[Bobby Campbell has announced a planned new online reading group, for the comic book series TESTAMENT, to be hosted at Apuleius Charlton's Jechidah blog. Here is Bobby's announcement. The Management.]
By BOBBY CAMPBELL
Special guest blogger
I'm very excited to announce the formation of a monthly reading group based around the Douglas Rushkoff & Liam Sharp created comic book series TESTAMENT!
TESTAMENT was published as a monthly series by DC Comics, under the prestigious Vertigo imprint, from 2006 - 2008. It ran for 22 issues and was then collected into four trade paperbacks. It was also collected into a digital omnibus (which I designed!), and I’m told efforts are currently underway for a deluxe print edition, coming in 2026 :)))
Why should we read TESTAMENT?
“A stunning, richly entertaining book.”
-- Robert Anton Wilson
“Rushkoff and Sharp unveil the new voice of dissent. Make no mistake, the greatest story ever told continues right here!”
-- Grant Morrison
For starters I'd like to point you to Douglas Rushkoff's introduction to the series, which gives you a sense of the monumental scale they were working on for this comic.
The story of TESTAMENT takes place simultaneously in the biblical past and a near future that, 20 years later, looks suspiciously similar to our present.
This is a book about the open source nature of reality, about participatory myth-making, about resistance to inhuman systems, and about discovering our collective agency.
Useful things to think about anytime, but perhaps especially in these particular times.
Also, there's absolutely astonishing art, by one of the all-time greats, LIAM SHARP!!
Both Douglas Rushkoff & Liam Sharp have these wildly brilliant and expansive oeuvres, between them there are dozens of titles worthy of our time and attention, but I maintain that something special happened here where their two styles met and combined into something uniquely explosive. A lost classic of the Vertigo canon, waiting to be discovered!
A quick word of warning! TESTAMENT is often very NSFW. There’s a fair amount of nudity, sex, violence, and other such adult situations. Frankly, it’s kinda fucked up! (Complementary.)
Additionally, many other artists contributed significantly to the series! But this being an intro I figured we'd stick to the original creators for now, but rest assured all contributors will be given their flowers! Peter Gross, Dean Ormston, Gary Erskine, Mark Pennington, Jamie Grant, James Devlin, Jared K. Fletcher, Todd Klein, Pornsak Pichetshote, Jonathan Vankin, and Bob Harris.
THE MEDIUM IS THE MESSAGE
An ulterior motive I have is the promotion of the comic book medium! I know how wildly intelligent and insightful this group is, and I thought it would be fun to see what you all would discover within some especially well-crafted esoteric sequential art :)))
Comix are slowly, but surely, emerging from their spandex-covered super-powered chrysalis, and waiting to be discovered as a richly rewarding medium for stories of every type.
A good companion piece for this series would be Scott McCloud's Understanding Comics. Intentionally named to mirror Marshall McLuhan's Understanding Media, and packed full of those same paradigm shifting epiphanies.
Here's Rushkoff and McCloud in conversation from 2008:
FREE AS IN BEER
I thought it would be bad manners to ask for both your time and your money, so I got permission from Rushkoff & Sharp, who very generously agreed, to provide the source material free of charge!
On the 22nd of each month for the next 22 months, I will post a free web version of the original single issue TESTAMENT comics.
I created a neocities site to host the monthly source material updates: https://testament-reading-group.neocities.org/
If you would like to read ahead there are several inexpensive options to do so!
Testament Trade Paperbacks (Cheap used editions!)
(Though I've been asked to warn you that there is indeed that deluxe edition coming in 2026, so budget your purchases accordingly!)
2 comments:
Man, when Vertigo started in the 90s I bought everything they published for a while. I just loved Gaiman and Grant Morrison's writing.
I like the idea of a comic book reading group, and making it available for free for anyone to follow along is a very generous offer. Any chance on getting Douglas Rushkoff himself to jump in as guest blogger every now and then?
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