Modern Books and Manuscripts

Cataloging work continues on Harvard College Library’s recently acquired collection of over 20,000 zines. Zines are non-commercial, non-professional and small-circulation publications that their creators produce, publish and either trade or sell themselves. For access to the collection, contact the Modern Books & Manuscripts department.

Our previous post noted the ways in which the cartoon art of zines serves to lessen the distance between humans and their gods, often through a rewriting of how gods interact with humans. Conventional religious ideas are challenged in yet another way by a collection of stories in the zine Monday, written and published by Andy Hartzell in 2005. Hartzell chooses to depict Adam and Eve’s relationship with God, and, more specifically, to examine what happens on the Monday following God’s “day of rest.” He portrays the Garden of Eden as idyllic, though in this retelling, it’s God who spoils the paradise and not Eve.

Map of the Garden of Eden on the inside covers of Monday, Part 2

At one point the reader sees Adam and Eve admiring God’s creations. Eve suddenly decides to draw what she sees as a way of preserving a memory. Adam wonders if this is allowed, and in doing so, the cartoonist cleverly raises the question of free will and suggests that the act of drawing is a kind of challenge to God.

But there are other problems in the Garden of Eden. The snake (who, we learn, has reasons to resent God and therefore to cause a rift between God and his creations) tells the humans that “word has it that the Birthplace is deserted. Not just deserted – desecrated. Like he [God] got fed up with the whole project and started smashing things…And he didn’t even say goodbye.” So, Eve decides to look for God, and finds that he is rather annoyed at being disturbed. In the chaos that follows, Adam is injured, and as God restores him to health, we see a nod to Michelangelo’s The Creation of Adam from the ceiling of the Sistine Chapel, perhaps the most famous depiction of an encounter between man and God. The God in this zine may be apologetic, but he is preoccupied with his next creation.

Monday, Part 1, pages 5-6

God wants to move beyond the creation of humans, and reveals he is in the process of creating a new creature, telling them, “At the risk of seeming overconfident, I predict this creature will be my grand achievement.” Eve replies, “But I thought we were your grand achievement.” God says, “Oh, you were, you were. Of week one. Week two is going to be a whole new story.” (Hartzell, 2003, page 30)

In this narrative, then, we see that God is in some ways weak, unable to tell where to stop with his creations, at least according to the snake. God also seems to abandon his human creations. The Michelangelo-inspired scene depicted in this zine shows more of a repaired rupture than the grand act of creation. In this way, the zine reimagines the classic scene of creation as one in which God is shown to be more vulnerable, giving Adam and Eve more independence from his creator.

Another inversion of Michelangelo’s masterpiece is carried to an extreme in the zine Four Years of Art School for This? Here we see a new version of The Creation of Adam, with the act of creation transformed into what looks like a much more casual encounter between God and man.

This zine places Renaissance art in conversation with modern sensibilities dictated by the stick-figure cartoon medium. While there is at times a challenge, there is also an almost humorous intimacy between humans and gods.

As you may have noticed, another common theme runs through these zines. By focusing on the role of the cartoonist—who, like Eve, tries to freeze the moment in a kind of eternal gesture—these zines convey special powers on the part of the artistic creator. This is especially apparent on the back cover of Andy Hartzell’s Monday, which portrays a scribe whose connection with God (in this case represented by the dove) is colored by a broader range of human experience since we also see a devil lurking near.  The artist may be close to God, but he is master of his own creation.

Last two images:

Four years of art school for this? page 2

Back cover of Monday, Part 1

References:

Nobody. Four years of art school for this? Publisher Unknown, Undated.

Hartzell, Andy. Monday, Part 1. Emeryville, CA:  Global Hobo Distro, 2003.

Hartzell, Andy. Monday, Part 2. Emeryville, CA:  Global Hobo Distro, 2005.

Thanks to Anna Ryerson, cataloging assistant in the Modern Books and Manuscripts Department, for contributing this post.