Upcoming new bunny comics i.e. Minna’s next work

[Róisín]

Yeah, that Footrot Flats. Good, isn’t it. And dunno if Freefall is in the list?

[Jitter]

Thorny, there is no list of comics, just people who will present, so I don’t know what the upcoming months will be! Also it just so happens that February is still free, would you like to present Freefall then?

[thorny]

I could probably do that but am not quite sure. I'm supposed to talk to some doctors in late January which will give me a better idea of what my February looks like. But presentation would be mostly right at the beginning of the month so that would very likely work.

[Jitter]

Ok, I’ll put you there and if you can’t make it, I’ll present something myself. I do have a list of comics that seem to have a lot of cross-following with SSSS, but as I haven’t gotten around to reading them, I can’t really present. But I can make sure there is a comic of the month!

[thorny]

OK, I've put that on the Lists; as well as a note to let you know if I can't. But it might be short notice, if I can't.

[Jitter]

No worries, I have you covered!

[wavewright62]

I am not in any way interested to know about Minna's thoughts on Christianity or her conversion, and am not planning on checking out either of her next two projects.  I like fiction, whether rooted in fantasy or in real life.

[catbirds]

Ok, I’ll put you there and if you can’t make it, I’ll present something myself. I do have a list of comics that seem to have a lot of cross-following with SSSS, but as I haven’t gotten around to reading them, I can’t really present. But I can make sure there is a comic of the month!

If you have the list itself, could you put it somewhere? I'm interested in finding more webcomics, but I haven't really figured out where to look. It'd just be nice to read them and maybe even have discussions about them here if I find any that pique my interest

[Jitter]

Catbirds, currently it is just in my mind But check the Webcomics Discussion thread, I have copied a lengthy thread from the Disqus comments that features a few of the ones I have noticed get mentioned a lot. The ones that spring to mind without any digging are Gunnerkrikk Court, Unsounded, Wilde Life and Year in Hereafter. The latter is the only one I have read through, and it is very very good!

[Lenny]

I have a feeling her first planned comic will feel very much like watching Hannu find religion but stay relatively the same throughout. As uh. Told by Hannu. So lots of read between the lines. This is a very biased opinion, however.

Her second planned comic is uh... all the alarm bells for me. Nowhere is she saying that she's working with someone else on the planned stories. I sincerely hope she has several ministers and particularly youth pastors going through it before it gets published in any kind of format, considering the audience she's apparently going for. This isn't some entertaining kid's fiction story, it's meant to be some kind of educational material. Unlike anything she has made before this (except perhaps LP, which was in my opinion a trainwreck chiefly because of the lack of handling - essentially a vitriolic rant in comic form), this by its nature carries much more responsibility. Parents are likely to buy it for their kids and direct children to it. I don't really trust her as an author or a person to handle that in a way that I could handle or recommend.

The ministers she mentioned as her favourites are both Calvinistic and Evangelical (and from the United States, sigh), as well as Baptist and Presbyterian, so it will definitely be quite different from Catholic teachings. There is a chance she doesn't see Catholics as "real Christians" either.

Possible things she might attempt to cover, based on over two decades of experience with Calvinism, Presbyterianism, and various Dutch Reformed denominations:

• Predestination, the idea that every human is, before birth, predestined to be saved or not. This comes from trying to reconcile an omnipotent God with free will. Likely also will lead to a conversation about free will and if anything we do matters if it's all predestined anyway. (The answer usually comes out to only God knows the outcome, not us, so we should live as if things aren't predestined.)
• Living in a non-Christian world. There will likely be very little about living with other Christian denominations. My experience has been that different denominations only like the ones closest to them in theology and write the others off as either heretics or "not true Christians" in some way, or just completely ignore them (the smaller the community the more likely this kind of thinking seems). Considering LP, it will almost certainly cover various aspects of living and living out your faith in the digital age.
• Putting God first in your life in all decisions. Likely something that will permeate the entire series.
• She might attempt to address gender dysphoria and different sexualities, but I highly doubt this. If it does come up I suspect it will be in the usual brutish fashion, "it's a choice, dishonouring God and His plan/design, and it will lead to hell". Considering she's going to try and spin this to people interested in Christianity and new Christians, if it does come up it's likely to be cotton candy soft, but with the same end message.
• Gender roles. I don't know how much Finnish culture will impact this, but expect lots of "mum does this because this reason, and dad does this because this reason, and kids should follow the respective model" kind of things. Again more God's design stuff. Women will absolutely not be allowed in a leadership role in the church.
• Likely to be something about only praying to God, and how to do that (not Jesus, not any saint, just God).
• Also likely to be something on enjoying what you do for God. I'm crossing fingers that this will be in there, actually. It's miles better than the damaging notion that only good works done without internal motivation are valid good works. Leads to a lot of self-hate. Humans are made to enjoy things - things go wrong when we don't.
• Possibly something about tithing.
• Highly likely to be something about whatever version of communion she adheres to. There are several, I don't know which stream of thought her church is part of.
• Similar coverage of baptism. Again, there are several versions, I don't know which stream of thought her church is part of.
• I also expect a host of things based on Minna's personal journey and her questions she worked through there. I might be pleasantly surprised and she might handle several viewpoints in a balanced way! (Within Christianity, not beyond that scope. For example, going through each version of communion and why different denominations practice different things.) But I'm not optimistic.

I'm not going to be reading them as they come out. It's possible I'll never read them, depending where I am in my own personal recovery. Christian material written/made by people who have no understanding of anything but their own personal bubble is a huge, huge trigger for me, even though I personally am still Christian. She also dismissed critique on LP as "oh, I was in that position, I totally understand, but you're wrong", which uh. Yeah nah, you were never in my position. I'm expecting the same level of dismissal throughout the second comic, unless she ends up working with an editor and co-writer. Which again, she hasn't mentioned at all.

If I do eventually read them, it will be to analyse and critique the doctrine taught in them - it's likely this will blow up in Christian communities since good quality art and story is hard to come by (bit like modern Christian music really), so I'll possibly want to have an opinion on this if it does.

I also recommend that if any of the above is not your cup of tea, wait until someone you trust reads and reviews the comics. A lot of this kind of literature can seem totally fine and normal to someone already within the religion, though it can be quite damaging to read if you have trauma and aren't in the correct headspace. Even without trauma it will almost certainly read as an attack on certain lifestyle decisions and cultures in places. Since it's all going to be in a cutesy bunny format that can make it even worse.

[moredhel]

Her second planned comic is uh... all the alarm bells for me. Nowhere is she saying that she's working with someone else on the planned stories.

In my experience christian focused storys tend to very forseeable storytelling. The authors think they have found the one, the ultimate story. I can totally understand that they tell variants of this story but it is not pleasant to read this sort of storys. I fear we will get this sort of story.

[Jitter]

I think I have already said this but I’m mostly expecting the afterword of LP in comic form. I think the fact that her temporary (?) title contains “depravity” tell us what the tone of the autobiography thing will be.

As for your concerns, Lenny, I’m afraid there’s not likely to be much co-authoring by anyone. Baptists are a tiny group in Finland, a total of about 2000 people divided into several parishes. So her parish is likely to have around 100, or perhaps 200 people and one pastor. And zero resources to put on a webcomic. While she may well seek the pastor’s approval (I don’t know anything about this, purely a guess!) it’s not likely this will help make the works more balanced.

But, who knows. Maybe she will find a style of storytelling where she can make fun and genuinely good-hearted comics, with happy Christian messages. But I strongly agree that it’s probably a good idea to stay off them, if you have trauma or other issues with religion in general or Christians in particular.

At least it seems there will be no more fooling people to dive in with no warning.

[Opaque]

While I don't think my curiosity will allow me to not read Minnas personal testimony comic I also believe that I will be a bit disappointed by what might be in it. It may be a case of 'curiosity made the cat very uncomfortable'. But I still want to learn her thought process from her being and atheist to becoming a believer. I really hope this wont be a 'something bad happened in my life and I want god to magically make things better' type story. The existential crisis she mentioned has me concerned that it might be the case. But that's only speculation. I may be wrong.
I hope she calms down a bit from her newly found faith and learns to not say things like "no matter how good you are you are still a sinner". That's not the type of christian she should aspire to be. But then again I'm probably just projecting my own belief onto her. Which isn't good either.
I also don't know much about lutheran christians or how they're different from any of the other types of christians so maybe they're all like that.

[moredhel]

I also don't know much about lutheran christians or how they're different from any of the other types of christians so maybe they're all like that.

I thinkl you are confusing the different sorts of christianity here. As far as I know Minna converted to one of the variants of baptism. lutherans are the dominant variant of christians in scandinavia (and some nearby european countries and regions). If she was a Lutheran I think we could be less concerned. Lutherans tend to be one of the more relaxed an accepting churches (because Martin Luther said that no authority pushing dogmas on the people is needed). What is not true for many baptist churches they tend to be much more dogmatic.

From an painters point of view (based on some talks I had with christians):
If you ask people what they think about the fact that as Sandro Botticelli found to (extremist) religion he did not only paint way less he also himself burned some of his works because they were not christian enough; in my observation lutherans say something like 'oh how horrible' but some baptists will say 'that is the right way to do it'.

[Opaque]

Ah, I understand. I guess I read the word Lutheran thrown around here and there and just assumed. My bad. I'm not well versed in in many different kinds of christianity. There's too many to keep up with. But I'm wondering why she chose to go with this particular form of christianity and not one that's less ridged.