Of course, the "F.S." in the byline stood for Frank Stack, but as a college professor with some standing in the community, Stack was not eager to associate his name with such nefarious comic strips. He devised the pseudonym Foolbert Sturgeon to obscure the identity of "F.S.", at least for a few years. In 1969, after underground comic books had flourished in the counterculture, Stack retained the nom de plume when he began his long career in cartooning, but it soon became more of an accessory than a pseudonym as public recognition and accolades engulfed him.
Rip Off Press was co-founded by Gilbert Shelton in January, 1969, and he had not forgotten The Adventures of Jesus. When Stack crafted a new series of comic strips about Jesus, Shelton and Rip Off Press published the work in The New Adventures of Jesus. The book quickly sold out its first printing (and had three more), leading to Stack producing the equally successful Jesus Meets the Armed Services, an uproarious skewering of American military culture. The series concluded (for the time being) with Jesus Comics #3, in which Jesus takes a teaching job at a university, leading to several memorable encounters with students and faculty. At the end of the book, Jesus attends a faculty party in an extended episode that provides one sharp stab at the sanctimonious academic community after another.
Stack contributed to dozens of other comic books (including some extraordinary work for American Splendor) and produced an extensive amount of fine art over the next four decades, but he has repeatedly revisited the Jesus theme with comic stories that edged further away from religious satire and closer to social commentary. The ongoing develoment of his relationship with Jesus as a character (and not as a savior, but as someone who "plays a savior in real life") is a fascinating evolution. Each of the three books in this particular series is unique in its own way and offers Stack's genius in all its splendor. |