Das Prager Christkind in voller Rüstung

John Zmirak rides again.

Nach seinen beiden Bad Catholic's Guides (wir berichteten mehrfach) tut er sich jetzt mit einem Vatikan-Thriller der besonderen Art hervor: geschrieben in Blankversen und präsentiert im Comicformat. Da muß sich die Konkurrenz ganz schön anstrengen.

Im Shrine of the Holy Whapping gibt es eine anständige Rezension; einen Bericht von der Vorstellung von "The Grand Inquisitor" - natürlich in Rom - finden wir auf den Seiten des Thomas More College (Merrimack, NH).

Die Shriners:

At first glance, it seems designed specifically to freak out everyone in its numerous potential overlapping markets--an intricately Gothic comic book, its dialogue written in elaborate blank verse, its plot inspired by and title borrowed from Dostoyevsky's heavy-going Grand Inquisitor, and filled with all manner of strange hellfire, Marian visions, doctrinal arguments, and one deeply creepy Infant of Prague statue. But the author knows all that, already, and it is to his credit he forged ahead to produce this suspensful theological roller-coaster ride of a graphic novel.

The brilliance of John Zmirak's first graphic novel, The Grand Inquisitor, is precisely that its genre-bending, everything-but-the-sacristy-sink extravagance works so well. Uptight crypto-Jansenists will probably initially dismiss it as frivolous, beige Catholics as a Traddy screed, but those who actually read the text, and consider the elaborately-drawn illustrations for more than five seconds, will be rewarded.

(Plus, the illustrations have all sorts of wonderful little surprises embedded within them--conclaves, Tridentine liturgies, Cardinal Mahony playing golf, and my favorite, the Infant of Prague in full armor.)