The bastard child of America’s runaway entertainment complex

Sean Murphy is mad as hell and he’s not going to take it any more.

Punk Rock Jesus is an absorbing read. Set in the not-too-distant future, an American media corporation comes up with the idea for a new reality show: J2, the second coming of Christ. As in, we’ve isolated DNA from the Shroud of Turin and we’re going to make a Jesus clone, carried to full term by a virgin, then raised to be Our True Lord and Savior, and streamed LIVE!!! This cunning plan can’t possibly go wrong.

OPHIS, the media giant, skirts the laws of any government by creating an island out in international waters. This is a state of the art compound where J2 will be created and filmed as he grows. We have the evil OPHIS executive, Slate; brilliant geneticist Dr. Sarah Epstein; ex-IRA and SRR member Thomas McKael; Tim the IT genius; Gwen, the handpicked and surgically enhanced virgin mother and of course, little Chris(t) himself. Once the story gets rolling, there’s some flash backs about McKael’s life, plenty of propaganda on both sides of the Creationism/Evolution argument and naturally, a whole lot of punk rockers.

Great artwork and a fast pace kept me interested in this book, even when the proselytizing got a bit strident. It’s clear, as is spelled out in Mr. Murphy’s afterword, that he had a crisis of faith. Still, it held up a mirror to our media-obsessed society and it ain’t a pretty sight, folks. WWPRJD, indeed?