Greg Gildersleeve

Just a brief post this week. I'm busy preparing for the NCWG meeting on Saturday.

I was not able to make it to Free Comic Book Day this year because of a teachers' writing conference. (At least it had something to do with writing.) But it sounds like it was pretty much business as usual. I'm glad to hear that Elite Comics had quite a number of creators turn out for the event and Mike Sullivan and Bill Hook (not Cook) represented the local scene at Pop Culture Comix. Special thanks to The Johnson County Sun for much-needed exposure, even if they couldn't get some of the creators' or comics' names right. (I shudder to think what they might have done with my moniker!)

The fuss and furor over The Da Vinci Code [SPOILER WARNING]: I just had to put in my two quid here. If you want your book or movie to get attention, just make religion the focus of it -- think of all the fuss caused by Mel Gibson's The Passion of the Christ -- particularly if it challenges long-held assumptions or beliefs.

What seems to be the major problem of some concerning The Da Vinci Code is Dan Brown's claims at the beginning of the book that his depictions of pieces of art and historical documents are accurate. Actually, this isn't the case. One particular gospel that he cites has, in his version, Jesus kissing Mary Magdalene on the mouth. Yet the actual fragment is incomplete (versions of it are available online) -- we have no idea where Jesus kissed her (the forehead, the hand, the cheek), or if this particular gospel is even credible. And is that really Mary M. sitting next to Jesus in The Last Supper, or is it a feminine John? Even if it is the former, what does that prove beyond the fact that Leonardo da Vinci had his own unique take on biblical events? (Note that Leo does not depict any (other?) women at the Last Supper, yet many had prominent roles in Jesus' ministry.)

It is this sort of historical fabrication more than anything else that has people up in arms. If not for Brown's claim of accuracy, it would be easy to dismiss The Da Vinci Code as just another piece of fiction. The book would probably still generate some controversy (as the film The Last Temptation of Christ once did), but nowhere near the cultural hoo-hah that it has.

I don't know if Brown intended for this hoo-hah to happen, but I can't imagine that he's too upset about it. For a writer to generate this much attention and discussion of his work is not all bad. If nothing else, it's created awareness of subjects that many in our pop culture-saturated nation wouldn't otherwise discover.