This was technically inspired by the new Superbook 3D, but I didn’t really feel like learning new character models.
This was technically inspired by the new Superbook 3D, but I didn’t really feel like learning new character models.
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Huh?
Wow, sex-offender Superbook…
I love how excited he looks.
And how afraid she looks. Or shocked.
It’s both.
It’s a bit worrying how he is looking at Eve as she is his great, great… great grandmother.
Well by that measure anyone you have sex with may as well be your cousin.
By that measure you may as well say it’s illegal to have sex with monkeys.
Now you’re just being ridiculous.
Beastiality or Incest? Decisions, decisions…
Technically, by the standards of both creationists AND biologists, we are all distantly related.
Y-Chromosomal Adam and Mitochondrial Eve are real (paleo?)biological concepts. They just weren’t likely around at the same time… and go much further back than Homo Sapiens Sapiens.
Oddly enough our single common male ancestor is said to have lived long before our single common female ancestor.
This is most easily explained if some kind of world wide disaster wiped out everyone on Earth leaving only a man, his adult male children and the wives of those children. If such a man did exist then he had no surviving female children that had children of their own.
Bah, what nonsense! I suppose it was some massive flood that washed over the planet that killed all but these select few.
On a completely unrelated note (and a more serious one), nearly every culture has some sort of flood myth, so it is possible there was a great deluge once upon a time and some people survived. For instance, the greeks have one where a man and woman survive and repopulate by stripping to the waist and throwing stones behind them. The stones he threw turned into men, while her stones became women.
There is a really fascinating book that delves into the probable origins of ALL the various Flood myths (of which there are two types!), it’s by Ian Wilson, it’s called “Before The Flood”, and I highly recommend it
The second half or so is highly speculative (he tries to reconstruct an entire prehistoric cultural movement that was later usurped, partly from archaeology and linguistic analysis, but also using common myths)… but it’s interesting and surprisingly compelling.
The FIRST part though, is my favorite part, a careful, reasonable synthesis of historical dissection, geology, chemistry and archaeology that includes some pretty awesome discoveries that as of 2006 (when the book was published) were really new, and as of now, are still bloody awesome (mostly because of how they were found: they found the world’s oldest known intact wooden tools! To do it, they had to send the robot sub that investigated the Titanic, down into the deepest waters of the Black Sea, deeper than any diver can safely go, to a place with waters so chemically toxic to life that even wood doesn’t rot down there. And why are the waters so toxic? Because a flash flood of salt water – an epic natural disaster triggered by glacial flooding, breaking the natural wall of earth that separated the lake from the Mediterranean – turned a fresh water lake into a saltwater sea… killing off all the lake’s freshwater life in a mass extinction that apparently exuded, in its last collective breath, a toxic chemistry that rendered the bottom of the lake into an eerily quiet, literally lifeless dead zone… with the remnants of a coastal civilization silently smothered under it. HELL YEAH.
).
Also (though this isn’t part of that book, it’s just something I read in science mags later), recent genetic discoveries do indicate we were reduced to a population of as little as 5,000 people at one point – and more recent archaeological and paleological discoveries in southern Africa suggest there was bit of a biological oasis on the coastline there, safe from the ravages of glacial flooding or ice ages alike, complete with caves in cliffs that show evidence of not just ancient human habitation approximately 60k-75k years ago, but quite clever humans at that (they appear to have heat-treated their points for added strength! Anyone not familiar with archaeology has possibly no idea of how amazing this is or possibly even what I just said, but trust me, it’s incredibly advanced for tens of thousands of years ago).
Soooo long story short: yes, we had a severe population bottleneck at one point, and yes, there was a period (likely during the last glacial melting period, the end of Younger Dryas Ice Age) which caused a lot of coastal flooding, as well as a severe natural disaster that was very likely the direct inspiration for the oddly specific, oddly common “Noah” family of flood stories (names vary, but it doesn’t just exist in the OT, you also find it mentioned, among other things, in the far older Epic of Gilgamesh).
However, those two events were tens of thousands of years apart – the Black Sea flood IIRC happened about 6,600 BCE, which is less than 9,000 years ago – way more recent than the likely bottleneck.
However, now that I think of it, the chronologically older story of the Garden of Eden? That now makes a lot more sense, if you take into account the southern African population bottleneck… especially since, being the settlement or camps were near a seashore, there was no lack of food at all (though finding freshwater is always a concern, you have to be an idiot or an inexperienced child to starve on the seashore). Though, I should note, a lot of scholars have suggested the Garden was intended to be part of the Middle East and I think they had a general idea of where… of course, others have postulated that it simply was a metaphorical story nostalgically relating our shift from Hunter-Gatherer to Agricultural lifestyles, as of course, the agricultural lifestyle was a great advancement of knowledge and culture (Tree of Knowledge, remember?), but also meant a lot more work – you can actually tell that for quite a long time, the agricultural lifestyle was actually harder and less healthy for our ancestors than hunting and gathering was. But eh. I’m more interested in the Flood stuff anyway.
Natural disasters are more interesting by far than nostalgia!
Wall of text but well worth the read. I gotta take a look into that book you mentioned.
That’s how he ends up lacking the Delta Brain Wave, making him immune to the Brainspawn.
You win because Futurama.
Have you ever done the math on how many humans would have to have lived for a mere 40 generations to have never had sex with a relative? There’s a reason most cultures didn’t forbid cousins from marrying until recently.
(Not to mention the whole, “Who was Cain’s wife?” bit.)
His sister- RTFM and all that.
only his half sister if you go off the theory that cains wife was the daugter of Lilith adams first wife
Interestingly enough, with exception of populations that have already “close-bred” for many generations (such as Ashkenazi Jewish, or the Hapburgs), the likelihood of passing on dangerous recessive traits is only marginally higher between first cousins than it is between two “unrelated” people. Move it out to second and third cousins, and there’s generally little or no appreciably higher risk at all than the general population.
I imagine the fact that DNA reshuffles a little during every successful sexual reproduction helps prevent that kind of thing.
I remember this show from Catholic school. Wasn’t Adam and Eve like, the first thing they did?
This is an educational show?
I think it’s a Bible show – from the references I’ve seen, I think that’s the “super book” the title refers to. I’ve never seen this show, though, so if someone knows better than I, please leave a comment to correct me for anyone else who wonders.
The continuity of Superbook is not very tight. They did David and Goliath at least twice. Three times, if we’re counting the new 3D version.
Tommy, we’ve been hosed! (Oops, that’s DAVEY and Goliath!)
Great. Now I’ve got ideas for David and Goliath slash fiction in my head. Jonathan would not approve.
Heh. They “did” them.
Thank proverbial God! I thought it was just me.
Goliath musta been tough to do.
You’d prefer “knew” them?
So, the kids ate the forbidden fruit?
No, they WERE the forbidden Fruit…
Actually, I think the kids partook of Adam and eve, making the adults the forbidden fruit.
Mental windex, please?
Sorry, all out. Got a shipment of brain bleach in, though.
All the cool kids are using brain duradura now, I’m told.
(Not being one of the cool kids, I wouldn’t know.)
What the heck is a duradura?
Its an anime that started showing on Adult Swim.
@laup The anime is ‘Durarara!’
Is it just me or does Eve look a little cross-eyed?
Derpy Eve?
She was cloned from a rib, you can’t expect the procedure to be flawless.
Wall-eyed, more like.
If the uncensored version isn’t line art of Walky giving two thumbs up, I will be bitterly disappointed.
I will probably be bitterly disappointed.
Shouldn’t it be Adam and Eve who are on the sex offender list? I mean, the book only sent them there, it didn’t actually DO anything to the kids… did it?
Maybe it filmed them?
If you knowingly put a child in that situation, you can also be charged as a sexual predator. Even if you don’t participate in the act.
That, and the part where (as it’s pointed out on Twitter) Adam and Eve are technically underage at this point, too.
But DID the Magic Book put them in the situation, KNOWING that Adam and Eve were sexual predators? It wasn’t like the book dropped them off at a NAMBLA meeting.
It knew that adam and eve would be naked. You’re not supposed to expose yourself to others’ children that way. Once you whip it out in a school you don’t really have to do anything else to get on the sex offenders list.
That’s possible. But this would also beg the question of whether such laws apply at the beginning of time when such laws don’t exist yet?
This just became a crossover with timecop.
Hrmm, I would argue that Superbook is still governed by the laws from the time it is from(or where the children are from at least). Similar to how Cruise ships while in International waters, the passengers on board are still subject to US Laws. Although others in the timeline you’re visiting are allowed to follow only their laws, while you are in their time, you cannot break the law from the time you are from.
But wasn’t there, he only deposited the kids there. That would be like trying to arrest a plane for taking its passengers to the country where they ended up committing the crime, wouldn’t it?
What’s also REALLY disturbing in the fact that this book is essentially doing God’s work. Which means the book and by extent GOD wanted the kids to be molested by Adam and Eve. The All-Mighty really does allow for some sick stuff to happen…
I’d always assumed Superbook WAS God, or at least a vessel for Him. This was helped along when I was a kid by the two sharing voice actors, though, well, EVERYONE shared voice actors, so…
But now in Superbook 3D, they’re voiced by two different guys, and it throws me off.
Up until recently, Superbook’s voice was how I always imagined God actually sounded. Then he was dethroned by the voice for the Lost Skeleton of Cadavra for some reason.
Well, then that turns it into human sex trafficking. Which makes me wonder how he got out of prison long enough to be a resident somewhere to inform his neighbors that he is a sexual predator. . .though being a book, I guess he can outlast any prison sentence. He must have some pretty sweet prison tats though.
I guess it would depend on whether the book knew what was going to happen. Assuming this hasn’t happened before, it would be impossible to prove the book’s intent. But if there were multiple incidents where the Super-book has taken children and dropped them off here… well then…
And if Willis is right and the Superbook IS God, I guess it’s immortal, so that would allow it to do a 100 year prison sentence with no issue.
Man, I would love to see that court case. Next on Law and Order: The People v. The Almighty. Dun-Dun.
Superbook is now CGI?! WTF?!
….This is a thing? That…unnerves me.
If the book took them to the Garden of Eden then that makes it more than time travel, and more of an inter-dimensional trip. Since Eden would probably be in a different universe
Bonus: Does Gizmo have a soul?
The bible is in part a fable book to teach, is like they went into a tom sawyer novel. The other parts of the bible are jewish history, and there is a lot of blood, then you got the philosophic parts wich are kinda cool but there is nothing to do, and there is misticism wich could be not good for health (like entering a lord of the rings novel)
Pretty sure Kolob’s supposed to be in this universe. But I don’t remember if it’s in this galaxy or not.
I’m sure someone will be around to tell me before long – they usually are.
Wasn’t there some NatGeo/Discovery Channel/History Channel series investigating the actual location of the biblical Garden of Eden and placing it beneath the Persian Gulf?
-airfox
Yeah, I saw that too on History. It fits the geographical description of Eden to the letter and was above the ice age sea level so at the time the myth is estimated to have taken place it would’ve been habitated but modern peoples at the earliest stages of civilization. The glaciers melt raised the sea level, flooding the valley and they had nobody to blame but an angry god.
The Biblical flood was also 500-1,000 years later when another death twitch of the last ice age flooded a fertile valley with a freshwater river and lake in the middle full of villages and thousands of people. This was the formation of the Black Sea.
Ha! I grew up with SuperBook and Flying House! Loved that show. True, it simplified some things with some of the stories, but it helped make the Bible come alive for me as a kid. (I still like to think that the people from Bible times looked more “stylized” then people do now, as if the world transitioned from 2D animation to 3D animation at some point in the past.)
You know, as a Christian, I find this rather amusing. The fact is that a lot of people don’t realize just what all is IN the Bible, especially if it’s stuff they’d object to somewhere else. I mean, there’s constant nudity with Adam and Eve, Lot’s own daughters getting him drunk and then RAPING him in order to have children, two of Jacob’s sons slaughter the men of a whole village because one of them raped their sister, Samson (Jewish Hercules) whoring and boozing it up with women who belonged to the enemies of the Israelites, David getting 100 FORESKINS from Phillistine men as a wedding gift for King Saul, pornography (from the Song of Soloman), the list just goes on and on. I find it odd though that SuperBook would we going door to door like that though. After all, if other people besides Chris and Judy found out about SuperBook, wouldn’t people be far more interested in the hands-on knowledge it had to offer than, say, the fact that it showed kids the world as it really was back then?
Also, I’ve seen a preview of the new SuperBook series. While I do think the character designs for the two kids could be better (I mean, school uniforms? Really?), I do like the fact that it’s at least TRYING to retain the spirit of the original series, The Flying House, and possibly even The Greatest Adventures: Stories from The Bible series.
My favorite Superbook story is where Chris and Joy help hook up Isaac with his cousin.
wow I remeber that one… in SPANISH…
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7Opuw5VYsg0&feature=related
fear…
I actually really enjoyed a lot of them: The one where Gismo and Chris kill two Roman guards to protect Joseph, Mary and Baby Jesus, the story of Gideon and his rout of Israel’s enemies, the story of Jonah, the Crucifixion of Jesus (one of the first times I really saw Judas as a humanized character), Joseph’s reunion with his brothers in Egypt after he’s become Vice-Pharaoh, Samson and how he repents of his evil ways at the end of his life…
There are a LOT of stories in the Bible that are really beautiful, that really show humanity at its best and worst. It’s such a shame though that not that many people realize that (seriously, more often than not, an American professing to be a Christian won’t even know what all is IN the Bible in the first place), or how much inspiration can be found in it for modern-day storytelling.
Nice to see a Christian who’s not afraid to laugh at Christianity instead of scream in outrage at even subtle teasing… After all, God made us in His image, and we laugh, so surely He laughs too – and a lot of the stuff we humans get into, especially stuff we claim is done on His behalf, is definitely worth laughing at. Good for you, man.
If God made platypuses (platypi?) and gave us free will, there’s no way in hell he doesn’t have a sense of humor.
Indeed.
Theres even a graphic novel version of the Bible that makes the whole amount of sex in it very explict indeed.
GREATEST ADVENTURES!!!!! I loved those. Inspired my interest in archaeology AND fantasy. {Oh yeah, and the Bible?} That was actually some pretty good animation.
“After all, if other people besides Chris and Judy found out about SuperBook, wouldn’t people be far more interested in the hands-on knowledge it had to offer than, say, the fact that it showed kids the world as it really was back then?”
For the majority of people, yes! But there is always a small group of people that yell real loud and would only be concerned about the kids being exposed to nudity and how “wrong” and “harmful” that is.
I REMEMBER THIS EPISODE
No, seriously. There was a lot of cartoon sideboob.
Me too.
The weird thing? Adam had nipples, Eve did not.
In some countries pubic hair or nipples are labeled as porn, if you dont have those then is simply “erotic”.
Nipples, schmibbles.
Did they have navels?
They brought it back? Why? Even from a christen point this show was bad
it’s better than bad. it’s GOOD.
Is not good is god!
Ah, but does it roll down stairs?
And, if so, does it do so alone, or in pairs?
Or over the neighbor’s dog?
Will it fit on my back? Is it great for a snack?
It has been purposely left for you to find out.
For that is what the Superbook is all about.
Wow I started a Ren and Stimpy chain
Well that’s one corner of my childhood I never thought would be dragged out into the street and treated shabbily.
Not that I’m not laughing my ass off, mind.
Adam and Eve sure are white.
And Eve is a bit cross-eyed.
For a point of view they had to be Jews, from another they must have being really plain as they are archetypes.
Pretty sure they weren’t anything. Would have been before organized religion. Wouldn’t even be a need for it really. What does religion look like when there’s only two of you and God drops by on a regular basis to say hi, chill for a while and enjoy some of the fruit.
From a racial standpoint who even knows what people looked like before they spread across the earth and developed differentiating characteristics. If we’re going by the environment then it’s generally portrayed as pretty sunny and they don’t wear clothes or have shelter so I’d expect at least a bit of complexion. LDS has the garden placed in Missouri. You’d have to tell me how white that location is, I don’t know. I’m not actually sure if other religions even believe that the garden was on our planet so all in all it sounds like it could be a sketchy issue.
Either way though you do have to ask yourself how you spend all day naked in the sun without developing a bit of a tan.
Judging by the amount of genetic variation observed across the different visual varieties of humans, Adam and Eve would have looked more like black people than white people.
But I was copying character models from a cartoon from 1984, not what I would chosen for Adam and Eve myself.
Also, uh, it’d be kind of weird to apply observed science to the Bible anyhow, since the hypothetical darker Adam and Eve is dependent on the idea of hundreds of thousands of years of evolution, rather than just six thousand.
That is something I liked about my religious upbringing. A respectable number of people who didn’t go out of their way to contradict what had been shown to be true with what we “knew” to be true. Belief in God shouldn’t be dependent on something like the age of the earth anyway. All the shit that happens in those books, that’s hardly the most important part of the picture. Plus you have to take some pretty severe leaps with the bible numbers to come up with that anyway.
Of course who the hell am I to talk about why someone should believe in God? Not like I ever embraced any of that myself, so probably not actually qualified. Either way, these were the people who made going to church all those years an almost civil experience. Does bring you to some weird places like that though when you try and reconcile science and magic that way. On the plus side: Magitech!
http://www.girlgeniusonline.com/comic.php?date=20081205
The Jews of yore had Middle-Eastern complexions. Light-skinned Jews became prevalent in Europe after the Roman Empire.
How do Adam and Eve even know what children are? How are they even speaking English? And why in God’s name are the kids expression changing between the 6th and 7th panel? It makes no sense. It makes no sense!
It might be the [b]anything[/b] line that caused the expression change.
The kids’ expressions are going from “interest” to umm “desire” between the 6th and 7th panels. If you need more help with the punchline, too bad.
ask your parents.
I can’t help you with Adam and Eve knowing what children are. They shouldn’t, at this time.
Presumably, either the machine/ magic that lets these children time travel either is translating Adam’s speech into English, or is letting the children speak Adam’s langauge. It’s a common literary device, the same way that translated anime has everyone in Star Wars speaks English (they aren’t, really, but you can imagine it’s been translated for us).
And the last panel DOES make sense. Remember, the children are from a time from after the apple. They know about sex and human bodies (even if it’s just from their parents or tv). The girl is embarrassed by the implication, while the boy is being a little perv over Eve’s attributes.
Adam’s job was to name everything in the Garden of Eden. Clearly, he saw these short creatures and decided to name them “children.” This doesn’t mean he knows what they are.
Plot hole: fixed.
The snake told him. It’s really quite informative.
I can’t decide which of these two explanations is better.
Is ridiculous to ask that in a comic that have a talking car
English was good enough for Jesus, so it’s good enough for Adam and Steve.
Or perhaps English was just the language use prior to the confusing of tongues at Babel.
If this were the New Testament, you could blame it on the Holy Spirit.
Or you could just shut off your brain and accept religion.
Now you’re just being ridiculous.
Wow, deja vu.
I realize the question about English was asked in jest, but I’d just like to say that if Willis had had them speaking in Sumerian (which is the best theory as to the language that the common ancestors of the human race spoke, whether you believe in the Bible or not) I would have had a bone-shaking nerdgasm.
Thank you for not including Uri.
Or Ruffles.
In that picture you linked, I will say that that is some great editing to have the girls arm blocking Adam’s privates.
I used to watch this show just for the robot. I loved robots as a kid, so everytime they didn’t feature the robot I was just waiting for Gizmo to wind down or say something electronic-y.
I find this cartoon highly offensive. What were you thinking? You depicted Adam with a belly button!
i dont get it
XD That was so wrong… The worst part is prior to them eating the fruit, they wouldn’t really know what was going on, so in a way… Not only did Superbook hook up the children with the adults, but children raping adults.
I wish you’d tagged this comic Craig Ferguson style with: “I look forward to your letters…”
” I’m now required by law to tell you that I reside in the FLYING HOUSE across the street (with my chuld dating sexy android roommate Cutey Honey).”
Great. Thank you SOOOO much. Now I’m stuck with the idea of a series where a flying house travels to Bible times while the inhabitants have to deal with a Ms. Fanservice robot girl who tries to solve problems by blowing them up.
Although, now that I think about it, that would be hilarious. Definitely something that would rub fundies the wrong way, but hilarious.
Maybe I grew up in the wrong era (Or the wrong country (Or, looking at this, the right country).) but I have never heard of Superbook.
This is probably a good thing for me.
I never had either. This is news!
Storywriter, write us out of this mess!
. o O ( ( :3 )
Ack I mean Ghostwriter. I suck.
The boys face in panel 6 is outstanding. Lol.
Isn’t it weird how Adam and Eve are supposed to be idealized and pure and represent the way God wanted us to be, and yet depictions of them are always careful to cover up the nudity? Shame was part of the sin they committed by disobeying God, right? Isn’t it contrary to the whole point of the story to always be covering them up?
As I said, in some countries to attain the label of porn you are required to have nipples and pubic hair on scene. So non porn movies or series try to avoid them
haha this is great. The “when or whenever” part in the 5th panel seems odd, shouldn’t one of the when’s be a where?
You’d be amazed how much sex and violence is in the Bible. If they had to ban books from libraries for sexual/violent content, the whole 220 shelf range has to go.
Mel Gibson is still too much though
This is now tied with the Starfire/Nightwing “I no longer give you ‘The Boner’?” as my favorite non-Shortpacked Shortpacked comic…
Marillion fan!
“Kids only wanna have fun”
-Cindy Lauper
I heard a recording once of Gene Roddenberry describing how a TV network censor would respond if the Bible was submitted as a TV script. I wish I could find that online now.
That sound gloriously glorious with an extra side of amazing.
Why read it when you can listen to it?
http://www.lostturntable.com/permaposts/startrek/letter.mp3
Ugh, rape jokes.
Yes, but who is raping whom?
Superbook comics are always the best.. hehehe. God I still have that episode memorized.. Joy was all shy, Chris too to skinny dipping straightaway. Ainnit always the way? Gotta love Adam’s Lincoln Beard.. a nice counterpoint to Superbook having quite possibly the whitest white Jesus -ever- dude looked like shakespeare..
Amazingly I actually like the designs from the new Superbook.. did not expect that.
Superbook has me conflicted. I love anime more than anything, but at the same time, I hate Christianity more than anything.
Sooooo… Moral Orel was right all along?
“Your bible is a pedophile.” would be a great insult in the whole which god is best debate.
Oh, I just got that. They can partake of anything in the garden, and they’re all standing in it. That didn’t click until just now.
I admit to having no first hand experience with superbook, but a part of me is far more concerned with with randomly time traveling children into the middle of pivotal points in history.
So what if it isn’t time travel up just an illusion. A ‘miraculous’ virtual reality. That would explain why they speak English. Also, if you just think of a virtual reality machine that could put people into that kind of situation would be called virtual porn. Showing that to kids can definitely put you onto “the list.” Even worse since it is a sentient book, since those virtual…… would be part of the book. Even if someone grabbed the kids out right after panel 7, that would atleast be indecent exposure to minors.
You’d think the statute of limitations would kick in on this sort of thing.
Why are Adam and Eve white?
At least the 3d-ification didn’t turn the kids into inhuman monsters like that “3D game” cd-rom for the Pokemon card game…
AAARGG! For Pete’s sake, Willis, is NOTHING SACRED?!?
Well Duh!