Tix-Comix

This comic serves to illustrate that truth is indeed stranger than fiction. I could not have made this up. When I create a comic I try to make the characters’ behaviour at least somewhat believable. This story, relayed to me by my Australian musician friend Michael Warner, is so over the top that it’s unbelievable, but I believe Michael when he says it is true. I wonder if Michael was so mortified by this incident that he slunk out the back door of the church. That’s what I would have done. Note that there is no ethnic diversity in this strip. That is by design. When I used to direct a community choir, the worst thing I could say to them was “you guys sound like a bunch of white people in church.” I meant musically timid, too worried about being “right,” and lacking in a unifying rhythm that would pull them into a sweet groove. If and when average white people in church spontaneously clap, they seem to always clap (rather tentatively at best) on beats 1 and 3, like a German march. But I never dreamed that some Assembly of God minister would proclaim that beats 1 and 3 were the only beats sanctioned for clapping and all other claps were “demonic.” I think that choir should break into “Take 5” and watch the minister go nuts as he tries to figure out which claps are demonic and which ones are pleasing to the Lord.