#young john the baptist

02/25/2022

02/04/2022

Know the LAW.

JOKE-OGRAPHY:
John is trying to get Jesus to summon a storm as part of his scheme to baptize the young Lord (as seen in previous comics).  This time, John asks Jesus to specifically summon a world-ending storm, which is hyperbole on John’s part, but impossible on Jesus’s part.  This is because when God sent the Flood to destroy humanity WAAAAY back in Genesis, He promised Noah He wouldn’t do that again and put a rainbow in the sky as a reminder of that covenant.  Now, that same rainbow holds a contract reading “Genesis 9:11” – the verse where God makes that promise to Noah – reminding Jesus that, as God in the Flesh, He’s gotta be careful about how big of a storm He’s summoning.

01/28/2022

But breakthroughs aren’t made by the SANE.

JOKE-OGRAPHY:
John assumes Jesus can summon a storm using His God-powers.  Though this may be accurate, Jesus calls John crazy because this baptism plan is getting out of hand.  When Jesus speaks those words, John quickly pats himself down, checking for loose sanity.  He expects that, because Jesus called him crazy, he’d suddenly BECOME crazy, but he feels the same as before, meaning that either (A) Jesus can speak in hyperbole without breaking the universe, or (B) John was already crazy and Jesus was just accurately representing reality with His words, or © both.

01/21/2022

He has VISION!

JOKE-OGRAPHY:
Jesus asks if John is sure about his plan.  John says his plan is “the only way”, which would normally mean that there’s no alternative, except that there IS an alternative – several, in fact – so John protects himself legally by adding that his plan is “the only way THAT [he] WANTS TO TRY”.

01/14/2021

This plan is going over MY head.

JOKE-OGRAPHY:
John asks Jesus how He bathes if (as the running joke goes) He can’t go into water.  Jesus reveals that He essentially takes showers by pouring water over His head.  That gives John the idea to have Jesus summon a storm (since He’s God and all) which will cause waves to crash over Jesus, wrapping Him in water from above and below and technically submerging Him.  John leads Jesus to the deepest part of the river with a raft so they can enact the plan.  What – and I ask you this humbly and with grave sincerity – could POSSIBLY go wrong?

12/24/2021

By the time they’re done, Jesus might just reach the end of His rope.

JOKE-OGRAPHY:
In the previous cartoon, John resolved to teach his cousin, Jesus, how to swim.  The catch: the child Jesus can’t actually go INTO water because (in my cartoons) He hasn’t learned how to turn off His walking-on-water superpower.  In this cartoon, it appears John’s method for helping Jesus submerge is somewhat crude, consisting of a rope with one end tied to Jesus’s waist and the other end tied to an anvil (which John’s devotion allows him to hold with remarkable ease).  Will releasing the anvil succeed in pulling Jesus underwater, or will the rope bisect our gentle Messiah?  (People who read ahead in the Bible please no spoilers.)

12/17/2021

What CAN you do for a walking miracle?

JOKE-OGRAPHY:
This comic follows the previous two from this month.  John ponders what to get his cousin, Jesus, for His upcoming birthday.  He asks the river, and while the river gives an unsatisfactory answer, it inspires John to offer Jesus swimming lessons as a gift in order to help Him actually go INTO water instead of just walking on it.  This comic continues two running jokes I use:
1. In my comics, John sometimes converses with inhuman forces, like rivers and locust men.  Perhaps it’s his overactive imagination, or perhaps he’s being pestered by evil forces but resisting them so easily that they barely register to him.  Most importantly, they’re fun to draw!
2. In my comics of Jesus as a kid, His ability to walk on water is always on, and He hasn’t learned how to turn it off.  Maybe John can help Him learn to submerge Himself and swim, or maybe he’ll accidentally end up fulfilling the river’s suggestion in the effort!  No spoilers!

12/10/2021

Mule.

JOKE-OGRAPHY:
The gift Joseph is making for Jesus in this cartoon is foreshadowing two Bible stories from Jesus’s adulthood:
1) The first is Jesus’s famous conversation with Peter where He says, “Upon this rock, I will build My Church.”  Instead, Joseph refers to the rocking mule, which is missing a seat for Jesus, and says, “Upon this *rocker*, I will build His *perch*.”  Whimsical, is it not?
2) The second is Jesus’s famous ride on a mule, where people placed palms on the road in front of Him.  He seems to have a poetic connection to beasts of burden.

12/03/2021

Seamingly, the seems of this seamstress seam stressful.

JOKE-OGRAPHY:
Mary is attempting to weave a seamless garment for Jesus (as seen in John 19), but in this cartoon, she admits she’s not yet good enough to make it right.  From the reading I’ve done, it seams the seemless garment is a symbol of priesthood in the Old Testament.  Mary says her current attempt has seams, so it “seems less than perfect”, but she’s determined that she’ll get it right one day, and at that point, the garment she makes will be “seamless and perfect”, a reiteration of the previous sentence, where “seem less” becomes “seamless”, “than” becomes “and”, and “perfect” stays the same, because it’s perfect just the way it is.  For more reading on the seamless garment idea, check out this slick article I stumbled on: https://nowthatimcatholic.com/2019/03/15/question-what-is-the-significance-of-jesus-seamless-garment/

03/25/2022

The GRANDE FINALE!!!

JOKE-OGRAPHY:
After nearly getting himself drowned, John has been saved by Jesus.  John says he’ll probably forget about rivers for a while and live in the desert, alluding to his adulthood according to the Bible where he lives in the desert for a time before returning to baptize people (including Jesus!).

AUTHOR’S NOTE:
And that’s it!  The story of John trying to teach Jesus how to swim has concluded in the only way it possibly could’ve: with an ending!  Thanks for joining me on yet another long-form story.  These are great fun to do, but they do take the place of more focused cartoons like the ones on saints and holidays and readings.  Which do YOU prefer: long-form stories or individual cartoons?  Could there be a place for both somewhere in the spinning gray of the future??!!?

03/18/2022

The BREATH of LIFE??!

JOKE-OGRAPHY:
John can’t even see the sun for how deep he’s sinking, but lucky for Him, Jesus can see him no matter how far he falls.  Seeing His cousin drowning, Jesus finally submerges Himself into the depths and drags John back to the light.  Once on land, Jesus slaps John’s back to help evacuate his insides of water so he can breathe once more!

03/11/2022

The WORD has SPOKEN??!

JOKE-OGRAPHY:
As seen in the previous comics, John’s hubris has gotten him tossed about and dragged underwater by the storm he asked for.  In my comics, Jesus hasn’t found out how to turn off His walking-on-water superpower, so He can only watch as His cousin drowns.  As He becomes more and more desperate, the storm above annoys Him enough to make Him order it to be quiet.  The storm obeys, and Jesus remembers He’s God, which means all of nature has to obey Him.  Finally, He realizes that, if He tells the water to let Him in, it HAS to let Him in.  What a simple solution!  The power was inside Him all along!  Turns out the real walking on water was the friends we drowned along the way!

03/04/2022

Way to kick a guy while he DROWNS.

JOKE-OGRAPHY:
As per previous installments, John forced Jesus to summon a storm for baptismal purposes, but the storm was wild and John wasn’t ready for what he had called down on himself.  Overtaken by a wave, his raft is smashed and he’s sent sinking into the blue abyss, with Jesus presumably still stuck on the surface.