Mar 2, 2010

D) None Of The Above

An e-mail arrived Monday morning about a reprint. Could a college group organizing a debate about the existence of god use this cartoon on their flyer? No big deal and no money involved for a handful of flyers so I granted permission, pointing out that the work was not to be altered or appear out of context. Good luck convincing everyone to be rational, fellow traveler!

They replied, appreciating my prompt response, but wanted to run a slight alteration by me. Could they use it this way?




Oh hey, yeah! Turn my explicitly atheist comic into second-rate Jack Chick tract for a Jesus meeting – no biggie!


Permission not granted.

14 Comments:

Blogger Brian McFadden said...

Besides the Comic Sans, did they chop up your lettering to spell out their alterations?

10:05 AM  
Blogger Krysti Kalkman said...

Wow... people these days. I bet it felt really nice to say no.

10:51 AM  
Blogger Sumit Khanna said...

I recently decided to check out a local atheist group. They're pretty big here in Cincinnati and even bought a billboard for a month with the message "Don't believe in God? You're not alone."

I find that under it all, they're really just as judgmental as religious fundamentalist; thinking of most of them idiots. While I find it hard to disagree really, the fact is that if you're on either edge of that spectrum, there is an invisible line pointing the other direction called 'judgment.'

The difference, I think, is that a lot of Atheists, in general, don't really care if the world believes in their view of god, just so long as those people who do believe in jebus/alla/et cetera don't vote for policy decisions based purely on that faith.

11:13 AM  
Blogger Kevin Moore said...

You're in good company, Matt. During his last interview before he got shot, John Lennon told Playboy that a priest had asked permission to use "Imagine" as part of an event; also, could they change "Imagine no religion" to "Imagine one religion." He declined.

So God used Mark David Chapman as an instrument of punishment. By way of Catcher in the Rye. "Mysterious ways," indeed.

11:28 AM  
Blogger William said...

I love how they also took "Christian Rock" out of the first panel, and carefully moved the images of God out of their respective frames. Twits.

2:07 PM  
Blogger Matt Bors said...

Brian - yes.

Krysti _ yes.

SK - Clubs for not believing in something is weird to me, but I guess it could be good to commiserate with the like-minded, though I'm sure it just turns into a bitch fest.

SF Jazz - Yes.

Kevin - Are you suggesting I will be killed soon? As a good friend of mine, will you take the bullet?

Will.I.Am - "Christian Rock" being changed to "Natural Disasters" made my day.

2:12 PM  
Blogger Aaron Manton said...

Couldn't they have just had one of the fundies who can draw imitate your cartoon to fit their own ends? That's what their contemporary music is.

3:54 PM  
Blogger Steve said...

Read the comic before your blog post. That was fun.

6:59 PM  
Blogger FSM_Ed said...

Wow, those fundies are amazing. Yes, I can see an Atheist meet-up turning into a bitch-fest, there is so much to bitch about.

8:00 PM  
Blogger STEVEN ROSS BERNARD said...

There must be another explanation, so come to our meeting to find out the answers! We can't give you any hints before you show up, because when we write "God allows suffering because he is angry at a woman who ate an apple at the dawn of time" on our fliers, no one shows up for some reason.

Our answer to your question is actually incredibly stupid, but if you hear it from one of our most charismatic adherents while you are feeling depressed, lost, or alone, he will have a small but nonzero chance of hypnotizing you.

8:22 PM  
Blogger Kevin Moore said...

Matt, the best I can do is write a letter urging stricter gun control laws and enforcement. But I will do it gladly, friend.

11:26 PM  
Blogger Spacious Specious said...

Actually, Christian Rock is a perfect example of the lack of imagination shown by certain God-botherers. Imagine that you OWN centuries of liturgical music. Now imagine that you OWN Southern Gospel music, which is arguably the basis for much contemporary pop. Do you take those raw kernels of musical faith and update them for a new generation? Or do you just mimic Satan's Music?

Do you distribute Jack Chick Tracts? Or do you just steal cartoons from a public atheist?

These people have no imagination. That's what wrong with them. Religion is not the root of all evil. Stupid, boring unimaginate cretins are.

2:57 PM  
Blogger SusanM said...

Matt, this is nowhere near a JC tract! Not to say you're wrong about denying permission to the god squad, but unless there are at least 3 cheap shots about catholics it just ain't "Chick" quality.

7:21 PM  
Blogger Royston Robertson said...

I found one of my cartoons on the net the other day which had been stolen, badly coloured and its caption altered. It's shocking that people think they can do this, even if they do ask permission retrospectively. If there was a Hell, they'd be going there ;-)

7:35 AM  

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