Comics & Comical

I didn’t plan on writing this.
But the recent news of a comics artist in HK got me thinking.

That author is Tsung Tze（尊子）.
His will be the final one on Mingpao Saturday, curtain down after four decades!

Full disclosure.
First I have never really read his works in the past four decades.
Second, I never read any other except maybe Laofutze（老夫子）.
Third I think I have the equivalent of dyslexia on comics; just had mental blocks towards them, similar towards simplified characters.

These days I continue to be amused whenever I thought of my daughter gobbling up Sunday comics whist I just devoured the other sections when we were in USA. I always bought papers and we divided according to our appetites.

That said, I’m not arguing for Tsuen Tze, on the merit of his contents; nor his political viewpoint.
Way too many people have commented lately.
Too crowded for an uninitiated person like me.

I just want to register several observations that are comical, arising from what happened surrounding the recent news about this comic artist.

Whatever the contents were portraying, comics had the function, in my view, as those of Charlie Chaplin.
They provoked involuntary laughters with a taste of bitterness towards societal ills or inadequacies.
Their portrayal is of the society.
To rid it, whatever pretext given by officials and public figures, reduces the efforts to comical proportion when grave issues are facing our society.
Just couldn’t suppress my smirk.

Then news reports told me something even more comical than the comics intended.
HK libraries took down everything that were authored by Tsuen Tze.
So comprehensive that even catalogue search ended up blank.
The reason?
Even more comical.
Don’t know who and at what level such decisions were made but no bother.
I couldn’t control my smirk.

Finally what is unsaid took the first prize of being the most comical.
That I must direct at those occupying the seat of Moses, with a microphone placed before them daily, if they were teaching as Seminary professors, or weekly, if they preach in churches in weekend Christian church services!
These professors cum ordained pastors rank amongst the most respected in Evangel Seminary, Alliance Bible Seminary, Baptist Seminary, and Chung Chi Theological College. They know their own names.

What comical contribution these Christian professors and pastors have made?
They didn’t traverse outside biblical and theological exegesis.
They stay within the ecclesiastical boundary.
They stick with the pure gospel.

Well, I’m not sure if any one of them will ever come across this, let alone be convicted of being comical.
Even then I appeal to their conscience.

If a dog barks at thieves, it’s a good one.
If a dog barks at strangers, it’s a reliable one.
Its owners appreciate it.
If a dog stops barking at any stranger who has a sign around his neck that reads, “I’m of Caesar and not of God”, then it looks blatantly comical!

Professors and pastors of Evangel, Alliance, Baptist, and Chinese U can rub shoulders with officials who persecuted thousands of church members, blasted with tear gas and rubber bullets in the siege of Chinese University and City Poly, and maintain silence when these officials’ appetite turned from students to comics artist, the picture looks extra comical.

When do Christian leaders, particularly those who have the microphone weekly, stop performing what Tsuen Tze will now be forced to stop drawing?
The scene of so-called God’s servants dancing to the tunes of a despotic communist government is too comical to even laugh at.
My smirks morphed into contempt.