The Holy Ghost by John Hendrix - A joint review

by Mike Rhode & Cathy Hunter

When a publicist offered to send The Holy Ghost: A Spirited Comic by John Hendrix (Abrams Comic Arts, 2022) for review, I (Mike) accepted enthusiastically. I had just interviewed Grant Snider for his book, The Art of Living, from the same publisher, and am very fond of his philosophical one-page comics. I expected something similar from Hendrix, as his book has an introduction by Patrick McDonnell, another thoughtful and spiritual cartoonist who recently took a half year off to work on a project with the Dalai Lama.

I very much enjoyed Hendrix's art - his drawings of a little blue ghost, or more properly I suppose, a little blue spirit, and his foils, an anthropomorphic squirrel and badger.

The publisher's promo text reads:

Does God exist? Is there a heaven? What’s the point of it all? Do we even matter?

This collection of thought-provoking, humorous comic strips is a series of conversations between a squirrel, a badger, and a friendly blue ghost who may or may not be one third of the Holy Trinity. Charming, witty, and at times poignant, yet never holier-than-thou, New York Times bestselling and award-winning illustrator John Hendrix tackles some of life’s greatest questions. Whether you consider yourself faithful or a nonbeliever, these delightfully off-kilter comics deliver laughter, comfort, and philosophical musings with humble, honest spirit—and just the right dose of playful irreverence.

and this highlights my major issue with the book - it is a deep dive into Christian thought, not really philosophical musings writ large.

There's a strong tradition of religious cartoons and cartoonists - single panel cartoons such as Brother Juniper, odd excursions such as Al Hartley's Christian Archie comics, the evil evangelism of Jack Chick's tracts, so I should not have been surprised I suppose. Hendrix's afterword (not foreword) is clear -- he doodled a lot of these cartoons in church while listening to sermons. "The comics became a way to preach to myself over many years and many seasons of life." Fair enough, but as I've grown older, I've become less tolerant of proselytizing.

Still, the art is very well done, the cartoons are often clever, and I decided to turn to my wife Cathy, who is religious, to the point of being her church's volunteer librarian. She found this to be a book that reminded her of teachings she'd encountered over the years and enjoyed revisiting some of those big questions illustrated with a whimsical blue ghost.  She sees Hendrix's claimed influences of Schulz and Watterson in the art. The following are her thoughts on the book -

Trying to make sense of the Trinity, particularly the Holy Ghost is one paradox after another. Many of the illustrations reminded me of the King James Version of the Bible's description of faith:  "Faith is the substance of things hoped for, the evidence of things not seen."

I love the typography of the strip title. For each one, he does something different. A couple of cartoons stood out for me. On page 120, the very first cartoon done in his sketchbook, illustrates "Be Thou My Vision," my favorite hymn based on an old Celtic tune. However, the analysis is spot-on. Who does not care anything about money or being well-thought of? On page 115, the Ghost and Squirrel are playing checkers, and the Ghost says, "King of Kings me" to which the losing Squirrel replies "Enough with that." This very light-hearted cartoon is one of my favorites.

In the end, Hendrix succeeds in holding in equipoise the bad things happening in the world, but also the love and all the beautiful things. He shows that still, small voice that sees a small light in the dark.

So there you have it - two viewpoints on one book. We both agree that the artwork is lovely, and Abrams has done its usual fine job -- except for one thing -- the cartoons are too small. Many of them would have benefited from being European album-sized instead of a slightly larger-than-usual hardcover, both for the art and the text. Even the Artist's Note appears to be in 8 point type, which won't appeal to the older reader who is probably more likely to purchase this book. In the end, we were both glad of the opportunity to read the book, and glad the strips are collected for a broader audience.

An example of 'too small' reproduction

 

And Cathy's church library is getting the review copy...