A Different Take on the Bible

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I found this quite fascinating....

10:31 AM PDT, August 2, 2006, updated at 7:40 AM PDT, August 4, 2006
Hi All,
Today marks my initiation to not just one, but two new media: comics, and the "plog."

The former - and what I'll share with you below - is the first collection of my first regular comic book, Testament. The second, is this extremely "push-y" form of blogging from Amazon known as the Plog.

I was surprised to see these little messages when I logged into Amazon, apparently from authors whose books I've purchased in the past. Before clicking the window completely closed forever, though, I figured it was my duty to investigate - and determine whether this was a vehicle for true author-reader communications, or simply one for crass marketing.

Seems it's both - which really isn't so terrible when you pause to remember that we are sitting here in an online store. Why not get messages from authors who you might like to hear from, even if it is about a new release?

And, at least in my case, I've got messages to share other than "buy my book." (Still, if you could click along and grab a discounted copy of my new work, I'd greatly appreciate it!)
Testament: Akedah

So much for the Plog aspect. As for comics, well, for those of you who are only familiar with my media thinking or my Judaism writings, it may seem like something of a stretch. But, in actuality, it's about the most logical medium for the ideas I've been trying to express since I began writing.

Testament is, ultimately, about the Bible. I'm trying to show that these stories aren't so important because they happened at one moment in history, but because they are still happening, now. These stories actually describe the dynamics underlying our personal choices in every moment, and the forces at play in our most global conflicts.

So I've juxtaposed Bible stories - stark and historically considered interpretations of Torah that I hope invigorate the contemporary Midrash - with a brand new story of a near-future where the draft has been reinstated and the world is adopting several new self-enslaving technologies. In other words, I'm juxtaposing the Bible with our day-after-tomorrow real world. By doing so, I hope to show how we still engage in child sacrifice - every time we send a kid off to war. And how we still practice idolatry through our worship of the almight dollar (in G-d we trust). And how we're still the victims of mental bondage, courtesy of Madison Avenue's latest techniques of behavioral control.

In the world of Testament, technology and media are our magicks and mysteries - making hackers today's equivalent of the Israelites.

Testament has been a great joy to write because I'm finally working in a medium where I can connect the dots between what must have appeared to be a very disparate collection of book subjects. To me, they're all the same subject; and the world of "sequential narrative" - as comics people like to call it - has allowed me to tell this story in a more cohesive and coherent way than ever before.

More soon. And feel free to stop by my "regular" blog at rushkoff.com to discuss any of this with me.

Most of all, thanks for having bought one of my books at some point in Amazon's history. Without you, I wouldn't be a writer.