Hello, I'm walking the line
Anybody else remember this comic book? Hello, I'm Johnny Cash was one of a number of Spire Christian Comics produced by Al Hartley in the 1970s, along with a bunch of religious Archie comics and adaptations of evangelical best-sellers like The Hiding Place and The Cross and the Switchblade. It came out shortly after Cash produced his musical life-of-Jesus movie The Gospel Road (1973), which -- for whatever it's worth -- came out the same year as Jesus Christ Superstar and Godspell.I haven't read this particular comic in years, maybe even decades, but I found myself thinking about it tonight while watching Walk the Line, the new biopic starring Joaquin Phoenix as Cash and Reese Witherspoon as his eventual wife June Carter. Since the film doesn't come out for another couple weeks, I won't say much about it just yet, but suffice to say it brought back memories of this comic -- three pages of which you can read here -- and it is very interesting to see how the Christian comic and the secular movie agree and disagree on certain details of Cash's life.
This difference in interpretations is especially interesting to me because I've never been much of a country fan, so for most of my life, until I began to follow pop culture more seriously about a decade ago, most of what I knew about Cash was what I had gleaned from this comic and similar Christian sources. And you know what they say about first impressions being lasting ones.
posted by Peter T Chattaway at 10:50 PM
10 Comments:
Oh yeah! And "The Cross and the Switchblade" and the Roger Staubach story. :-)
I don't know anything about the comic, but if the film downplays Cash as a Christian It would not surprise me. A lot of "youger-ish" people into Johnny tend to discount his religious side.
OMG, I totally read these Peter! But ages ago when the world was young(er) and so was I. At the time I took these fairly literally, but in hindsight these were certainly far from objective accounts. The more secular film interpretation of Cash's life and times can only contribute toward correcting any imbalance in previous religious-leaning interpretations. My own experience shows that converts or "born again" types tend to be uber-zealous or super-deep in their faith, though - but more of that when I've seen the movie.
That's brilliant Peter. Both my wife and i are really looking forward to "Walk the Line," and Krista is an aficianodo of Archie comics...so I'll have to show her this!
BTW, did you read the brilliant article in Vanity Fair last year about Cash and Rick Rubin, and their mystical communion services over the phone? It's definitely a little odd, but also a strangely moving piece. Cash was naturally quite depressed after June Carter Cash's death. And Rubin was apparently quite close to him during this time of mourning. And one day Cash was expressing his grief in a tone that Rubin took for despair. So he asks Cash, "Does it shake your faith?" And Cash looked back at Rubin, with his snow-white hair, eyes bulged with tears. And a bit of lighting came into them - this is how I remember Rubin describing it in the article. And Cash thundered, "My faith is UNSHAKEABLE!"
"... and the Man came around."
The one I remember reading was God's Smuggler
Here is the thing... I expect the movie to downplay the impact that Christ has had on Cash's life... but I KNOW in my heart Johnny Cash is one of the righteous ones. I KNOW this.
if johnny's not in heaven, then for sure I won't be getting in....at least he had a song to offer!
FWIW, to be fair, the film only covers Johnny Cash's life up to 1968. That was the year he married June Carter, underwent detox with help from her family, and released the massively successful Folsom Prison live album -- not necessarily in that order. Some of the most overtly "Christian" stuff came later, in the 1970s and beyond.
As the film's director said this morning, the movie mainly covers the period when Cash was trying to get away from God, and it ends at about the point when Cash turned back to God. Come to think of it, it's not unlike how a lot of Christian films end with an altar call, or how a lot of fairy tales end with a wedding. (Hmmm, I meant those examples metaphorically, but in this case they're sort-of literally accurate.)
So, if it feels like the film downplays Cash's Christianity, it might be just because it focuses on this one portion of his life to the exclusion of the rest. Within its own parameters, the film might not be downplaying it that much.
I owned that Johnny Cash comic as well as The Hiding Place comic. I had forgotten about the Xian Archie comics. Thanks for confirming my memory that these comics existed!
I had this one and it saved my life recently... I just thought of it and the groovy picture of Johnny all covered in the holy spirit at the end, after the image of him totally cracked out behind the wheel in a pick up and I said hey man... I'm gonna do it. I'm gonna reach out for healing just like the comic book. I had the rest of em too. The hiding place was cool. BUT this one, is so important because I think its the most human of all these comics. Thank God someone made it-- I want a copy again!
Post a Comment
<< Home