On March 16
my regular Winnipeg Free Press column featured Man Martin, 59, the artist behind the religiously-themed
Man Overboard comic. Since I couldn’t share everything he told me in those few
words, here’s the transcript of my interview—replete with panels from the
comic. Enjoy!
Tell me about yourself.
I am a novelist and high school English teacher living in Atlanta,
Georgia.
What's your religious background?
I’m Episcopalian.
Are you a churchgoer?
Yes. I like to call myself a “practicing Christian,” which
implies that I still haven’t gotten it right, but I’m not done trying.
How important is faith to you?
It’s becoming more important as I age; nevertheless, I’ll confess
my faith is about as weak as a reed. I struggle with it, and anticipate I'll
keep on struggling, which is why it so often forms a theme in my cartoons.
What's your background as a cartoonist?
I realized my childhood ambition to be a syndicated cartoonist in
the 1980s when Universal Press picked up my comic strip “Sibling Revelry.”
It appeared in a grand total of 36 papers until its demise.
Following that, I turned to writing fiction. It was decades before
I began cartooning again.
When did you start Man Overboard?
About three years ago. Originally, it was titled, “Inkwell
Forest,” and was to be a conventional fairy-tale themed comic strip.
When it finally sank in that the newspaper comic strip was heading
the way of the dodo and the northern white rhino, I cut loose and began drawing
about whatever interested me instead of worrying about trying to be commercial.
Why did you start the comic?
For years I’d been having intermittent dreams about drawing a
comic strip, and would wake up thinking, “Maybe it’s time to do another strip.”
Then I’d say, “Nah, I don’t want to do that.” Finally, I acted on my
dreams and it’s been a delightful experience.
What or who are your influences for the comic?
Charles Schulz was my first love, but I think I’m very influenced
by Jules Feiffer, R O Blechman, and Shel Silverstein.
My mother always said I drew like James Thurber because most of the
time my characters don’t have hair and ears seem more like an optional
accessory. So I’d have to say Thurber too.
Do you do it for fun or to make money off it?
I just want to have fun and hopefully provide fun for others. I
released a book, “Not Easy Being God,” last year, but so far that’s been my only attempt to
monetize.
It's more than a hobby and less than a
career. It's something I do.
What is the response?
People like it, and really makes me happy to see them share it on
Facebook. My fan base is growing, which is very rewarding.
You live if in the Bible Belt, then darn close to it. They take
Christianity seriously down there. What's the reaction to the way you portray
God, Jesus, the church and Christianity?
I live on the veritable buckle of the Bible Belt; oddly, though,
no one has ever taken offense at my religious-themed cartoons.
When they have taken offense, it’s been when I’ve attempted
political humor.
Though sometimes I hurt others’ sensibilities, I never set out to,
and it’s painful to get an email or message that such and such a cartoon rubbed
someone the wrong way.
Nevertheless, the only audience I’m beholden to is myself, and
whatever strikes me as interesting, funny, or worth commenting on Tuesday
morning is likely to show up in a cartoon on Wednesday.
Sometimes I may offend the reader, and for that, I apologize in
advance, but if I have to avoid certain subjects for fear of crossing the line,
then it just isn’t fun for me, and if it isn’t fun, what’s the point.
How did you come up with your image of God in the comic? (A play
on the eye and pyramid in U.S. currency)
I chose it, because as images of God go, it is by far the weirdest
and most preposterous. Showing God as a white guy with a beard isn’t nearly as
goofy as showing Him as a one-eyed pyramid.
And when you’re a cartoonist, goofy trumps all.
Do people criticize you for how you draw God? Or Jesus?
Again, no one’s found fault, as far as I know, with the way I
depict God, Mary, and Jesus. Indeed, some of my most loyal fans are clergy. I
guess if you get the joke and see it’s all in fun, you stop and read. If
not, you skip over it.
Your comic assumes some knowledge of Christianity, biblical
literacy, theology and history. Is that a challenge today when so few people know the Bible?
Maybe this is what accounts for peoples’ fondness for the cartoon.
In an era when organized religion is on the decline, it’s reassuring for people
of faith to see cartoons about subject matter uniquely familiar to them.
You are also critical of the church. Why? And what's the reaction?
For me, one of the great themes of Christianity is the astonishing
way people just don’t get it. Jesus can explain something in words of one
syllable to his disciples, and they’re all standing around in slack-jawed
stupefaction as they try to figure out what he meant.
Right from the get-go, the early church began to break into
schisms arguing about such earth-shaking trivia as whether bread can be flesh
or if Mary was a virgin only when she conceived Jesus, or if she kept on being
a virgin after that.
This unfortunate tendency of losing sight of the main point is not
reserved to theologians, disciples, and other crackpots; every Sunday, I am
reminded there are two laws—only two—love God and love your neighbor, and every
Sunday I’m back in church needing forgiveness all over again because I couldn’t
do those two simple things.
You also take on consumerism, the environment, and ultimate
meaning. Why?
Because those things are interesting to me and rife with
absurdity. The funniest material is mined from the most serious topics.
As Flannery O’Connor said, “things are funny because they’re terrible, and
terrible because they’re funny.”
Where do you get your ideas for religious ideas from?
Same place everyone gets their religious ideas:
personal experience, worship, scripture. The only difference is that in my
case, religious ideas come out funny.
What, for you, is the role of humour and comics in communicating
about faith?
I'm a little uncomfortable with the idea humor
has a "role" in anything. It seems to make humor subservient to
some other purpose. Humor needs no such excuse. If it makes you
laugh, grimace, or grunt, that's good enough for me. Humor brings
delight, what else would we ask from it? It just so happens, our notions
about God and spirituality are a wonderful source of humorous material.
Is there any topic you won't touch? (In the religious sphere.)
Telling a cartoonist there's a topic he can't
touch is like wearing a sign that says, "Don't kick me." As
soon as I know something is out of bounds, I'm bound to go there.
How does the polarized political climate in the U.S. today affect
your work? (
Sometimes I dip my toe into political humor,
usually not very adeptly and sometimes to the actual pain of friends and loved
ones.
When I go to heaven, if there is such a place,
and I meet God, if there is such a being, She's going to say she planted me
during the most preposterous era of US politics, and She's going to demand to
know what I, as a cartoonist, did with this wonderful opportunity.
If my answer is "Nothing," I won't be
able to meet her gaze. So from time to time, come hell or high water, I
will do political humor. Again, it's not my best work. But the
target is too big and juicy.
