Dear Abbott

Dear FROKS<

Haha, that's awesome. "The Bible?" Also that apology is totes undue, I think, as you are a good drawer of portraits!
It is my favorite thing in the world when someone shares their comics with me!
I still need to mail that pen to you. If you can make it work, you are like the Annie Sullivan of inky.

Illustrabbott

ur hot dog is badass btw

dear abbott:

what are your thoughts on this
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HSlbuli7HM

Dear gr8080,

I think a lot more damning would be a video of the daily Mormon grind & how anesthetizing it is. Tho lol "Mormon Jesus" & endless celestial sex. I think everyone who sees this vid sends it to me.

dear abbott

you are a dear darling, there i said it.

e<3

That cartoon is from a movie called The God Makers. It is pretty fucking notorious. For Mormons watching any anti-Mormon media is like tantamount to or worse than watching porn – see how it is handled in the movie "God's Army," like it is a strangler fig crushing this one kid's soul. He gets addicted to it & can't stop reading it. So, I've never seen the God Makers, not the whole thing. It is kind of stupid how you can't get a v accurate story of Mormon history from most non-Mormon sources, or from most Mormon sources.

My parents spent their 30th anniversary fighting about some stupid book my dad had bought about Muslims that said they all want to convert America to Sharia or some dumb bullshit. Just some bigoted shit. He was reading it at breakfast & my sister pointed out – isn't that basically the same thing as anti-Mormon lit? My mom sided with her & my parents spent the whole day fighting. I guess my mom both tore the book up and burned it in front of him. Goood stuff.

estela,

You are the best & you warm my heart with your kind compliment.

I guess my mom both tore the book up and burned it in front of him.

Fahrenheit 45LOL

'strangler fig' !

My parents burned my copy of Ed The Happy Clown when I was in high school, saying it was "Satanic."

traumatic!

abbott, what do your parents make of 'paradise lost'?

Daerest Abbott: I started the Beverly Cleary thread just now partially because I thought you would like such a thread to be.

Dear t'other JD,

Good question!! They haven't read it but my dad wants to & he was grilling me constantly when I read it. My sister read it for a class at BYU-Idaho, so I will tell you what she thinks about it. Her professor really believed Milton's line that it was divinely inspired, and she decided that was true, too! Bcz Mormons have a pre-existence & so did Milton. But Milton's pre-existence is totally different than that depicted in The Pearl of Great Price. Also Milton's angeology suggests a bunch of shit that is so not like what Mormons believe about spirit bodies. Their takes on Eve aren't entirely dissimilar tho (if you feel confident you can pin down a motive for her in PL anyway!).

I asked my sister if she thought it was doctrine & she said not officially but basically yes! SO why wait until the 1840s to start the Mormon Church when Milton did it for us? That's what I want to know. Fucking crazy.

xp

Dear Ned,

<3! I talked to someone at my job who lived on Klickitat Street and I practically fainted!

Abbott can you explain this more? There's a connection between Milton and Mormonism? I don't know about this. Even just link me to something if it's a lot to explain?

I don't think there is an official official connection that any official church leader would cite officially. That is why I thought my sister was kind of nuts in claiming that. But Paradise Lost is about Lucifer's moral shittifying & the subsequent war in heaven BEFORE humans were created, which makes Mormons freak the fuck out because I am p sure they think they have the 'pre-existence' market cornered.

Mormons believe that before we came to Earth, Jesus & Lucifer had differing thoughts about free will v determinism that lead to a war where ultimately 1/3rd of the spirits in Heaven chose to side with Lucifer & tempt humans who followed God & chose to get tried by coming to Earth & having lives/flesh bodies. Milton also talks about a pre-existence but it's more Lucifer just starts getting prideful & gets rebellious. This is the main diff I think: Lucifer in Mormon doctrine was saying humans should have a flesh body trial but not be exposed to sin (that's why I say 'free will v determinism,' Jesus was offering free will in a really Rush wort of way*). Lucifer in PL did not seem to give a fuck about robbing humans of agency.

*If you are interested in more literary/Mormon conflations by my family, I always thought Brave New World resembled the world Lucifer fought for in Mormon doctrine

ALso a link by a MOrmon who takes this more srsly than me: http://bycommonconsent.com/2009/11/07/mammons-wisdom-in-milton/

Ah that link reminds me: Milton is not a trinitarian, instant Mormon appeal!

Oooh thank you! BTW one of my friends is an ex-Mormon. You'd like her. If you ever come here I'll invite her on the train riding festivities.

btw the writer Mormons really have a boner for is C.S. Lewis, who has been quoted by Mormon prophets & leaders in an official capacity more than any other non-Mormon, ever.

Abbott i am sending you jim woodring's new book but i will get u a replacement copy of ed the happy clown if u would prefer

Abbott have you read Under the Banner of Heaven? I heard its a good read.

forks ––– that is v nice of you! I will find a replacement of the Ches book someday, it's ok.

gr8080, that is the only Krakauer book I have read, and the rumors are true. It is very good. As whiny as I am abt growing up Mormon, FLDS is 1000x more fucked. At least my uncle wasn't claiming God said he could marry me.

That book is excellent.

Dear Abbs,

Not a question, but I thought you'd like this.

My roommate had a friend visiting from out of town for the weekend, so we decided to pop over to Temple Square for an hour to show him around. We did not realize it was conference weekend, and we felt waaaaaaaaay more uncomfortable and out of place than we usually do walking through there. We went into the Visitors' Center (the one with Space Jesus) and at one point were accosted by a pair of women missionaries. When they asked where we were visiting from, we said we lived here, she wouldn't believe us. "Really? You don't look like people from Utah." We even explained that my roommate was stationed here for the Air Force, and that I had moved in with him, but she still wouldn't believe it. "You... you just don't look like people from Utah."

My roommates girlfriend then got into a really friendly argument about how fucked up it was that men missionaries got two years whereas women missionaries got one and a half "because girls spend more money."

Also, we were further outed when everyone except for us stopped as the prophet was saying a prayer over the loudspeakers, which was kind of a thrillingly terrifying experience, like being in a fascist dystopian movie for a minute.

en,

lollll at incredulous temple babes. Why would a guy from Utah have hair past his ears? I remember living in SLC and every once in a while downtown being incredibly busy & then remembering 'oh right conference.'

Have ppl pointed out to you that church where come or another Crow sequel was filmed? Maybe it was just the ppl I hung out with but I feel like it was pointed out to me alla time.

I have to say I think sister missionaries are p hardcore if only for doing all their bicycling in those ankle-length dresses

http://2.bp.blogspot.com/-qAwB9-ka3d8/TZLD_a2_yYI/AAAAAAAAAiM/hKdHQS7EVNA/s1600/Sister_Missionaries_2_Old.jpg

That'http://blog.devstone.com/images/emote_ellipsis.gifretty bitchin' mountain bike there, sister.

This is clearly the only login name for use in a library. I can tell I haven't been in a university library in a while because I saw a guy in a shirt with some Greek letters on it & thought how cool it was that he had apparently been to Greece.

This library is under the ground like the hall of the wicked Nome King.

Dear Abbottzin,

Your MiL befriended me on fb. Do you have any idea how hard it was not to digitally exclaim, "ZOMG, you're THAT lady??"

Yours in full and assured confidence,

Dear Laurel,

Whaaaaaat? Well, I suppose it's in character. She assumes she is best friends with all of her son's friends – and, by extension, with my friends. Even when my friends have expressed to her, in person, coolness towards her. Bless you for being patient with her.

Abbott-in-law

Dear Abbott,

Can you hop on AIM? :)

Sincerely,

Dear Mordy,

You are lucky every site has a built-in feature for talking to me.

AolInstantMessagebbott

oh dear Laurel I see she has called me a "good Scottish woman." Life is hilarious.

lol

http://i55.tinypic.com/2rdu3r7.gif

whoops, messed up the hair a lil', here's a fixed version.

http://i51.tinypic.com/21km0j7.gif

abbbbbbbotttttt (or philip nunez or anyone else) is there anything major i should change before sending it on? i'm out of town the rest of the weekend so speak now or forever hold yr peace!

!!!!!!!!!!!

oh man

A++++! but maybe bowdlerize KING SHIT into PRINCE POOP (for y'know, the young'uns)?

hahaha, well, it's the original so I can't alter the text itself too much without making it look overly computery, but maybe it could be

KING
S**T

?

or maybe the nirvana nevermind cover without a penis

King SHH? KING SHIP? I feel like a mean censor already. Winkie-free Nirvana baby would be hilarious.

i will give abbbbbbottttttt an hour to weigh in since it's her drawing, but if she doesn't respond i'll go with KING SHHH. unfortunately i only have a couple more hours to work on this since i'm heading out of town for the weekend sans computer early tomorrow morning.

btw, this is for a screen advertisement in philip nunez's new comic store, where he'll be selling abbbbottt's new book, in case anyone is wondering what the hell we're talking about

(it's not really my store! if it was I would be king shitting all over the place!)

makes me think of
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yd_QV4egw0s

!!