The New Adventures of Jesus: The Second \t\t Coming

After nearly 40 years, Stack's wry and hilarious strips featuring the \t\t Savior have been collected into a tome certain to polarize readers. Considered \t\t the first underground comic strip, Stack's take on Jesus offers readers a \t\t messiah who is every bit the Old Testament superhero of Sunday school fame, \t\t only his human side is what truly shines out. This Jesus is very much a modern \t\t man in disposition, resurrected to do his holy thing, yet irritated by such \t\t hassles as the police, military idiocy, horny collegiate groupies, Jerry \t\t Bruckheimeresque Hollywood blockbusters that distort his story and blacks who \t\t are disgusted to find out that he's not a "brutha." The collection drips with \t\t the uncertainty and disillusionment common to '60s-era undergrounds, and as the \t\t stories move on through the decades it becomes readily apparent that Jesus' \t\t second coming has had little-to-no-effect upon the population, and nobody knows \t\t that better than he does. Depending on how the individual reacts to a \t\t world-weary depiction of the figurehead of the most influential religion of the \t\t past two millennia, Stack (Our Cancer Year) \t\t wrote a fascinating work for the open-minded. (Dec.)