Earlier this year, I reviewed Nick Marino and Daniel Arruda Massa’s miniseries Holy F*ck. Throughout the run, I consistently found the series to be missing that certain something. The artwork was consistent and the writing delivered several gags that were independently funny without fully meshing with each other. My final verdict was that the series as a whole seemed directionless, almost scattershot. But I also kept wanting more. I find myself in that same situation as fall starts creeping in.
Last week, Marino and Arruda Massa returned with the first issue of Holy F*cked. With that, we are cast once more into the lives of Jesus, Satan, and the nun Maria, who have all found happiness in Los Angeles. Jesus has gotten real big into skateboarding (I am certain that although this hasn’t really been explained, it will eventually play a big role). Jesus and Satan are living together, and pretty early on we find out that the devil is pregnant. For her part, Maria works in a soup kitchen, regaling the homeless with old war stories.
Of course, we know that their bliss can’t last. Anansi, the African spirit that most often takes the form of a spider and is connected with knowledge, overhears the news and reports it to Hercules. Hercules is thirsting for revenge: after Jesus and his cohorts defeated Zeus, Mount Olympus deteriorated from a prosperous, “grand utopian metropolis” to a wasteland. And so, out of rage and jealousy that the man who took away his family is about to start his own, Hercules resolves to murder Jesus Christ. Setting his plan in motion, he goes to Earth and, disguised as Thanatos Kostas (a play on the Greek personification of death and a word meaning roughly “constant”), a newcomer to town who is passionate about charity work, he infiltrates the soup kitchen.
That, more or less, is the story.
Continue reading Review of HOLY F*CKED #1: “Provocation for Provocation’s Sake” [Redux]
Today marks the release of the fourth and final part of Nick Marino and Daniel Arruda Massa’s Holy F*ck. The issue brings a high-action conclusion to Jesus, Satan, and the nun Maria’s struggle against Zeus, Isis, and the multi-pantheonic corporation Polydynamis’ attempt to plunge the world into nuclear chaos and feast off the belief they hope this will inspire.
As something of a rarity in comics publishing, the third issue of Nick Marino and Daniel Arruda Massa’s Holy F*ck hits the stands this week (March 11, 2015), mere days after the previous one. As always, Sacred and Sequential and I were kindly provided with a review copy. Continuing the story of Jesus, Satan, and the nun Maria’s quest to stop Zeus and Isis’ plot to cause nuclear devastation in order to inspire humanity to have faith in them (and a cadre of other old gods who have remained more or less peripheral throughout the series) once more, this issue shows the gods finally get their plan crowdfunded through the website Kickslammer.
Just over a month ago, 