What superheroes can teach us about following Jesus
How superheroes can show us how to follow Jesus, why Christians should pursue cultural literacy as a means of evangelism, and what we should do with the fact that our Heavenly Father has more fun working than we do.
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[0:00:05.4] JR: Hey friend, welcome to the Mere Christians Podcast, I’m Jordan Raynor. How does the gospel influence the work of mere Christians, those of us who aren’t pastors or religious professionals but who work as public relations specialists, cashiers, and home health aides? That’s the question we explore every week and today, I’m posing it to my buddy, Mike Maihack.
He’s the award-winning graphic novelist behind Cleopatra in Space and the artist behind the latest series of Spider-Man comics, no big deal. Mike and I recently sat down to talk about how superheroes can show us how practically to follow Jesus, we talked about why Christians should pursue cultural literacy as a means of evangelism and what we should do with the fact that our heavenly father has way more fun working than we do.
Trust me, you are not going to want to miss this episode with my friend, Mike Maihack.
[INTERVIEW]
[0:01:09.9] JR: Mike Maihack, welcome back to the Mere Christians Podcast, buddy.
[0:01:12.8] MM: Oh man, it’s so great to hear your voice again.
[0:01:16.9] JR: I know. We’ve had like a four-year-long email chain trying to grab a coffee and right before we hopped on and started recording, we were talking about how the older we get, or at least, this is true for me, I like, become increasingly excited about the idea of infinite time, where as a kid, that idea dreaded me, right? But like, now, I’m like, “Oh no, I’m going to have forever to finally grab that coffee after coffee after coffee with Mike Maihack? Like, let’s go.” All to God’s greater glory and our greater joy? I’m in.
[0:01:47.4] MM: And the best coffee you could possibly have.
[0:01:49.2] JR: I know. Can you imagine?
[0:01:50.6] MM: It would be my greatest coffee ever, yeah. We’re just – yeah, it just keeps building and building until we’re going to have like, this amazing conversation over coffee on the new earth. It’s going to be great.
[0:02:00.0] JR: And maybe in the present, who knows? We’re going to get that.
[0:02:02.1] MM: Yeah.
[0:02:02.8] JR: We live 20 minutes away from each other, this is absurd.
[0:02:06.2] MM: It shouldn’t be that hard, it shouldn’t be that difficult, that’s how busy we are.
[0:02:10.5] JR: I know. Hey, speaking of busy, man, all right, so you’re in the show in September of 2020 and you just wrapped up this series of graphic novels called Cleopatra in Space. Dude, I don’t know if I told you this, I think my oldest daughter Ellison who is nine now has read the entire series three times.
[0:02:28.1] MM: Oh, that’s amazing, that’s a great age for her too. That’s awesome.
[0:02:32.0] JR: She absolutely loves this book but since then, you’ve been busy writing and illustrating these three new comic books and the Spider-Man franchise, no big deal. How did that come about? Like, how does a deal like this get put together, I’m super curious.
[0:02:45.3] MM: Well, it helps to have a literary agent who kind of brings this stuff to my attention. But yeah, that – I tend to – I’m always drawing. I mean, even after Cleopatra in Space was done, I was still – even if – I didn’t even think I was going to do comics anymore because they’re so difficult. Man, it takes so much time but I love drawing superheroes and I post them up online just like, we call it fan art for those who might not be familiar with what that is.
But just drawing other characters and Abrams, which is another book publisher, along the lines of Scholastic, they had just gotten this license to do some Marvel stuff including Spider-Man. I think they saw a lot of that I liked drawing superheroes that I drew them in a way that wasn’t – that was like, kid-friendly without making them look like kids and just thought I’d be a good fit. Yeah, kind of cartoony and but not too, you know, too off the scale of what they wanted the books to look like, and they really want to introduce new readers to these superheroes, like young readers. So, I think they had – they saw how I had a good grasp on making things accessible and so yeah, they came along and thought, “Hey, we thought you’d be good for a Spider-Man book.” And I was like, “No.” He’s going to be really hard to draw over and over again and – but after doing a few sketches, I realized how fun that would be and took on the job.
[0:04:02.7] JR: I can’t imagine even thinking about saying no to illustrating Spider-Man. Like, can you think of a bigger brand for a comic book artist? Come on.
[0:04:10.6] MM: Oh man, it was daunting. I would even say it was daunting. I almost had to look at the character and go, “If I own this character.” Even though I don’t, you know, if he was mine, if he was the way – how would I portray him, how would I do him, knowing what’s come before? I mean, just sort of make him my own, that’s the only way I could kind of get a grasp on doing the own story. That’s kind of how it happened and –
[0:04:29.7] JR: That’s super interesting.
[0:04:30.6] MM: And it was so much fun. Yeah.
[0:04:32.0] JR: What’s the spin pun intended on this new set of Spider-Man books?
[0:04:35.6] MM: So, I wrote a very friendly and neighborly Spider-Man, that’s really his whole, his whole sort of, just because he’s always trying to make everybody feel great and accepted and happy and his first – the very first, I can’t say person, but the very first character in the book that he befriends is this pigeon, who I named Mark. He is sort of, I needed a character for Spider-Man, so he was sort of talking throughout the book or so he just wasn’t talking to himself the entire story.
So, I created Mark, this pigeon because he’s in New York and pigeons can fly and kind of swing around with him and stuff, and that’s sort of where he represents being sort of that you know, that sort of do unto others whatever you really like them to do to you. He’s sort of teaching this to like the pigeons in New York almost and there’s this pigeon crisis that he sort of identifies with.
And it’s funny because that’s by, just by putting that character in, having sort of something, some character sort of play against Spider-Man, that sort of showed where his character was kind of coming out of and how he was going to interact with the other heroes that try to come up and give him this sort of responsibilities and things. I had gave him this idea that he has great power because with great power – that’s his motto.
I think a lot of us know his motto, “With great power, comes great responsibility.” But what would we do if we had like a – something that we didn’t think was a great responsibility and we felt we could do more? So, sort of teaching others that even the smallest responsibility can be great for others and so, that’s sort of where the path that kind of leads them to, pet sit for a lot of the Avengers or go help The Fantastic Four or find the City of Atlantis.
So, like either – like, this various sort of things that he gets on into. Later on, he goes up into space and tries to teach the Guardians of the Galaxy that maybe fighting isn’t always the best solution and maybe we can find some friendly opportunities, which is very difficult to get across to Rocket Racoon but yeah, it was a whole – it was a blast and it was great writing something that my kids could kind of share.
As I was writing it, I could kind of read it to them and get their interactions and feedback for it since it was really for, you know, for young readers but I was thinking for adults, hopefully, they will read these books to their kids so they need to enjoy it too. So, just trying to think of all ages and that sort of thing, yeah.
[0:06:54.3] JR: I bought them for Ellison, I haven’t read it myself but I’m excited to now, knowing that you had that in mind, that’s super fun. So, dude, we do not have a ton of repeat guests on the Mere Christians Podcast but you emailed me when you were working on this project and you were like, “Hey, if you’re interested, I’d love to have a conversation publicly about how ‘Superheroes are also doing God’s work.’” And I immediately said yes.
Like, I did not sit on it at all, I was like, “When can you chat?” And you’ve already started to allude to this but I want you to be more explicit. How are superheroes, how can artists like you portray superheroes like Spidey doing God’s work in the world? What do you mean?
[0:07:31.8] MM: Oh man, how are they not? That’s the more important thing. I think, it really boils down to – I mentioned earlier about you know the – you know, Matthew 7:12, the “Do unto others as you like to do.” But I think we go beyond that, you know? And heroes definitely go beyond that. It’s not, you don’t want to think about how you want to be treated but how you would treat others better than yourself. Almost look at people as more important than you are.
[0:07:57.5] JR: Yeah, Philippians two.
[0:07:59.0] MM: Yes, yes, Philippians two. So, you know, heroes, they have this, like, we talked about great power and they have these abilities, extraordinary things, and yet, a true hero won’t use that for their own self-worth, their own good. They might start off that way, Spider-Man certainly did. He went that path at the beginning but I think we love seeing how characters and heroes work their selves out of that.
And we gravitate to that because we want to be that way and we find – we find these heroes as sort of a representation of what life on the new earth is going to be like, what we are kind of aspiring to. They’re essentially doing Jesus’ work by going out there and serving others by saving them and I love that idea and I love the fact that so many of them are imperfect, so that we can sort of identify with that.
And I love how there’s so many wants for him, just all over the world to sort of embrace cultural differences and kind of make sure we’re looking at everybody as sort of the same, despite the differences that we might have.
[0:09:05.5] JR: Dude, that’s so good. I just wrote a devotional in I Corinthians 13:5 where Paul explains what love is and just talk about love not being self-seeking and that’s what you're talking about. I mean –
[0:09:16.1] MM: Exactly.
[0:09:16.7] JR: “With great power, comes great responsibility.” Seeking the good of others and what you’re doing and telling these stories is literally and figuratively animating that truth and giving people a case study in this fictional environment of what it looks like for love, not to be self-seeking, right?
[0:09:36.0] MM: Exactly. If we want to talk about one of the greatest storytellers that ever lived, Jesus, who, His entire ministry was based on storytelling, based on His parables that He would tell, well, His parables were rooted in the truth at the time, in different you know, that what that culture was like but as the culture shifts and things advance and change, we need these modern parables.
We need these modern heroes to represent those same truths and even though they might not all be, you know, written, you know, within that sort of that vein but that’s what they’re there for. They’re there to kind of show us what it’s like to be more like Christ, even if it’s you know, the writers are coming from that, you know, specific time period. That’s where they’re at. I think we longed for that.
I think even, you know, non-Christian writers long to be something better than what we are and so, we find these truths by writing these heroes. I love it. So, I think that’s why I’ve always read superheroes and read comics ever since I was a kid because it’s just aspiring, you know? It’s yeah, it’s really what you want to see in the world.
[0:10:39.7] JR: I’ve been thinking about this a lot lately. Like, there’s a reason – there’s many reasons, right? Why the word became flesh because I think, well, God knew that you and I needed to be told how to glorify Him through His living, written word. I think He also knew that we needed to be shown how to glorify Him through the lived word of Jesus Christ.
Like, I think, God knew that we humans need these flesh and bone, three-dimensional model to understand what it looks like practically to glorify him, right? And of course, we’ve got that perfect model in Christ but we also have imperfect models of how to glorify God in Christ's followers, right? This is what the apostle Paul was talking about and I think it’s I Corinthians 11 where He says, “Follow my example as I followed the example of Christ.”
He understood that He had a unique story, a unique context that would make the idea of following Jesus more concrete to those who shared His work in life stage and cultural context, right? And I think even more imperfectly, Spider-Man or these other – or even like, this is why I read biographies, right? Like, reading the life of Fred Rogers shows me, “Okay, in my more modern context, this is what this looks like, right?”
So, if we want to know what it looks like practically to glorify God, we look first to Christ but second, to Christ’s followers and the story of redemption that’s being woven through stories like the ones you’re writing in this comic books. Am I making any sense at all?
[0:12:16.8] MM: Oh, that’s so well said. I mean, I think it’s really hard as Christians to – if you – you only look towards Jesus and look, the absolutely perfectness of it, it’s almost like, it’s almost too much, it’s like, you can get to the point where it’s, “I’ll never be able to reach that” because you’re constantly messing up and mooing mistakes, which we all do and so, it’s nice to look at people that have – are working really hard to build themselves out of that.
And yeah, Fred Rogers is, what a great example that is and that’s why it’s the same thing, I sit and when I’m on the treadmill, I watch documentaries and I love watching documentaries about aspiring people and people climbing mountains and things, you know, different – I don’t even watch sports but I love sports documentaries because I love people putting their all into doing – trying to be something better than they actually are, you know? And yeah, and so, what you said was so well said.
[0:13:07.7] JR: But even a comic can do that for us, like, imperfectly, of course, right? So, in my newest book, The Sacredness of the Secular Work, I’m talking a lot about how mere Christians can scratch off glimpses of the kingdom of God, right? By planting previews of the characteristics of God’s kingdom in the things that we create, right? And you’re doing this quite literally in this comic book.
You’re planting a seed of previewing what it looks like for love not to be self-seeking and you know, it’s interesting like, God may use those seeds of the kingdom that you’re planting, Mike. to sprout, saving faith in a reader’s heart, you have no idea, right? But he may not and so, I’d love to hear you talk a minute about like, what value do you see in the work even if you can’t draw a direct line between the things you’re making in these comic books and somebody’s individual salvation.
[0:13:59.8] MM: Oh man, that’s awesome, what a great question. You know, I think about creativity a lot because that’s my main job is just to make up stuff. One of the most difficult things of my – part of my job is, is having too many ideas and trying to decide which one to kind of land on and so you know, you kind of go, “Well, what if” you sort of have to jump like, “I’m going to do a treasure hunting story this time, I’m going to do a super real story.” But not everybody’s going to be into that.
But how can you grasp – how can you kind of gain sort of that readership and I think of – I think how creativity really cultivates just more creativity, it leads people to think of new ideas. So, even like reading, even if you don’t want to draw another comic or something like that, if you're reading a Spider-Man comic, what is that going to aspire you to? If you watch, if the kid’s reading something about Spider-Man going to pace or Cleopatra going to space.
That might want them to be a scientist, where they can actually want to build the tools that take us and explore new different places out there in the cosmos and things like that. So, by just that culture leading, or the creativity leading to new advancement in culture, we’re advancing that culture. We’re advancing here, we’re creating a better earth we’re pretty much bringing that new earth.
We’re making it more visible for everybody by doing exactly what God intended us to do. He is a creator, God, He wants us to tend the garden and create new things and make the world even a better place than it is, and that’s how we do that is by coming up with new ideas, new stories, new advancements and who knows what’s going to inspire others to do those things.
[0:15:33.2] JR: This is super interesting. I don’t know that I’ve ever thought that idea that your work as a creator has intrinsic value because, in some non-linear way, it may inspire somebody else to create, Christian or not, and for that believer who is really leaning into that creativity in a God glorified way, they are imaging the creator God as they make those things.
[0:15:57.9] MM: Exactly, yup.
[0:15:59.5] JR: Yeah, that’s really good, and let’s face it, right? Like, I think the work has value because listen, making, and reading comic books is just fun, and we worship a joyful God. I’ve been thinking a lot over the last couple of years about like, yeah, I just think our Heavenly Father has way more fun in His work than most of His children do.
[0:16:16.5] MM: He’s got to.
[0:16:16.9] JR: He’s got to because He’s – there’s no sitting and warring there, right? Like, Revelation 21 says that God decorated the new Jerusalem with 5,600 miles of gems, right? There can’t be a utilitarian function to that many jewels, right? He had to do it simply for the joy of doing it. There’s this verse in Job, it says something similar, it says that I think it’s Job 38. It says that God makes it rain in deserts where no man lives. Why?
Apparently, just because God thinks that sounds fun, to make it rain in this random desert, right? Like, do you ever think about this, Mike? That God works for the pure joy and play of working and so, you are free to make really playful, fun things as well? Do you ever think about that?
[0:17:05.9] MM: Absolutely, absolutely. He wants us, there wouldn’t be beautiful things in the world if we weren’t meant to sit down quietly and enjoy these beautiful things and if God’s doing that, and we’re – want to be like God, we’re intended to do the same thing. We need to sit down. There is an intrinsic value in just, and just creating things that are beautiful, things that are entertaining, it doesn’t have to have a practical use.
The practical use is that it is beautiful, that it is entertaining because those are the things that we sort of makes us sit down and live in awe of this world that we are in. If we’re just going by our day doing, “I have to do this because this needs to get done or this is going to propel this thing to go to this thing.” And just constantly not spending time to just look and be aware and listen to everything that’s around us and the people that are around us.
I imagine, when I think about Jesus’ ministry, the amount of time that He had walking from different cities and just living in this earth that His Father had created, that He probably just sat there and just lived it. He didn’t have to explain it all the time, He could just look at it and enjoy it and then, use those, use that beauty to kind of come up with new stories, which I love. I love the idea of Jesus as a storyteller.
That’s one of my favorite aspects of the New Testament. We have the storytelling of the Old Testament and then the storyteller and it’s beautiful, it’s a beautiful book.
[0:18:47.7] JR: And a lot of times, those stories weren’t very explicit, right? Like, He ended most of those stories without tacking a tract on to the end of it.
[0:18:55.2] MM: Oh yeah, He was – yeah, great cliffhangers.
[0:18:57.9] JR: Great cliffhangers. I love it. Yeah, and trusted the Spirit to move and convict people in certain ways – I don’t know that I’ve ever heard somebody say explicitly what you just said. I thought it was really interesting that like, beauty is practical. I think we have evidence for this in Genesis 2. Genesis 2:9 says, “The Lord God made all kinds of trees grow out of the ground, trees that were pleasing to the eye and good for food.” Right?
So, beautiful and functional, and let’s remember, this is pre-sin. So, apparent – according to God, beauty is essential to life and life abundantly. So, simply by creating beautiful, fun comics in a God-honoring way, has intrinsic value because you are helping people live the abundant life that God created for us, right?
[0:19:49.4] MM: Exactly. Yeah, that’s totally it, right here.
[0:19:52.2] JR: Yeah. I, all right. So, you – is your job like over the top fun? Like, do you love your work?
[0:19:59.1] MM: Most is.
[0:19:59.9] JR: Because everyone is listening back, this is a dream.
[0:20:02.8] MM: Yeah, it’s a lot of work. There are days because creating – it’s not one of those jobs where you just kind of go in and do the work and then come home and –
[0:20:11.6] JR: Yeah, you're always thinking about it.
[0:20:12.8] MM: You’re always thinking, your mind is – I mentioned earlier, I think how it’s the hardest part about my job is too many ideas and so usually, what I’m praying for most of the time is just peace that I can just kind of relax and not think about drawing and storytelling for just a few minutes and be able to just focus on some – like, I talk and mentioned early just sort of enjoying life as what it gives me and family time and stuff.
But there’s, the work has to get done. You have deadlines, I tend to work about 60 hours a week on these drawings and writing. You rework, it’s about working and reworking and changing and refining, which I think we do just in our lives daily anyways. For any sort of field, you’re constantly practicing at it, trying to get better, improve. So, I’m motivated mostly by, I think, a desire to do God’s work.
But I want to do it really – I want to make him proud, you know? I want to make it – I want to do a really, really good job at and so, I’m always trying to do better than I did last time and I’m always trying to draw better or write better. Yeah, it’s not – some days are better than others when it comes to that, and some days, I feel like I’m not drawing well at all. Sometimes it’s just flowing through me like a river.
It’s just – but there’s no really real rhyme or reason to it. It’s just wherever the Spirit’s kind of bringing me to that day.
[0:21:34.7] JR: I can resonate with this feeling of like, “Man, I love what I do.” Like, I can’t believe I get to do this work, I hope I’m doing something similar for eternity and that eternity starts now. Like, and you know, it’s interesting like, growing up I used to hear the advice all the time that I’m sure you heard like, if you choose a job you love, you’ll never have to work a day in your life. You and I have done that but like, yeah, it feels like work some days, even though I love it.
[0:22:02.0] MM: You're still working.
[0:22:02.5] JR: It is hard and some days, if I’m honest man, like, there are days when it does feel like a grind. Like, I – the older I get, the more I realize that that’s a blessing in disguise. It’s actually a good thing for my soul because it ensures that I will never find complete joy and satisfaction in the work that I can only find that thing in Christ. Have you experienced something similar?
[0:22:27.9] MM: You know, it’s funny. Usually, the days where if I’m sitting there and I am trying to draw a specific pose or – so, I am trying to figure out how the best panel layout or something like, and it’s just not working, I’ve spent way too much time on it, I’d say 99% of the time I just stop, and stop being so stubborn about what I’m trying to do on my own and pray and go, “God, help me figure out how they get this done.”
“If maybe this isn’t the type of panel You want me to be drawing right now, maybe this isn’t the right expression.” And then boom, it’s there. It might not be the best thing I’ve ever drawn but again, that sort of confidence or piece sort of falls on me and I am able to look at what He’s given me, this gift He’s given me, appreciate it, and then start using it in ways that I’m not drawing for myself but drawing what He – you know, because He wants me to.
Because He wouldn’t have put these opportunities in front of me, He wouldn’t have given me the desire to seek out those opportunities and the skillset to do so if it wasn’t something I think that He really wanted me to do. Yeah, so I look at these projects that He gets me and I look for – I mean, I look forward to what I do every single day. Every morning I go, “I get to go and make comics. I love this.” This is what I’ve always wanted to do.
[0:23:45.2] JR: Yeah, but those thorns and thistles, right? That writer’s block, that frustration you feel.
[0:23:49.3] MM: Oh, it can be hard. Writing is harder than drawing too I think sometimes.
[0:23:53.9] JR: Yeah, for sure but then like that, well, I don’t know. I wouldn’t know, I have no idea.
[0:23:57.4] MM: Yeah.
[0:23:58.3] JR: But I do think that’s a blessing in disguise, right? Because that’s the thing that drives you to God, that drives you to prayer, right? And so, it’s increasing your reliance on the Lord and that’s a good thing, right?
[0:24:10.7] MM: I love that, yeah. It’s so well-said and not only that, not only are you creating that reliance in the Lord but then the result is more creation. You know, you’re adding to what God wants you to do. You are adding more things to the earth.
[0:24:23.6] JR: All right, hey, we’ve talked a lot about how your faith shifts what you write, what you illustrate, the stories you’re telling. I’d love to go a level deeper though and just hear about how your faith is shaping how you’re doing your work day in, day out, right? Prayer, seeking the Lord’s guidance is one obvious way but what else about how you go about this craft as a graphic novelist can only be explained by your apprenticeship to Jesus Christ?
[0:24:48.2] MM: Oh wow, that is a great question. We talked a little bit about being more like – being more Christ-like that the storyteller aspect of that. I love the idea that I can’t be a storyteller without being aware of other stories out there. I can’t draw things without witnessing those things. You can’t sort of imagine what you know, you can be creative, especially when you’re drawing superheroes and science fiction.
You know, you can imagine worlds and characters but they all sort of have to stem from something real, something very that’s already out there and so, if almost forcing is I don’t – I think it’s too strong a word but it encourages you to really listen to other people, to really take the time to be patient. Patience is a huge key, not just in listening and watching and looking but also in taking that and finding what those core qualities are to put into your characters.
And put into your worlds, and sort of try your best really to represent the things that God’s trying to show in ways that can be entertaining and fun and ways that other people might not see certain things, you know? And so, it’s really a wonderful way. You think being a cartoonist or a storyteller or a comic book artist, a lot of it is just maybe sitting there into this and so I’m sitting in a desk alone, very isolated, and a computer.
But you can’t do that if you don’t get out in the world and really get to know people and spend time and not just God’s word but in God’s world and just bringing those aspects. Find what’s calling to you in those sense and put those into your work and then share that with others and I think a lot of times, we can sometimes come up with great ideas, especially entrepreneurs. We come up with wonderful things and I think sometimes, we horde those ideas.
We don’t want people to take those ideas because we want to use them for ourselves. I mean, that’s not what God wants. God wants us to share these wonderful things that He’s given us, these gifts and storytelling comics is really about that. It’s about sharing ideas, it’s about sharing a love of the craft, it’s about sharing entertainment and fun and making people laugh, and making people smile, which is really the motivation of most of what I do.
Is trying to just give people joy in what I’m trying to, you know, I am just trying to through these little stories but hopefully, they create bigger emotions and those emotions therefore make them want to go out and do the same thing to also create joy in others, which is really what Spider-Man’s whole deal is about in all the three Spider-Man books. So, that’s me just putting myself into it, yeah.
[0:27:35.0] JR: It’s interesting to think about how our faith should lead us to kind of reject the world’s scarcity mindset of things and just share more freely, share – I am not talking about economically freely, right? But share more publicly share more, share ideas in their most nascent form because we believe in the God that owns the cattle and a thousand hills, right? I think about II Corinthians 9:8, right?
God is able to bless you abundantly so that in all things at all times having all that you need you will abound in every good work. Like we don’t have to be afraid of sharing our best ideas. We don’t have to be afraid of sharing these things in their nascent form because God’s going to ensure that we have whatever we need, not whatever we want but whatever we need to abound in every good work, right?
[0:28:18.4] MM: Exactly. You know, I tell – I do a lot of author visits at schools and stuff, and one of the things I tell the – one the biggest questions I get with the Q&A’s is how do you keep people from stealing your ideas or how – and my answer is always the same, it’s every story has already been told.
[0:28:34.4] JR: There’s nothing new under the sun.
[0:28:36.0] MM: Nothing new under the sun. What makes it unique is your voice, your personal influence, and what you bring into it and I think that’s very framed. I mean, that’s what God wants. He wants our voices out there, He wants us to cry out, He wants us to worship through the good works that we do and that’s how we are sort of filling up the earth is with our voices, and I think there’s no worry there.
You don’t have to worry about people kind of taking your work because that’s unique. It’s what makes us unique and it reminds us that we are unique and that God created us just the same way that God created each of us differently. Your stories, your ideas, and your plans for your business are also going to be unique and it — just again, this is not going to be a complex podcast for anyone but that’s what brings us back to God — is those reminders. Those little reminders, just the act of creation are a reminder of who God is.
[0:29:31.5] JR: That’s good. So, you breeze past this bomb of a phrase a few minutes ago that I have to circle back to.
[0:29:38.6] MM: Oh no.
[0:29:39.1] JR: It was so good. You were talking about spending time, “In God’s word and God’s world.” You’re talking about being culturally literate if I could put words in your mouth, right? And I’m curious if like, so you’re engaging in this space with other comic book artists, the space that some believers might call secular but I would refute since you as a believer are there. Have you –
Can you think of an example where your cultural literacy, your understanding of the world of comics and culture of movies, film, whatever, has led to a clear opportunity for you to be able to share your faith or connect the dots for somebody else to Christ?
[0:30:22.5] MM: I wish I could say I had like a concrete example. It is a very difficult field because most of my peers in the comics probably come from a place of not faith I would say or a lack of faith. I think it’s about that leads some to sort of create stories because they’re trying to find. Again, it’s that longing to find something better than themselves and sometimes, either it’s – I can’t speak for anybody.
But there’s been aspects and maybe some in life where the idea of a greater power sounds against the very nature of what they’re trying to do and so you have to kind of rather than – I found rather than just outright telling people or saying things, I try to show it through my actions and my work and show it through the art that I create. I don’t get on social media very often other than I don’t really engage in social media.
But I do almost daily or every other day I post art. I post fan art, I post drawings, and it’s always with the idea of sharing something positive and hopeful and loving and good or beautiful and so, I want those attributes to come out in everybody else. I think once people feel those things, they’re curious to look towards more where that’s coming from.
[0:31:49.0] JR: To be clear, like we just spent the majority of this podcast talking about this. I think your work has intrinsic value even if it doesn’t lead to those explicit conversations but I do think this is not a very well big thought but it’s something that’s been simmering in the background for me for a while.
I do think especially in this increasingly post-Christian context, the Christians who will be most effective at making disciples are going to be Christians who are fairly culturally literate because we can connect the dots and find common ground with those who have yet to meet Jesus and part of what got me thinking about this, I just pulled this up, I was reading this old sermon from Tim Keller from back in 2001.
And he was talking about how he met this college student in New York, who was reading Harry Potter. I guess she had attended a service and after the service, he said, “Hey, why do you like Harry Potter books?” and she said, “I don’t know, they kind of cast a spell on me.” And she would have and he said, listen to this, I said, “I think it’s maybe because in spite of what your intellect tells you, your heart knows this world is not all there is.”
“And every good story tells you there are mysterious stupendous powers out there that can come into our impossible situation. Your heart knows it though your intellect denies it and the stories assure you and give you some relief and fill you with wonder.” But as I read that, I was like, “Man, like thank God Tim spent time engaging with Harry Potter.” Like you know, like to be able to have that conversation and to be able to connect the dots for that woman. I just think we’re going to hear a lot more stories like that in the future.
[0:33:25.3] MM: Oh yeah, it’s impossible if you don’t feel – you can’t connect with others if you don’t listen to them. If you don’t – I mean, you have to have cultural literacy I think to – I love that. I’m using this from now on, now that you’ve said that but you cannot share the good word of Jesus if you don’t try to understand where people are coming from and where they’re at, and what they're into, and what they love and maybe that’s also what draws me to superheroes, yeah.
[0:33:55.2] JR: It’s the stories that they love, right? And being able to understand the story like, “Hey, you know why you love that thing? Because ultimately, it’s drawing you to Christ.” Christ is the fulfillment of that seed that that story planted in your heart, it can only sprout to full fruition in Jesus Christ.
[0:34:11.7] MM: I love that.
[0:34:12.6] JR: All right, hey, you mentioned this a couple of times, let’s land the plane here, this idea of having too many ideas, right? To work on and oh my gosh, my agent and I were on the phone yesterday talking about Jordan Raynor’s too many ideas for books and projects. Does that lead you to a deeper hope of eternity where like, man, we don’t have to worry about running out of time to work on all these ideas, we’re going to have eternity to just continue to do this work?
[0:34:38.7] MM: Oh man, I think about heaven and new earth all the time. I think about what it would be like, like what – it’s so impossible to grasp what eternity is. Like, what would be eternity and how would you not? My biggest fear, I remember my biggest fear of heaven because I was scared to death of heaven when I was little is that it would be boring. It would just be so dull and I was like, “I don’t want to live – I don’t want to be bored for eternity.”
And so I think, what would be exciting? You know, what would last me for eternity? I think of it, I grew up watching Star Trek and the combination of that would be Lord of the Rings and all these other things and Narnia and I love the idea of exploring and I think we’re still doing that. Even just now, we’re still finding pockets around where we were on this planet to explore and I think we look at outer space, we look at all these stars.
There’s a line in a show I watched recently, where one of the characters asked, “So, why did God created all of these stars? It can’t be just window dressing.” And I was like, “Exactly, it’s not window dressing.” He’s like, “We’re going to go out there, we’re going to explore that, and there’s going to be so much to see, there’s going to be so much to do and think of the stories we’ll be able to tell after we see.”
Like, these endless adventures that we’re going to go on, it will be like the longest most entertaining video game you’ve ever played. There’s just puzzle after puzzle and quest after quest and each time you discover one thing, this leads to the next, and you just can’t wait to jump to the next and then you can’t wait to tell people about it. To me, that’s how I want to treat how I’m living now.
[0:36:16.0] JR: Yes, a hundred percent because eternity is now in session, the kingdom of heaven is at hand.
[0:36:21.2] MM: Yes, yes, and it’s funny to think that God definitely isn’t running out of ideas, and yet He is still bestowing on us the gift to create more ideas and be more creative and that’s so loving for somebody to do that. It just – it shows such a great power and it’s amazing.
[0:36:39.2] JR: I love it. I think this is the first time I’m mentioning this here on the podcast, so this would be fun. Note to my CMO, sorry, we didn’t time this announcement very well but this October, I’m releasing my second children’s book.
[0:36:52.8] MM: Oh, that’s amazing.
[0:36:53.3] JR: So, it’s going to be a sequel to The Creator in You, yeah. It’s called, The Royal in You. It’s an exposition on Revelation 21:22 and trying to help kids overcome their, frankly, a silent dread that you and I felt as kids over this idea of heaven and really focusing on what – I don’t see a whole lot of kids books focused on you know, not the present heaven but the new earth, where Revelation 22:5 says, “We will reign forever and ever with Christ.”
And man, as you were talking, you’re basically reading the last stanza of the book. Listen, I’m going to read it for us. This would be a good benediction to this episode. “So, don’t think for one second that heaven is boring because we’ll be reigning, creating, and exploring not just for our joy and surely, not for our glory but to love and to worship the one who is worthy. It would be so much better than your wildest dreams ruling heaven on earth next to Jesus, our king” right?
And that reign starts now, dude. That’s what you’re doing right now, Mike, that’s what we’re doing and co-laboring with Jesus, the king, reigning, creating, and exploring for His glory and the good of others, amen?
[0:38:02.9] MM: I love it, amen.
[0:38:04.0] JR: Dude, I can’t wait to send you the art of this. All right, hey bro, three questions we wrap up every show with. Number one, which books do you find yourself recommending most frequently? Like, if we opened up your Amazon order cart history, what do we see you buying over and over again?
[0:38:18.8] MM: It’s so funny because probably most of the guests that you have on here are going to recommend sort of you know, more I don’t want to say self-help books but more nonfiction, you know? And I’m like I did not – I am not recommending that. Here’s the thing, I hardly read nonfiction because I’ll get halfway through a nonfiction book and then put it down because I just want something that’s taking place in some world I’ve never heard of.
So, but I talked a lot about – you know, I knew you were going to ask this question, so I was thinking what could I recommend. The book that got me into making comics is a book called Bone. It’s a big kind of epic, I read in like – you can read it in full-color volumes. If you have kids, I would recommend it in full color. If you are an adult, I think you’d really enjoy this book and I would recommend it in black and white just because it feels that the artworks, his artwork is just so delicate.
We really get a lot out of it that way but it’s a book called Bone but it’s a nine-volume series. So, you could actually buy it one volume if you wanted and probably most people will read it on the weekends. There’s a book called All-Star Superman, not written by a Christian author but I think the Superman in this story represents more of what Christ is like than a lot of stories I’ve read in the past, so if anyone when they’re looking to superheroes and wanting something like that.
I do recommend Called to Create quite a lot, it’s a great book, and then also I want to recommend The Infinity Gauntlet, for anyone into Marvel stuff and you want to see characters kind of like – that’s a Marvel book that the whole cinematic universe was initially based of off but it was the book that really got me into Marvel comics but then also just for a devotional series because I start each of my days out reading devotionals.
One of the ways that have kind of gotten into a habit of starting my day, once I’ve really loved our – I’m probably going to mispronounce his name. I think you’ve had them on the show before too but Skye Jethani?
[0:40:14.3] JR: Yeah, Skye Jethani.
[0:40:15.7] MM: Jethani, okay, so yeah. He does these if Jesus was serious –
[0:40:19.1] JR: What if Jesus was serious, yeah.
[0:40:20.3] MM: Yeah, those are just they’re short, they’re sweet but they’re so well thought out and I love the little illustrations at the beginning of them. So, anyone that is sort of listening to this and kind of like me and he’s sort of a visual art representation of something, I think those are some great devotional books out there.
[0:40:36.7] JR: It’s a great recommendation. I love those books, they’re so great. All right, Mike, who would you want to hear on this podcast talking about how their faith shapes their work ideally not a pastor or theologian but a mere Christian like you?
[0:40:48.5] MM: Okay. Yeah, lately I’ve just recently, about a month ago found out about The Bible Project. Have you ever had anybody from there?
[0:40:54.8] JR: I never have, no but I’m actually current. So, I listen to no podcasts. I’m currently making an exception by listening to The Bible Project’s year through the sermon on the Mount.
[0:41:04.9] MM: Yeah, same here, yeah.
[0:41:06.1] JR: Which is phenomenal.
[0:41:07.7] MM: Yeah, it’s so good. I was thinking it would be great to – yeah, the podcast is great and then they make these YouTube videos.
[0:41:13.8] JR: Which are really great.
[0:41:14.7] MM: Oh gosh, I would love to hear from the art director or one of the art directors from there and then most, if you think it would be interesting to see just by because they’re sort of visually representing having to create like this visual of what they’re trying to kind of unravel the story of the Bible. If that has sort of changed the way they sort of look at the Bible and kind of if that served where they’re kind of coming at because that’s a big responsibility I think to kind of put that, serve this visual into people’s heads.
That’s their – they are giving this information but yeah, I’ve been loving that, The Bible Project. That’s been – I’m glad I discovered that.
[0:41:50.8] JR: It’s so crazy good. All right, Mike, you’re talking to this very diverse audience of mere Christians, diverse geographically, certainly vocationally, what’s one thing from our conversation today that you would want to reiterate to our listeners before we sign off?
[0:42:07.7] MM: Oh man, you know honestly, I think I hope listeners can come out of this thinking to themselves as also come of – is thinking of themselves as superheroes that you don’t need extraordinary abilities or really any extraordinary anything. You just have a great heart, a great reverence to Jesus Christ and His teachings, and then great open minds to the extraordinary things He can accomplish through you whatever your vocation may be, just be a superhero for Jesus Christ.
[0:42:34.1] JR: It’s so good, man. We got the Holy Spirit in us, right? Like, come on.
[0:42:39.7] MM: I love it, the greatest motivator in the world right there.
[0:42:43.1] JR: That’s exactly right, I love it. Hey Mike, I want to commend you for the exceptional work you do every day for the glory of God and the good of others, for using your vocation to scratch off glimpses of the kingdom of God that tell parables of the kingdom to so many people and just for reminding us of the joy we can experience in our work because we’re made in the image of a God who creates with abundant joy.
Hey friends, if you want to see, I cannot recommend Mike’s work highly enough, especially this Cleopatra in Space series but even the Spider-Man series, which I haven’t read but Ellison loved. What’s the series called? A Mighty Marvel Team-Up, is that it?
[0:43:21.0] MM: Yeah, it’s Mighty Marvel, the idea is Spider-Man teaming up with pretty much as many Marvel characters as I can cram into like an 80-page story.
[0:43:29.3] JR: It’s like a Taylor Swift’s music video, just putting in all the celebrities.
[0:43:32.6] MM: Yeah, I’m just putting everybody into that can, it’s like a Superbowl special or something but –
[0:43:37.3] JR: Oh my gosh, I love it, and hey, where’s the best place to hang out with you online? Is it Instagram @mikemaihack?
[0:43:43.2] MM: Gosh, I hate saying this because it sounds like I am trying to sell it but my Patreon is where really the only place you’re going to get more than just my art. That’s where I share how I make my comics where I share a little bit more commentary on stuff. You’re going to get all the newest art that I do there as well but for the most part, I do on Instagram and I don’t know, X, Twitter, whatever they’re calling it these days.
I do try to daily or every other day post a new drawing. You’re not going to get a lot of commentary for me on there but I will post art, so yeah.
[0:44:12.8] JR: That’s awesome. Mike, thanks for hanging out with us today, brother.
[0:44:15.4] MM: Thank you. I love this.
[END OF INTERVIEW]
[0:44:18.1] JR: Good grief, I freaking love that episode. I hope you did too. Hey, if you’re enjoying the Mere Christian’s podcast, do me a huge favor, it will only take 30 seconds, go leave a review of the show on Apple or Spotify, my team and I read every single one of those reviews. It would be a huge encouragement to our producers on the podcast. Thank you, guys, so much for tuning in, I’ll see you next week.
[END]