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The Sacred and the Profane
Book by Dean Motter, Ken Steacy
- GenresGraphic Novels
125 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1987
About the author
Dean Motter
176 books30 followersDean R. Motter is an illustrator, designer and writer who worked for many years in Toronto, Canada, New York City, and Atlanta. Motter is best known as the creator and designer of Mister X, one of the most influential "new-wave" comics of the 1980s.
Dean then took up the Creative Services Art Director's post at Time Warner/DC Comics, where he oversaw the corporate and licensing designs of America’s most beloved comic book characters such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. In his off-hours he went on to create and design the highly acclaimed, retro-futuristic comic book series, Terminal City-- and its sequels, Aerial Graffiti. and Electropolis.
Dean then took up the Creative Services Art Director's post at Time Warner/DC Comics, where he oversaw the corporate and licensing designs of America’s most beloved comic book characters such as Superman, Batman and Wonder Woman. In his off-hours he went on to create and design the highly acclaimed, retro-futuristic comic book series, Terminal City-- and its sequels, Aerial Graffiti. and Electropolis.
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Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews
February 26, 2013
Catholics...in Space! ...Again! (insert appropriate space echo here)
The sacred & the profane written by Dean Motter and illustrated by Ken Steacy. Eclipse Graphic Album Edition (hardcover).
Let me see if I can get the complicated history of this thing right. Originally, Dean Motter and Ken Steacy published the comic The Sacred and the Profane in five parts from 1977 to 1978 in Star*Reach. In the early 1980s, Motter and Steacy rewrote, re-drew, and colored their work and printed the new version in Epic Illustrated. In 1987, Eclipse Comics collected the Epic version into a single volume.
The comic's subject is one which, for whatever reason, is of perennial interest in science fiction: Catholics in space.
The Sacred and the Profane depicts a future in which the discovery of life on another world has swelled religious interest around the globe so that the Catholic Church and numerous other religions are flourishing. Readers will probably recognize this as a sharp contrast with numerous other science fiction works in which the discovery of extraterrestrial life is a challenge to religious faith or even the source of its extinction.
Because of the heightened interest in religion and a set of improbable circumstances, the Catholic Church has convinced the United States to launch three Catholic space missions, known collectively as the Catholic Interstellar Crusade, to colonize distant worlds and evangelize the natives. The Sacred and the Profane chronicles the ill-fated first mission, Saint Catherine's.
Saint Catherine's is essentially a flying cathedral, and Steacy's intriguing Gothic church-cum-spaceship design is one of The Sacred and the Profane's numerous delights. Crewed by 215 people, most of them clergy, the ship comes complete with a sizable chapel, including an organ loft, where much of the action takes place. The story is told largely through the eyes of Sister Marianna, one of the nuns of the ship's convent, who as the story opens is losing her faith due partly to the monotony of space travel and due partly to a possibly inappropriate attraction to one of Saint Catherine's warrior monks, Brother Joshua, who she sees as a paragon of faith and virtue.
She won't have much time for brooding, however, as Saint Catherine's soon approaches a mysterious alien object that opens fire on the ship. Though the clergy commanding the mission hope to turn this unpromising beginning into a peaceful encounter, Brother Joshua, who soon turns out to be a crazed fanatic, returns fire and launches Saint Catherine's small regiment of fighter craft. The attack is a disaster; a number of the warrior monks are killed, and vine-like extraterrestrial entities invade the ship. Able to crawl anywhere and hide, and capable of combining together into creepy humanoid forms, the extraterrestrials begin killing the human crew as Saint Catherine's becomes trapped in a decaying orbit around the alien object. Though at first the aliens are apparently murderous, their motives are ultimately ambiguous, as is much of the story.
The Sacred and the Profane, though overall a fine work, suffers from character glut. Too many people are presented to the reader in too short a space. It becomes difficult to keep track of them and their sometimes convoluted and often less-than-holy relationships. A few of these relationships never have much relevance to the story as a whole.
Though it has has some eccentricities suggesting Motter and Steacy are not entirely familiar with their subject matter, such as a toga-clad archbishop addressed as "Your Holiness," the work is sophisticated in its depiction of religion and religious people: for example, in regards to the order of warrior monks who are supposed to protect the ship and crew, Motter is careful to tell us that the Vatican disapproved the creation of such an order but at last capitulated at the insistence of Archbishop Franklin, who spearheaded the space missions and commands Saint Catherine's. At the same time, it is Archbishop Franklin who confronts Brother Joshua and tries to rein in his violence.
Also impressively nuanced are Sister Marianna's attempts to assess her feelings for Brother Joshua. She admires what she perceives to be his faith and holiness, but fears her admiration has become inappropriate. As she envisions him as a gold-clad crusader knight astride a unicorn, she wonders, "Do I desire his passionate commitment, or do I desire him? Am I losing my ability to distinguish the spiritual from the sensual?" These musings are psychologically believable. Of course, the reader soon learns her admiration is misplaced, and eventually, so does she.
Thematic complexity and boldness prevent The Sacred and the Profane from falling prey to inherent weaknesses such as its excess of underdeveloped characters and a number of science fiction clichés, including but not limited to cabin fever on a space mission, an edgy guy who goes completely insane by the end, and a spaceship with a self-destruct sequence (why would a Catholic missionary ship have a self-destruct sequence?). In the afterword to the Eclipse Volume, Dean Motter discusses his intentions for the comic. His comments are intriguing enough, I wish to quote them at length:
The story is intended to be an allegorical satire, however ridiculing neither Catholicism nor interstellar exploration. It is, in fact, an attack on a civilization that no longer has the spiritual disposition to deal with its own mysticism—the technological alchemy that can produce such miracles as manned space flight, atomic power, instantaneous global communications, and genetic engineering.
A culture must maintain a clear understanding of the relationships between Heaven and Earth; between God and Man; and between man and his church. Such matters, when reduced from belief to mere opinion are left to squirm in the shadow of scientific method.
Religious thought was at one time a very powerful and sophisticated force within our culture. Scientific thought, though infantile and restless, eventually outgrew and overshadowed its secular counterparts. Now a prematurely senile technology and a retarded spiritualism noisily ignore one and other.
The Sacred and the Profane is about the reunion of these two now disparate governments.
I confess I didn't understand all that (does he really mean secular counterparts, or does he mean to say religious counterparts?), but Motter's statements make clear why The Sacred and the Profane is a good read in spite of itself. If I understand him rightly, he is saying that a culture without a clear philosophical or religious foundation is a culture in trouble. He is saying that the separation of church and state and the separation of science and religion are balderdash. He is saying that a culture that cannot state clearly what it believes and what it stands for is a decadent culture, perhaps a doomed culture. Whether or not the reader is inclined to agree, and whether or not Motter is correct, it is undeniable that this is a good position from which to write a work of religiously themed science fiction: he has no anti-religious chip on his shoulder, but he isn't trying to evangelize, either. Motter states,
"It is difficult to approach a story that deals with religion without appearing to either attack or defend it,"
but in The Sacred and the Profane he succeeds, and that is the comic's great strength.
Many religious readers may ask first if a book with religious themes is positive in its depiction of religion, but I suggest that question is less important than these:
— Is it sophisticated in its depiction of religion?
— Does it avoid depicting religious people either as uniformly evil fanatics or perfect do-gooders?
— Does it discuss religious matters in such a way as to encourage the reader to think about the subject further?
— Is it good art?
— By mentioning it, could I potentially impress women at a science fiction/comic book convention or club? heh
In the case of The Sacred and the Profane, the answer to all these questions is yes.
The sacred & the profane written by Dean Motter and illustrated by Ken Steacy. Eclipse Graphic Album Edition (hardcover).
Let me see if I can get the complicated history of this thing right. Originally, Dean Motter and Ken Steacy published the comic The Sacred and the Profane in five parts from 1977 to 1978 in Star*Reach. In the early 1980s, Motter and Steacy rewrote, re-drew, and colored their work and printed the new version in Epic Illustrated. In 1987, Eclipse Comics collected the Epic version into a single volume.
The comic's subject is one which, for whatever reason, is of perennial interest in science fiction: Catholics in space.
The Sacred and the Profane depicts a future in which the discovery of life on another world has swelled religious interest around the globe so that the Catholic Church and numerous other religions are flourishing. Readers will probably recognize this as a sharp contrast with numerous other science fiction works in which the discovery of extraterrestrial life is a challenge to religious faith or even the source of its extinction.
Because of the heightened interest in religion and a set of improbable circumstances, the Catholic Church has convinced the United States to launch three Catholic space missions, known collectively as the Catholic Interstellar Crusade, to colonize distant worlds and evangelize the natives. The Sacred and the Profane chronicles the ill-fated first mission, Saint Catherine's.
Saint Catherine's is essentially a flying cathedral, and Steacy's intriguing Gothic church-cum-spaceship design is one of The Sacred and the Profane's numerous delights. Crewed by 215 people, most of them clergy, the ship comes complete with a sizable chapel, including an organ loft, where much of the action takes place. The story is told largely through the eyes of Sister Marianna, one of the nuns of the ship's convent, who as the story opens is losing her faith due partly to the monotony of space travel and due partly to a possibly inappropriate attraction to one of Saint Catherine's warrior monks, Brother Joshua, who she sees as a paragon of faith and virtue.
She won't have much time for brooding, however, as Saint Catherine's soon approaches a mysterious alien object that opens fire on the ship. Though the clergy commanding the mission hope to turn this unpromising beginning into a peaceful encounter, Brother Joshua, who soon turns out to be a crazed fanatic, returns fire and launches Saint Catherine's small regiment of fighter craft. The attack is a disaster; a number of the warrior monks are killed, and vine-like extraterrestrial entities invade the ship. Able to crawl anywhere and hide, and capable of combining together into creepy humanoid forms, the extraterrestrials begin killing the human crew as Saint Catherine's becomes trapped in a decaying orbit around the alien object. Though at first the aliens are apparently murderous, their motives are ultimately ambiguous, as is much of the story.
The Sacred and the Profane, though overall a fine work, suffers from character glut. Too many people are presented to the reader in too short a space. It becomes difficult to keep track of them and their sometimes convoluted and often less-than-holy relationships. A few of these relationships never have much relevance to the story as a whole.
Though it has has some eccentricities suggesting Motter and Steacy are not entirely familiar with their subject matter, such as a toga-clad archbishop addressed as "Your Holiness," the work is sophisticated in its depiction of religion and religious people: for example, in regards to the order of warrior monks who are supposed to protect the ship and crew, Motter is careful to tell us that the Vatican disapproved the creation of such an order but at last capitulated at the insistence of Archbishop Franklin, who spearheaded the space missions and commands Saint Catherine's. At the same time, it is Archbishop Franklin who confronts Brother Joshua and tries to rein in his violence.
Also impressively nuanced are Sister Marianna's attempts to assess her feelings for Brother Joshua. She admires what she perceives to be his faith and holiness, but fears her admiration has become inappropriate. As she envisions him as a gold-clad crusader knight astride a unicorn, she wonders, "Do I desire his passionate commitment, or do I desire him? Am I losing my ability to distinguish the spiritual from the sensual?" These musings are psychologically believable. Of course, the reader soon learns her admiration is misplaced, and eventually, so does she.
Thematic complexity and boldness prevent The Sacred and the Profane from falling prey to inherent weaknesses such as its excess of underdeveloped characters and a number of science fiction clichés, including but not limited to cabin fever on a space mission, an edgy guy who goes completely insane by the end, and a spaceship with a self-destruct sequence (why would a Catholic missionary ship have a self-destruct sequence?). In the afterword to the Eclipse Volume, Dean Motter discusses his intentions for the comic. His comments are intriguing enough, I wish to quote them at length:
The story is intended to be an allegorical satire, however ridiculing neither Catholicism nor interstellar exploration. It is, in fact, an attack on a civilization that no longer has the spiritual disposition to deal with its own mysticism—the technological alchemy that can produce such miracles as manned space flight, atomic power, instantaneous global communications, and genetic engineering.
A culture must maintain a clear understanding of the relationships between Heaven and Earth; between God and Man; and between man and his church. Such matters, when reduced from belief to mere opinion are left to squirm in the shadow of scientific method.
Religious thought was at one time a very powerful and sophisticated force within our culture. Scientific thought, though infantile and restless, eventually outgrew and overshadowed its secular counterparts. Now a prematurely senile technology and a retarded spiritualism noisily ignore one and other.
The Sacred and the Profane is about the reunion of these two now disparate governments.
I confess I didn't understand all that (does he really mean secular counterparts, or does he mean to say religious counterparts?), but Motter's statements make clear why The Sacred and the Profane is a good read in spite of itself. If I understand him rightly, he is saying that a culture without a clear philosophical or religious foundation is a culture in trouble. He is saying that the separation of church and state and the separation of science and religion are balderdash. He is saying that a culture that cannot state clearly what it believes and what it stands for is a decadent culture, perhaps a doomed culture. Whether or not the reader is inclined to agree, and whether or not Motter is correct, it is undeniable that this is a good position from which to write a work of religiously themed science fiction: he has no anti-religious chip on his shoulder, but he isn't trying to evangelize, either. Motter states,
"It is difficult to approach a story that deals with religion without appearing to either attack or defend it,"
but in The Sacred and the Profane he succeeds, and that is the comic's great strength.
Many religious readers may ask first if a book with religious themes is positive in its depiction of religion, but I suggest that question is less important than these:
— Is it sophisticated in its depiction of religion?
— Does it avoid depicting religious people either as uniformly evil fanatics or perfect do-gooders?
— Does it discuss religious matters in such a way as to encourage the reader to think about the subject further?
— Is it good art?
— By mentioning it, could I potentially impress women at a science fiction/comic book convention or club? heh
In the case of The Sacred and the Profane, the answer to all these questions is yes.
May 19, 2019
Motter and Steacy's The Sacred & The Profane is an interesting use of the graphic novel format, even if the narrative ultimately falls short of the unique promise of the concept itself. While the lush and colorful artwork is very striking at points, the complexity of the story is not well served by the overall short length of this work - the plot feels very rushed, especially considering the large cast of characters and their varying motivations for participating in the Catholic Interstellar Crusade. The very idea of such a crusade is what gives The Sacred & The Profane its unique interest, but without the room to develop their ideas, Motter and Steacy end up delivering a work that simply feels more like a preview than a fully-developed graphic novel.
September 8, 2017
Having stumbled across Rick Veitch's
Abraxas and the Earthman
, I wondered what other memorable serials from the 1980's comics anthology magazine Epic Illustrated might have been bound up into book form. Thirty-plus years after I last cracked open a copy of the magazine, I still had images of Ken Steacy's artwork from The Sacred and the Profane seared into my mind's eye. The ominous mood, and the folly of the characters never left me. I was more than pleased to revisit this impressive work again.
The book edition contains a fascinating history of the story's original publication a few years earlier in the anthology comic Star*Reach, how it was completely rewritten and re-illustrated for Epic Illustrated; and includes sketches and sample art from its previous incarnation.
Bound together, the story line is a bit choppy. Reading it 16 pages or so at a shot, once a month—and as a teenager—I doubt I would have noticed. But other than that, the artwork remains distinctively bold. While the preface and foreword and afterword contain some peculiar opinions on the basic intent of the story; it remains a suspenseful, dramatic, and thoroughly entertaining read, as well as an intriguing consideration of religious devotion and the quest to do great things in the name of God or Jesus or religion. Ultimately, also, it is about human folly.
The book edition contains a fascinating history of the story's original publication a few years earlier in the anthology comic Star*Reach, how it was completely rewritten and re-illustrated for Epic Illustrated; and includes sketches and sample art from its previous incarnation.
Bound together, the story line is a bit choppy. Reading it 16 pages or so at a shot, once a month—and as a teenager—I doubt I would have noticed. But other than that, the artwork remains distinctively bold. While the preface and foreword and afterword contain some peculiar opinions on the basic intent of the story; it remains a suspenseful, dramatic, and thoroughly entertaining read, as well as an intriguing consideration of religious devotion and the quest to do great things in the name of God or Jesus or religion. Ultimately, also, it is about human folly.
Read
November 2, 2022I liked the touch that the self destruct sequence is triggered by inverting the Cross.
February 9, 2021
Catholic nuns in space! Oh my!
I had heard about this excellent graphic novel through the grapevine when I was younger. None of the shops had a copy and I eventually found one at a comic book convention, where I snapped it up as soon as I saw it. Glad I did.
I had heard about this excellent graphic novel through the grapevine when I was younger. None of the shops had a copy and I eventually found one at a comic book convention, where I snapped it up as soon as I saw it. Glad I did.
Displaying 1 - 5 of 5 reviews