The Comics Curmudgeon and others note the death of Johnny Hart, arguably the best known religious wing nut from Broome County, New York, where I grew up. (Sadly, this is not a set of one, as the anti-abortion group Operation Rescue also traces its origins to the Binghamton area.) Hart was the creator of the comic strip B.C., in which wisecracking cavemen occasionall veered off into discussions of or lengthy quotes from Scripture.
The strip hasn't been consistently funny for at least fifteen years, and I found his personal views kind of obnoxious, but the man was a Broome County icon, and it's sad to see him go. Let me also join Josh in fervently hoping that they don't continue the strip past whatever he finished before he died. These zombie comics are almost always a disaster, and it would be much better for B.C. to fade away, and free up funny-pages space for some new cartoonist to do something interesting.
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B.C. was brilliant in its early days but lost its luster as time went on. However, the same can be said of many comic strips (Peanuts, anyone?).
I agree -- with most comics, it's best to end when their creator ends. However, I've enjoyed the revisiting of past Peanuts strips -- it's really amazing to see what Schulz was capable of when he was at his prime.
That said, Hart is no Schulz, and B.C. should be laid to rest along with his body.
I used to enjoy B.C. a long time ago, apparently before he came out of the fundie closet, because I never knew he was logically challenged. It seems inconsistent to me that a fundie cartoonist would use cavemen as his subjects. I'm guessing that he wasn't a young-earther.
I remember reading a few years ago that he was actually more or less an atheist for a while, and had a religious re-awakening in the 80's sometime. He wasn't a total wing nut when he started "B.C.", so there wasn't any inconsistency with using cavemen, and the strip was well established by the time he had his conversion experience, so he was stuck with cavemen.
Well, the whole men living with dinosaurs thing would support the young-earth view. He just doesn't mention that Thor's uncle is Cain.
I heard about this on NPR (I think that it was WSKG, the Binghamton station) and they said that his family had been writing the comic strips with him for a number of years. Mind you, I suppose that they would say that, given that they are planning to continue without him.
Rowan Atkinson as the Devil welcoming a new cohort to Hell, "Atheists?� Atheists?� You must be feeling a right bunch of nitwits. Never mind. And finally, Christians� Christians?� Ah yes, I'm sorry, I'm afraid the Jews were right."
Any religion that does proseletyze should be suspected of knowing something.