The Unmistakable Creative Podcast

Writing a Comedic Translation of the Bible With Mark Russell

Some people come up with creative projects that truly challenge the status quo. In attempt to come to terms with this religious upbringing, Mark teamed up with cartoonist Shannon Wheeler to write a comedic translation of The Bible.

The difference between working artists and earning artists
Why making a living from your art isn't always glamorous
A look at a 10 year project that was hardly read by anybody
Why you only ever hear about the winners
Leveraging your art as a connection to the universe
How jokes infused their way is into Mark's soul
Why Mark sees joke telling as storytelling
A look at the creation process for God is Disappointed in You
The reason you need to write from a place of interest
A look at how to incorporate humor into the art you create
Collaborating with a cartoonists in the process of book writing
The reaction from the religious community

Mark is the author of God is Dissapointed in You, a translation for people who would like to read the Bible… if it would just cut to the chase.

The difference between working artists and earning artists
Why making a living from your art isn't always glamorous
A look at a 10 year project that was hardly read by anybody
Why you only ever hear about the winners
Leveraging your art as a connection to the universe
How jokes infused their way is into Mark's soul
Why Mark sees joke telling as storytelling
A look at the creation process for God is Disappointed in You
The reason you need to write from a place of interest
A look at how to incorporate humor into the art you create
Collaborating with a cartoonists in the process of book writing
The reaction from the religious community

Mark is the author of God is Dissapointed in You, a translation for people who would like to read the Bible… if it would just cut to the chase.

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Duration:: 50m
Broadcast on:: 31 Mar 2014
Audio Format:: other

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That's $50 off with code "Listen" at bluenile.com. I'm Srini Rao, and this is the Unmistakable Creative Podcast, where I speak with creative entrepreneurs, artists, and other insanely interesting people to hear their stories, learn about their molding moments, tipping points, and spectacular takeoffs. In this episode of the Unmistakable Creative, I speak with Mark Russell. Some people come up with projects that truly challenge the status quo. In an attempt to come to terms with his extremely religious upbringing, Mark teamed up with cartoonist Shannon Wheeler to write a comedic translation of the Bible, called "God is Disappointed in You." Listen in as he talks about his journey and his storytelling process. Today's episode of the Unmistakable Creative is brought to you by Cells. That's S-E-L-Z dot com. If you're looking for an alternative to PayPal, that can be used to collect payments for digital products, physical products, and even services, Cells is a fantastic option. There's no programming, no special templates, or special themes needed. And they recently even added the ability to give your customers a pay what you want option. Many of the Unmistakable Creative listeners are already using Cells and absolutely love the product. Mark, welcome to the Unmistakable Creative. Thank you. Yeah. So, you know, I came across you by way of our mutual friend, Meg Wharton, and the reason I came across you is that she had posted a book called "God is Disappointed in You," and when I found out what it was, I thought, "I have to talk to this guy." I mean, that sounds completely insane. You wrote a comedic translation of the Bible, either he's somebody I have to know or he's going to burn in hell, maybe both, but, you know, I was so intrigued by the art form because it was such an unusual created endeavor. So, you know, tell me a bit about yourself and your background and your story and how it leads to you waking up one day saying, "You know, I have a creative project on my mind, and that creative project is to write a comedic translation of the Bible." Yeah, well, I grew up in a very fundamentalist Pentecostal household. So, in a lot of ways writing this book, it wasn't so much a form of literature as it was a form of therapy, it was kind of coming to terms with the baggage that I had grown up with. But the idea for the project really came about at a bar. A lot of my life seems to happen at bars. I was meeting with Shannon Wheeler, he was a friend of mine, and we were just hanging out, and he just asked me what had happened to be up to lately, and I said, "Oh, well, you know, I've been taking a few books of the Bible and condensing them down to, like, a few paragraphs each so I can tell friends what they're about, because I had a lot of friends who'd never grown up with the Bible, like yourself, were curious, but never really had grown up with it. So, out of the blue, he says, "Well, you should do the entire Bible and I'll draw cartoons for it, and we'll have a book." And it never occurred to me before to actually turn this into a whole book project, so that's where the project was born. What's your background? I mean, are you a writer by training? I mean, what leads up to that moment? I'm always curious to say, you know, I mean, you mentioned the religious household, but I mean, what else? Like, how do you get to this conclusion? Yeah, well, yeah, I've been toiling it obscurity for a long time as a writer and a cartoonist, and I've published, I used to publish my own zine called The Penny Dreadful, back in the 90s and early 2000s, and I've also been published other places like McSweeney's, and I did some novellas about Superman, which is where Shannon kind of met me, because he really liked my little Superman novellas, and I think he was just eager to work together at some point after that, and you know, Shannon Wheeler is like one of my favorite cartoonists in the world, so when he offered, I couldn't very well say no. Well, I mean, talk to me about the earlier part of your career, I mean, like, you know, I think that the idea, you know, I had a woman named Danny Shapiro here, and she was telling me how working artists were something that she, you know, she wasn't exposed to until late, like, you know, the idea that, hey, these books that you read and these movies that you watch are actually produced by people who make a living, making them. And so, you know, I think that that's, like, we kind of say, okay, those are the careers for the hippies or the people who just happen to get damn lucky, you better go to school and do something practical. I'm very curious about the earlier part of your journey, and the things that have led to you becoming a writer, like, you know, what, what are, I mean, what did that look like? And you know, you mentioned a zine, you mentioned Superman, like, talk to me about some of these projects in a bit more depth. Yeah, well, I think there's a big difference between a working artist and a, in an earning artist. I've always been a working artist in that. I've always really poured a lot of myself into my writing projects. I, this is the first one I've actually stood to make really any money off of, but like I said, I started publishing my short fiction and cartoons in a zine called the Penny Dreadful here in Portland, and it was really just kind of things that I felt weren't really right for anywhere else, things that were just too odd or short or idiosyncratic to really send off to any place that he sort of realistic hope of publication. And you know, I had a day job, I still have a day job, but this was always my passion. This is what I did on my, on my own time, whenever possible. And yeah, I, I put together a couple of novellas about Superman and in a way, all of my writing life has been kind of an attempt to come to terms with my, with I think with my religious upbringing. And even in the Superman novellas, God shows up and introduces himself to Superman and tells Superman that, you know, he, he's kind of the son he'd wished he'd had instead he got stuck with this sort of feckless hippie in, in the form of Jesus, and at one point he actually sends Jesus to go live with Superman, hoping that Superman will rub off on him. But things do not kind of go as planned. And I'm actually, now that the, the Bible book is done, I'm back to working on the Superman novellas and hoping to get them rewritten as one big, big novel. Okay, so there's, there's actually a lot of stuff here that's really interesting. You know, the notion, well, I love one that you mentioned that you still have a day job. That's really cool to me. Like, I think that that is something that people need to get their head around because, you know, by the time you guys are listening to this, we'll have kind of beat this idea like a dead horse, but, you know, the internet has perpetuated this mantra of quit your job, you know, go be, you know, awesome be the four hour work week guy in all this nonsense, which is not realistic for a lot of people, but I love that this is actually, you know, normal for you, like you have a normal job, but you're still, you know, and you're still an artist. Yeah. And, you know, I know, I know a lot, a fair number of people who are, who make their living from their art. And I have to say the, the, they spend a lot of that time not creating art, they spend a lot of that time worrying about money, you know, doing things to pay the bills, chasing a lot of, you know, engagements and, and checks to, to, so really the time I would be able to save by not having a day job would pretty much be consumed by all the other song and dance numbers you have to do to earn a living as an artist. So I figured, well, I'll just stick with the day job and then just write on my own time and I can really devote that time to writing in my artwork and I don't have to worry about doing all these other things to pay the bills. Yeah, I think that that's, that's actually, you know, it's funny because that's really not a part of the conversation that happens when you listen to a show like this or, you know, the, the conversation around the web, especially for so many of you who are connected to, to me on Facebook and to some of our guests on Facebook, if you look at the news feed, it's like, wow, nobody does anything. Like nobody, nobody, it seems like none of us are in day jobs and everybody's living these epic lives, but I think you bring up a really critical distinction to, to really understand that, hey, you know what, what comes with the territory of earning your living from an art is a lot of things that are pretty inconvenient and not that, you know, comfortable. Yeah, and, and really, it's kind of like, you know, living on the Serengeti or something, you have no idea when you're going to get the next check. Yeah. There could be a drought and all of a sudden, you know, you're going two or three months living on peanut butter until you get another paying gig. It's, it's not a lifestyle that, that appeals to me. I like the, you know, the steady paycheck and being able to take hot showers and go out to eat and see movies, uh, these sort of creature comforts I've come accustomed to. Yeah, you know, but here's, here's actually, let's dig deeper into this. I mean, here's the thing in, you, you've done that, but somehow you haven't let go of this desire to create art. Like you still embrace the fact that there is an artist with inside of you, uh, and then, you know, I see so many people who are like, oh, well, I don't have time or I, I, I actually, you know, I had a reader from the art of being, being unmistakable who wrote into me and he said there's no point doing this or creating any art if nobody's going to consume it or I don't get paid for it. And I said, you know, you missed the entire point of the book. Yeah, I don't, I've spent 10 years basically cranking a zine out of my, uh, out of my basement. Uh, I hardly anybody read it, but I don't think that was, I mean, I wanted people to read it. Don't get me wrong. I'm not, I'm not too cool for attention, my stretch of the imagination, but it wasn't really what drove me. I just had these ideas and I had to get them out. Otherwise I would, I just, I just wouldn't feel right about myself unless I express them. I think that to really, um, to really embrace it as a lifestyle, you've got to like be willing to do it regardless of what sort of compensation you get. Mm hmm. Yeah, I think that that's, that's, you know, it's funny because people see, especially, you know, with the internet, it perpetuates this notion that, hey, if I make art, I'm going to become famous. Uh, and I can tell you, I, I had a lot of those very similar motivations, uh, in the early days of dabbling. It was like, oh, you know, hey, maybe I'll, I'll start a blog and get a book deal and, you know, nobody came to me with a book deal, um, you know, and then it's just, you only ever hear about the winners. Yeah. The only people I ever hear about who bought a lottery ticket are the people who win the power ball. I don't hear about the other 10 million people who blew the rent money on it, you know. Yeah. That's, that's a really, really good point. I, I think that that's, you know, there's something to be said for that to, to make art for the sake of making art, um, you know, I always say that, you know, it's like art that rewards its creator long after the average person would quit. It's something that's admired, but it's not encouraged. Yeah, absolutely. And, uh, it's, I think that, um, art is just something you do because you feel the need to find your connection to the bigger connection, the bigger universe around you. And the, um, art as a career is just something that happens if you're lucky. Yeah. Yeah. No, I, I would, I would agree. So let's, let's talk specifically about sort of the craft of storytelling. I mean, the, the Superman novella is sound fascinating to me. I mean, as somebody who primarily writes nonfiction, I always admire people who can craft, you know, characters and build storylines, uh, around things that, that, you know, literally starting from nothing. I mean, it's, I think it's very easy to write nonfiction in comparison to, to writing fiction or to, to storytelling that. So I'm really curious, you know, I mean, you have the blank page. How does, how does something like a Superman novella come to life for somebody like you? Well, and it started when I was watching one of those old George Reeves TV shows and I kept thinking this is absurd, if I were Superman, you know, there's a guy who breaks into a bank dressed in a robot costume and, you know, buffettles the police. It's like, that's the stupidest idea I've ever heard of because once Superman shows up, he doesn't know that your guy's stuck in a robot costume. He's just going to think you're a robot. He's going to tear your arm off. He's going to knock your head off, not knowing that there's an actual man trapped inside. And, and the fact that happens in one of my novellas, he comes upon what he thinks is a robot and just demolishes it only to find out there was a actually, it was just a costume and there's a burglar inside posing as a robot whom he's killed. But a lot of it, then after that kind of dealt with Superman having these enormous powers, but just having an average brain, which, you know, incredibly dangerous combination. He could, he could destroy the entire world in five minutes and yet he's just as prone to like throwing a fit and having a bad day as anyone else. You know, you know, it really kind of has become a, a meditation on, on the consolidation of power and in a lot of ways I realized after writing the first couple that he is in many ways kind of a stand in for the United States after the Cold War, he's got no real counterpart, no reason to, to have all this power. Everything challenges him, somebody stands up to him or, you know, defies him, you know, and he will demolish them in 10 minutes and then have, you know, rest of his day to go have breakfast with Lois and, you know, go to a Pepp assembly or do all these other things because nobody even comes even remotely close to being able to challenge him. So he finds very, he's very petty ways to channel his power and, and it's not good for the people around Superman because, you know, any little thing he does could, you know, to save somebody can kill five other people without him even knowing about it and it's not good for Superman because he feels constricted because he feels like people are so fragile compared to him, you know, he, he skips a rock in the ocean, it can sink an ocean liner, you know, 10 miles away and he can't, it feels like every time he turns around somebody's going to, to die. So it's really interesting to hear you talk about like the way you develop characters, the way you tell stories. I, you know, I want to go back actually to, to something you said in the earlier part of a conversation and then I really want to spend a lot more time talking about God is disappointed in you, which, you know, for those of you guys listening, that's the name of the comedic translation of the Bible and, you know, I know some of you are probably going to send me a hate mail after this, but I felt marks, you know, what I wanted to find out was the art, you know, about the art behind this because I felt it was quite interesting. But, you know, Mark, what I'm really, you know, curious about is, I mean, you mentioned the religious childhood and the fundamentalist childhood, but I mean, what kinds of, what kinds of influences did you have as a child, you know, when it comes to art? I mean, knowing that, hey, you know what, maybe I'm not going to make a career as an artist, but it's clear that there's, there's this undertone of, hey, I am a creative person throughout your life from everything I'm hearing and I'm very curious what it was like growing up in a household where you're, it seems like there's almost two conflicting sort of ideals. Yeah, my cultural exposure as a kid was very minimal. In our house, we, our books were primarily religious in nature. I did have a Snoopy science textbook, which I really enjoyed, but most of the literature was, was Christian or were meditations on the Bible or were Bibles themselves. I think we had like five or six Bibles when I was a kid. So I think my cultural exposure mostly came through television and cartoons. And I think that in jokes, and I loved jokes. I owned probably about a, I had a library of joke books when I was a kid. And I think the joke more than anything is the literary form that has kind of infused its way into my soul. Like even now when I write serious fiction, it kind of follows the same pattern as a joke. You know, for me, storytelling is joke telling and that you have like this, this sort of unusual premise and then you build up to like this sort of question and then you answer it in a completely unexpected way. Yeah. I mean, that like now that you're describing it, I mean, I've read half the book and it pretty much that doesn't surprise me in the least. It's, it's, so let's do this. Let's shift gears a little bit. And let's start getting into sort of, you know, you, you, one is, you know, surrounding yourself with a working artist, like having a cartoonist like Shannon Wheeler, you know, how you connect with somebody like this, like where that happens in all of this. I mean, how did that, you know, come into play? But did you just, I mean, you said you were, you were condensing these stories from the Bible down, but I mean, did you just wake up one day and think, Hey, you know what, I have to do this, like, and not only that, I have to make it a comedic translation. And then I want to, I want to, I mean, I remember my favorite thing when I read the book jacket, I was, or the back cover, I was like, Oh, the arcane language of the Bible translated into something that, you know, you can actually understand. And I thought, well, good, this is, this is great. I have now, now I actually want to read it. Yeah, well, for me, I got started just because I had friends who were Bible curious, had had no background in the Bible and just wanted to know, and they knew that I had grown up with this uber religious childhood. So they, they asked me, and so I just got in the habit of kind of relaying, like the book of, Oh, you know, the book of Job is, is a crazy, actually a crazy bet between God and Satan. And I would just surmise them in these ways. And I think the, the really down to earth and comedic tone of it is just kind of the way I like to talk to people. It's just kind of, I relate to people. So that was very organic. In terms of doing the Bible, I, I realized when I started doing the project that I didn't know the Bible nearly as well as I thought I did, that what I had learned from my childhood was actually the 1% of the Bible that is useful to teach kids in church, you know, to keep them from, you know, smoking or have sex with anybody. But I didn't learn anything about the other 99% of the Bible, which is really where a lot of the actual value of the Bible is, you know, it's the part of the cantaloupe you never eat right next to the rhyme that you get all the best, you know, nutritional value. And that's the same way with the Bible, the minor prophets, I thought were some of them were just extraordinary. And there's all kinds of great little tidbits in the, the Jewish histories that many of which we never even read in church. And I saw my, my, my mission then as to take this incredibly dense and hard to understand matter. And, you know, there's books of the Bible where there's, you know, 13 chapters of husbandry of animal husbandry. And you've got to like wade through it somehow to get to like, you know, the, you know, the, the one verse which makes sense of the entire book. So what I wanted to do was just take the books at their own, you know, at face value and strip them of the sort of arcane language and the, the inessentia and then retell the Bible, is that why we're talking to somebody at a bar. Okay, I love this. So there's, there's so much here. I do want to get into the reactions with people, but you know, would you, would you mind conveying one of the stories in the way you've told it? Because I think that that to me is really the essence of what you're talking about here. And I really, that's immediately to my mind as you were talking about that, I said, you know, I need to have you tell one of these stories so that people can get a sense for how you've taken something. Because I'm sure there are a lot of people here listening who have actually read the Bible. Yeah, well, one of the books I knew nothing about going into this. This is a, you know, after, you know, spending 18 years in a church is the story of Hosea. Now, Hosea was a minor prophet, which really is not that bad of a thing. I mean, it sounds kind of diminutive, but the minor prophets were just less, less talkative than the major prophets. They just got their point across a fewer chapters, which is why they're calling the minor prophets, which I think is a good thing. But anyway, Hosea was this prophet whose wife was always cheating on him. And his wife, Gomer, she would always be out, you know, sleeping with whoever was around. And he'd be in this town square preaching, telling people that they need to go back to following the laws of Moses and, you know, kind of, you know, abrading them for their idolatry and their general lack of enthusiasm for being Jews. And they were, every normal, listen to them, they were all snickering at him because they knew that while he was preaching, his wife was out sleeping with somebody. And sure enough, when he got done preaching, he'd go home and she wouldn't be there. So he'd have to go find his wife and drag her back home and everyone would be, you know, laughing at Hosea as he, as they fought in the street. And at one time, even, and this had to be the all time point, low point of his life. He is the, his wife's lover had actually decided to enslave her and then put her up for sale. So Hosea actually had to go to his wife's lover. Spark something uncommon this holiday, just the right gift from uncommon goods. 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Speeds lower above 40 gigabytes of details. And buy his own wife back from the sky. And he still took her back. And, you know, and every time she ran off with some other lovers, she'd come crawling back. And he, you know, they'd argue in the street. But every time he'd take her back. And one day he went out to preaching the town square and somebody just worked up the nerve to say, "How can you possibly take your wife back after all the times she cheats on you? Why do you not throw her out on her ass?" And Hosea just kind of shrugs and he says, "Well, you know what? My love for my wife is a lot like God's love for us. We're always cheating on God. We're always leaving him for some fleeting pleasure or some new religion. And yet, no matter how ridiculous we make him feel, no matter how much we break his heart, when we come crawling back the next day, he's always willing to take us back. And finally, the people understood what he'd been preaching about the whole time. That's why I wanted to have you tell that story. You know, let's do this. I want to talk about sort of digesting all of this material down. I mean, really, like I said, to me, what the real art here is is taking something, I mean, it's like you've taken Ulysses and made it understandable for the average human being. And for those of you guys who have never read anything by James Joyce, most of it is kind of incomprehensible to unless you're like a genius. Yeah, that would be quite a boast. I don't think I could do that for Ulysses, but I can handle the Bible. Yeah, so talk to me about sort of the actual creative process of deciding, hey, you know, this is what's important. This is what I need to leave out. This is what actually matters. And this is how this story is going to make sense to like the layman like Srini, who doesn't know the first thing about the Bible. Well, my process was pretty much reading the entire book on its own. I read one book at a time and I would write that book after I read it, instead of trying to do the whole Bible at once or were individual verses at once, because I wanted to really understand what this book was about. And then I would, if need be, I would read ancillary sources, other books about the book. But I really wanted to look at it through the author's eyes. Like, what were they trying to say? Who were they talking to when they wrote this? And then I, from that, I would find what was really essential. And I would basically just convey that as simple as possible. And then I would add back in details like dialogue or little scenes or little things that happen along the way or just funny observations about what this means. The hardest book to condense for me was the book of Psalms, which I don't know, you're probably not familiar with that, but it's a book of poetry, actually songs. David, King David, wrote most of them and King Solomon wrote some and they were always trying to get into the music business. And they had written hundreds of these songs called Psalms. But how do you condense a book that's just 150 chapters of poetry, basically? 150 different songs. And I had no clue how to condense something so big and something that had no real linear narrative. But then it occurred to me that what the book of Psalms really is is sort of like a greatest hit CD. It's all of David and Solomon's best songs in one convenient box set. And so then I just wrote the book of Psalms like it was one of these late night ads for an eagle's box set seat or something like that. And that really kind of made the book come to life for me. So you know, I keep seeing a theme throughout your journey here is that you sort of pulled from other influences, other art forms, and let them kind of shape how you make what you do and how you put what you do out into the world. And you know, I guess for me the question would be how do we do that? You know, how do we combine multiple art forms so that we can kind of express our own message or express what we're trying to do? Like what's your advice for people? Well, I think there's I have basically I think there's two basic pieces of advice here. One, you've got to have I think some affection for what you're writing. You can't write from a completely distanced, you know, dismissive standpoint. Otherwise, it's not going to be very good. And it's not going to feel very authentic. It's just going to feel like you're you're dissing on whatever you're writing or that you're you're it's too dimensional. And I really felt that for the Bible. I really wanted to get understand what was really meant. I really wanted to find the parts that were that I thought were valuable in this book and to give that to other people. The other part is you've got to learn to sound like yourself. You've got to be honest about the way you think. If I had tried to write rewrite the Bible to sound like I was King, you know, King James, the King James version or trying to sound like, you know, George R Martin writing Game of Thrones. It would have been a disaster. My the way I talk to people is very casual. It's very abrupt. And I use pop culture allegories and analogies using the things that around me in my everyday life. That's basically the way I communicate with people. So for me, it was just a question of finding what I loved about the Bible and then communicating it through the through the idioms that I use in my everyday life. Just the way I actually speak to people. And I think that's what resonates with people. People want to feel like you're you're being authentic with them. That you're telling them something important and that you're telling it to them in a sincere manner. Yeah, you know, that's that's interesting. You know, like authentic I feel like is is one of those words that we throw around on the internet. And it's kind of like you don't really understand what it means until you experience it yourself. Either you experience it through somebody who's created something or you experience it in your own creations. You know, this that brings up actually two questions for me. One is actually around humor. I mean, obviously this book is hilarious. I mean, it really I mean, that's that's why I couldn't, you know, when I sat when Meg sent it to me as like, okay, this is awesome. I sat in a coffee shop and I, you know, I kept reading, kept reading, kept reading. And I mean, there were moments when I just laughed out loud. So I guess one question around that is bringing humor into writing because I feel that humor is sort of one of those universal experiences that it actually transcends every boundary, right? Like it breaks down the barriers of religion, culture, language, race, whatever it is. Like, you know, we all love to laugh, I think. Oh, absolutely. And that's that's a universal human experience. And I'm very curious how, you know, what are the things that we do to cultivate that? I mean, how does that play itself out in your in your other work? I mean, do you do stand up comedy for fun on the weekends? I mean, what is what does this look like for you? And how do we bring that into our work? Well, I think I've always written in humor in sort of humorous tone, just because I think it's an easy way to get people to listen who might not otherwise care. If you can say something, but say in a way it's funny, you're much more likely going to get somebody to listen to you and to engage with you personally than if you just say what it is you have to say. I also think that to me, humor is kind of like kind of like a stick of butter in the sense that I wouldn't want to just eat a stick of butter. But if you're cooking a steak and butter, then it's great. So it can't just be funny. It's got to be, you know, I like things that have substance, but then are kind of also funny. But the funniness is just kind of like a flavoring of what you're trying to say. Yeah, no, I think that that's actually, that's a really good point, right? Because I think that, like, there's a sense of sometimes, you know, you can tell when somebody's trying too hard to be funny, and then they're not. Or, you know, if it's funny, but there's just no substance, there's no point to any of it, then I, you know, it's like eating cotton candy to me. Not gratifying. So one other question around this, and then I want to start getting into sort of the actual, like, you know, post the reactions from the world. That's the part that I'm very curious about. I mean, you know, you mentioned working with Shannon Wheeler, who, you know, I know through our correspondences, a cartoonist for the New Yorker, and collaborative processes are always really interesting to me. I mean, like, I think collaboration as a creative is actually one of the most challenging things to figure out, and to know, okay, this is the person that is meant to, you know, be your collaborator. I mean, I think any of you who listen to our show know, like Sarah Steenland is our artist, and she, she has hands down been one of the greatest people to collaborate with because she gets our world and she gets us. And I think that that's, that's always a, that's always an interesting issue because there's, there's personalities that have to come into play, but then there's also, you know, creating sort of this cohesion almost creatively between the words and the illustrations that I'd love for you to talk to us about that process. Yeah, well, Shannon was a great collaborator because I think me and him have a very similar sense of humor, and he's also very easygoing. So I don't, I'd never worried about offending him, and I'd never was offended by anything he said, but typically what we would do is I would write a book and then I would take it to him. And I had condensed this book of the Bible down to maybe two or three pages, and then he would have to condense my two or three pages down to a single panel. So he had a really hard job as far as that goes. But I think it worked well with his talents because he's very much about just getting right to the core of a joke, cutting out everything that's extraneous. And he, and I think in that way, he was a very good influence on me and that I would take a book to him. He would draw a cartoon that was just really essential and really short and sharp. And in a lot of ways, I would write knowing that it was that I had to be as short and sharp in my dialogue and what I was writing to give him a fighting chance to draw something from that down into a single panel. But you know, we would, we would, he would give me comments about the books, and I would make comments about the cartoons. And sometimes he changes captions based upon my feedback or sometimes I changed the way I had written something based on his feedback. So it was very much an active collaboration. And, you know, plus, you know, we, we, we drank a lot of beer. And just had a lot of great conversations about the Bible during the course of our, our collaboration. Very cool. Yeah, collaboration is always, it's always interesting. I just, you know, I, I, I'm always curious about this process because I see, to me, I think that we, we underrate this because we've kind of gotten very individualistic in our, in our endeavors. But I mean, I look at what we've been able to accomplish by collaborating with artists. And I think, God, why didn't we do this sooner? Like, it's, it's amazing what we've accomplished as, as, you know, a group of people collectively, as opposed to individually trying to do something. Well, let's do this. Let's, let's actually shift gears and, and then start talking about, you know, kind of the world, you know, the response from the world. I mean, you come from a religious family and you put out a, you know, a translation of the Bible called God is disappointed in you. So, I mean, how does, how does one, how did your family react? How did the world around you react? I mean, how does the religious community like respond to, to something like this? I mean, I remember thinking in the book, I think you even wrote in the book. I hope we don't burn hell or something along those lines. Yeah, well, I don't know. It's a good question because I haven't really spoken to my family about the book, which is very strange to have written a book, you know, and not talk to your mother about it. But I, I haven't done so because I know they, I don't think they would, they would be as appreciative of the humor in it as other people are. The religious community as a whole has been very good about it. They really embraced it. I just had a great time doing a reading and, and talking about the book at the first Christian church here in Portland, and everyone seemed to really like it. And most of the, the reviews from, even from Christian presses have been really good. My favorite review was written on this one Christian press website and the guy who wrote the review clearly enjoyed the book, but felt kind of guilty about the fact that he enjoyed the book. And it was very, it was great. He was just very sincerely struggling with the fact that he liked it so much. And he was very honest about this. And at the end of his review, he said, I think I know what it is that bothers me about this book. It's that because of this book, non-believers will understand the Bible better than Christians will. And to me, that was the most moving, validating thing he could have said about, about my book. Wow, that's, it's interesting. I mean, I never thought of it that way, but yeah, I mean, that's, like I said, I mean, for me, like part of the challenge in ever wanting to read the Bible was I would open it up and I would think, what does this mean? It was so difficult to read. It was so troubling to me that I just thought, you know, there's no way I can, I can make any sense of this. Yeah, the Bible has its own sort of barriers to understanding largely because they, you know, a lot of things were included that don't really make sense to modern greeters. They're written, you know, for a civilization 3,000 years ago and often not even for the whole civilization, but just for specific audiences. And a lot of that gets lost in translation over time. It's, I think it's really cool because I was expecting like, you know, when you, when I asked you the question about how did the religious community respond, I was actually very surprised by your response. I think it's, it's actually very cool that you've gotten such a positive reception from them. Like, I would have imagined that, you know, people were going to be, you know, telling you guys you're all, you're, you're both going to burn in hell. Yeah, you know, that's kind of what I expected too. I expected a lot of blowback. I expected like protests. Why should I just kind of hoping for protests? Great publicity. And this sadly never happened. But yeah, I was, I was prepared for a lot of anger. In my nightmares were that it wouldn't be, it wouldn't be sacrilegious enough to win over the non-believers. And yeah, it would be sacrilegious enough that all the believers would hate it. Sadly, or I mean, thankfully, the opposite seems to have been true, that it's, it's irreverent and unhegigraphic enough to appeal to people who've never read the Bible or don't necessarily believe in the Bible. But it's still got enough affection and, and sincerity to really appeal to people who love the Bible and have grown up in the Christian church. And I think that, you know, maybe I just wasn't giving Christians enough credit for being smart and funny. When it comes to weight loss, no two people are the same. That's why Noom builds personalized plans based on your unique psychology and biology. Take Brittany. After years of unsustainable diets, Noom helped her lose 20 pounds and keep it off. I was definitely in a yo-yo cycle for years of just losing weight, gaining weight, and it was exhausting. And Stephanie, she's a former D1 athlete who knew she couldn't out train her diet and she lost 38 pounds. My relationship to food before Noom was never consistent. 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New customers on first three month plan only. Taxes and fees extra. Speeds lower above 40 gigabyte CD tail. So a couple of questions. One other question comes from when you went to the publisher, I'm very curious what a conversation like this goes like. You said at the table to, "Hey, we're going to do a comedic translation of the Bible. Are you guys interested in betting on this one?" Yeah. Well, it actually went backwards. This is a very unusual publishing story, but the publishing company approached me and asked me if I would be interested in going with them because they thought the idea was so great. It was top shelf productions, which they primarily do comic books, but this was really a strange book to put in their uvra, but we decided to go with them because they've always done really beautiful production work on every book that they've done. And they're very oriented towards the writing. They have a lot of really great writers in their stable. They publish a lot of Alan Moore's books. They publish a bunch of Jeffrey Brown's books. So I felt like I was in really good company by going with them, and I felt like they would handle it well. So let me ask you this. Do you see this becoming like, I mean, if I were a kid in school and you handed me the Bible and you handed me God as disappointed in you, I think it's pretty safe to know which I would choose. Yeah. Do you see this making of that kind of an impact in the world? Do you think it could replace? I don't know because I never went to Sunday school, and for those of you guys listening, please, I'm not being offensive. I'm very just curious. Honestly, could you see this replacing the Bible so that people who are kids are like, okay, cool. To me, like I said, until you wrote this book, I'd always been curious, but now I was like, okay, awesome. I can read it. Yeah, it wasn't so much that I wanted this to replace the Bible. Sure. Well, I definitely was hoping that somebody would pick up my book, read it and say to themselves, oh, they can't possibly be in there, and then go grab a Bible and read it and then read the passage for themselves. So I don't know if I want to replace the Bible, but I definitely think that people are better off reading this book first. In fact, we spoke to a few hotels about getting rid of their Gideon Bibles and putting our book in the hotel rooms. So far, no takers, but eventually I hope that somebody does that. Wow, yeah, I hope somebody, hey, if any of you listening to this own hotel, I've always, between you and me, I've always thought, considering what happens in hotel rooms, I've always thought it was very strange that the Bible is in the drawer. Yeah, that's precisely why the Bible is in there. I hope that you're going to come to Jesus on prom night. Never going to happen though. Yeah, yeah, seriously. Well, Mark, you know what, I don't have a ton more questions for you. I mean, this has just been fascinating. You know, I wanted to have you on the show because this was such a sort of distinctive creative endeavor that caught my attention. But, you know, I think it's really cool that you're somebody who has a day job, and yet you've produced an art form that clearly is making its way out into the world, impacting people, reaching people. And, you know, I hope, my hope is that listening to you really inspires people to tap into that. And I'm very curious, you know, we'll wrap with two questions. One, you know, we kind of asked at the beginning, but kind of, you know, the person sitting in their cubicle with that weird, crazy art project on their mind that seems completely unrealistic, that they can't see how it's going to come to life. I mean, what advice do you have for them? Take your time. Just do it on your own time. Get it right. The fact that you have a day job and you're not working against a deadline actually works in your favor. You can take your time, you can do whatever you want with that project. Just do your best to keep your two parts of your life separate, not to let work bleed over into your personal life and drain the energy from your artwork, you know. I love that. I love that. I think that's fantastic. So one final question for you, and this is, you know, I jokingly say I finally figured out how to close the interviews with a different question after hundreds of interviews when I was asking the same one, but it's kind of a similar question. But, you know, in a world full of noise, how do you become unmistakable? Wow. I don't even know if you sure understand that question, but I'll take a crack at it. I think you become unmistakable because you are willing to be honest about, you're willing to be honest enough to be wrong about the world. I love that. You're willing to take a chance, even though you might be full of shit. Well, I guess that's the story of the art of being unmistakable by my book. I was willing to take a chance even though there are people who think I'm full of shit. Yeah, that's basically it. Tim. Well, hey, Mark, this has been really, really fun. I am so glad that Meg connected the two of us. Yeah, two. I agree. Yeah, and you know, I can't thank you enough for joining us and sharing some of your insights with our listeners here at the Unmistakable Creative. And you know, for those of you guys who honestly, if you haven't read the Bible and you're looking for a sort of entertaining way to read it, the book is called "God is Disappointed in You." You know, Meg sent it to me and, you know, you guys have heard our interview with Meg, you know that she has good taste. So definitely recommend it and we'll wrap the show with that. Today's episode of the Unmistakable Creative has been brought to you by Sells. That's S-E-L-Z.com. Sells gives you the freedom to sell from any website quickly with no programming, no special templates, or special themes needed, while giving your customer a completely seamless experience. You've been listening to the Unmistakable Creative podcast. Visit our website at unmistakablecreative.com and get access to over 400 interviews in our archives. Cue the fireplace and your favorite fall movie. There's nothing better than a cozy evening at home with a glass of first leaf wine. First leaf is a personalized wine club that delivers right to your door. Sounds magical, right? They get to know your favorite tasting notes, which varietals you enjoy and whether you prefer sweet or dry wines. So in every shipment, you get bottles tailored to your unique palette. Go to tryfirstleaf.com/fall to get your first six wines for just $44.95 with free shipping. At Sprouts Farmers Market, we're all about fresh, healthy, and delicious. 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The difference between working artists and earning artists
Why making a living from your art isn't always glamorous
A look at a 10 year project that was hardly read by anybody
Why you only ever hear about the winners
Leveraging your art as a connection to the universe
How jokes infused their way is into Mark's soul
Why Mark sees joke telling as storytelling
A look at the creation process for God is Disappointed in You
The reason you need to write from a place of interest
A look at how to incorporate humor into the art you create
Collaborating with a cartoonists in the process of book writing
The reaction from the religious community

Mark is the author of God is Dissapointed in You, a translation for people who would like to read the Bible… if it would just cut to the chase.

The difference between working artists and earning artists
Why making a living from your art isn't always glamorous
A look at a 10 year project that was hardly read by anybody
Why you only ever hear about the winners
Leveraging your art as a connection to the universe
How jokes infused their way is into Mark's soul
Why Mark sees joke telling as storytelling
A look at the creation process for God is Disappointed in You
The reason you need to write from a place of interest
A look at how to incorporate humor into the art you create
Collaborating with a cartoonists in the process of book writing
The reaction from the religious community

Mark is the author of God is Dissapointed in You, a translation for people who would like to read the Bible… if it would just cut to the chase.

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