sense of the biblical story in this issue. Having successfully resisted all Sunday school instruction as a kid, my understanding of the Bible is pretty patchy, and I underestimated how deeply weird it is!
What the fuck is up with that Lot story?!
This seems to dig pretty deep into the fear of the other/strangers/refugees and the resultant horrors of collective punishment/genocide.
It makes sense that we tend to reach back to WWII for our authoritarian / fascist parallels, but it might be useful to follow the roots back to more primal soil. These problems didn’t just suddenly emerge in the 20th century!
Finding and highlighting good people amongst a demonized group is very much relevant currently. Though responding to group dehumanization with lists of exceptions probably accidentally accepts unacceptable premises.
Lot’s wife turning into a pillar of salt is such a vaguely familiar event that I never really processed how deeply strange it is. I guess I assumed there were further details that made it make more sense, but nope! I get why she experienced divine consequences from a narrative standpoint, but the specificity of the salt pillar is so weird, and feels like it comes from a more fantastical mythology.
I like that line from Moloch: “If you kill your own soldiers, old man, you won’t stand a chance against us.”
The simple dichotomy of Moloch as a “bad” god and Melchizedek as a “good” god now appears more complicated.
Also, in-fighting amongst tentatively aligned groups with common enemies seems relevant.
Timothy Leary’s advice to “find the others” remains quite valuable, but how to then achieve harmony with the others, once we’ve found them, remains a work in progress!
The RFID chip attack speaks to our own vulnerabilities via our increasingly symbiotic digital technologies. I know we were all outraged when Snowden blew the whistle on mass surveillance, but I don’t know that we managed to do much to actually stop it, and those capabilities have had another decade to grow in complexity. As bad as it was then, it’s certainly worse now…
Astarte stirring the pot with age gap discourse / taboo sexual fantasies with Jake and Dinah is pretty potent stuff too!
My guess is Jake and Dinah are three years apart in age? He’s still in college and she’s about to turn 18.
Liam Sharp’s art in this issue is especially fun and really shows off his range. I would guess that he was working on a shorter deadline, because Issue #1 was probably developed as a pitch, and he was probably working on his own schedule. Issue #2 is most likely working within the monthly production schedule, which is brutal! Sharp still captures the epic biblical scenes and wild mythic god visuals in the bleed space. For the contemporary scenes he adapts a faster, almost underground, art style, which suits the tone well.
The only thing that tripped me up on the visuals, and this is a pet peeve of mine, is some over rendering by the colorist under some of Sharp’s more cartoony/simple linework.
Jamie Grant, as mentioned in the last issue, is one of the best colorists in the world, and so I’m willing to accept that this is probably something particular to me, but I really don’t like it when the colors overwhelm the lineart.
Now this, on the other hand, is awesome!
Will be curious to see what everyone thinks!
And we’ll be back on June 22nd, for issue #3
same TESTAMENT time, same Jechidah channel :)))
- Bobby Campbell, author of RAW ART, Tales of Illuminatus, Agnosis and illustrator Extraordinaire
