Not all webcomics are created equal.
23Apr. 09
I was trolling through some of my less reputable RSS feeds today, and I stumbled upon what can only be described as the dumbest webcomic in existence. It’s called After Eden and it is done by the professional mouth-breathers at Answers in Genesis.
This is the image that initially made me want to write about this comic:
What do you notice about it? Well, for one, it’s a perfect example of creationist propaganda: You have the poor, oppressed Christian (why, just look at how his lip quivers before that horrible Evilutionist!); the mean, angry “Evolution Evangelist”; and the complete and utter nonsense spewing forth from the cartoon mouth of the baby murdering spawn of Beelzebub (okay, maybe I extrapolated just a tittle in that last bit). The point of the comic, of course, is also nothing new. It’s just another attempt at painting evolution as “just another religion”, and one that supposedly makes less sense than creationism ergo hallelujah praise Jebus.
But all that is relatively uninteresting, and I’m not really up for a big ol’ game of ‘Spot the Logical Fallacies’ right now (Hint: The answer is “Huge Freaking Strawman”). No, the main thing I noticed about the comic when I saw it was this: It’s not badly drawn!
Now, don’t get me wrong. I’m not saying that the artist is up there with Dave McKean, Dave Gibbons or Dave…well, I knew a guy called Dave once, and he was a pretty good illustrator. But compare the comics on that site to, say, your average newspaper strip and it comes out looking pretty good. Sure, it’s a bit light on and simple, but that makes it even more insiduous by my reckoning as it makes the comic appealing to children.
As far as propaganda goes, this is good. And that’s bad.
I’m not sure exactly how one would go about countering this sort of stuff, or if it’s strictly necessary to do so. It seems that any sort of reactionary comic (think Cectic style) would most likely not reach the audience that most needs it, and the same can be said really of any criticism…indeed, the most frightening aspect of this comic is how effectively powerless we are against it. I hope that my remarks here aren’t seen as too negative, mind you — I certainly believe that the comic can be challenged, however any kind of direct attempt is bound to fail. Instead, the very culture the comic is aimed at must be challenged so as to render the comic pointless and the audience better informed before they are exposed to the propaganda. I believe this challenge is already being met in a number of ways — the most striking example that comes to mind is the work done by Eugenie Scott and the National Centre for Science Education (check out Expelled Exposed for a fantastic example of their work).
Finally, I want to show you another comic from After Eden. I warn you in advance — this one made me vomit a wee bit in my mouth when I saw it:
For anyone wondering why this comic is so repulsive to me, let’s see how long it takes for us to link Ants Worse in Jellytits to the Creation Museum:
- The CEO of Antwerp in Guinevere is Ken Ham.
- Ken Ham’s last name is a pig derived food, just like Kevin Bacon.
- Kevin Bacon’s last name is a food that Natalie Portman is not supposed to eat.
- Natalie Portman starred in Garden State with Zach Braff.
- Zach Braff can’t grow a beard to save himself, unlike Ken Ham.
- Ken Ham is the CEO of Anchors in Gin Assist, which operates the Creation Museum.
Woo! Six degrees of separation…though I somehow think I could have made it in less.
In all seriousness, however, it does leave me with the question: Just how sick in the head do you have to be to post a cartoon on your website that is a thinly veiled advertisment for your own museum, based on the premise that a dead girl wanted to visit it? I mean, seriously…what the crap, Ken?
April 23rd, 2009 at 7:29 am
What the hell, Richard!? How dare you slag off on After Eden, clearly the greatest internet publication of all time? Look at those drawing skills. Look at the witty and subtle nuances of the underlying subtext. This is clearly a parody of creationism, so well done that even AiG was fooled and still continues to be.
Oh, wait, did I say that out loud? Dammit, now they’re going to know… Oh shi–
April 23rd, 2009 at 11:10 am
It’s clearly a subtle parody, like Conservapedia. Remember, fundamentalists can’t understand satire or parody (or sarcasm for that matter), so therefore it must be parody!
God Bless Poe’s law.
April 23rd, 2009 at 1:57 pm
Ewww! Pretty creepy-gross!
Kinda like the grand-daddy of them all, Jack Chick tracts
http://www.chick.com/catalog/tractlist.asp
(They’re all creepy but “Dark Dungeons” is quite infamous in its own right)
I know they used to get handed out at some unis by the fundy groups and others would collect them thinking they were funny … but is it better to throw them away?
BTW how can you tell someone called Richard wrote this post? It seems to be anonymous.
April 23rd, 2009 at 2:09 pm
When I first saw After Eden it took me quite a while to be convinced it was actually from AiG. It projects on such a massive scale the likes of which I have never seen before, I found it hard to believe it wasn’t a horrible HORRIBLE case of Poe. In fact, I’m still not convinced. I still often find myself wondering which person is using Poe’s Law so effectively that he or she has convinced the people at AiG to brand something so obviously and blatantly fake with their website details.
April 23rd, 2009 at 5:31 pm
@RainbowSnake:
I tag most of my posts ‘richard’ — makes it easy to find stuff I’ve written. Occasionally I forget, though (looking at the Steven Hawking news).
That said, sometimes ‘by Richard’ appears beneath the title as well. I’ve always assumed that admin adds that.
April 24th, 2009 at 7:48 am
Yes admin does ad that :P. I could automate it but I didn’t want people who wanted to remain anon to be called out basically :P.
April 28th, 2009 at 1:08 am
[…] blog Young Australian Skeptics gives a scathing and pretty spot on review of After Eden, a Christian anti-evolution webcomic. I suppose there had to be one out […]