A great comic from Pictures for Sad Children by John Campbell! This dark and hilarious webcomic is best enjoyed from the beginning as it tells a number of stories following two characters: Paul, who is a ghost, and Gary, a man dissatisfied with most things.
While this comic in particular is about techno-nerds (one of my favorite types of nerds), it hits on a pretty central coping mechanism. We pour ourselves into something we can obsess over, something we can master, but typically as a mask for the emptiness we feel. We try to find comfort in things or identity and if we can just figure out the world within our particular realm of expertise then “the world will conform to our speculative fiction.” Then it becomes easier to fictionalize our lives instead of seeing them as they really are: broken and in desperate need of restoration that can only be found through the Cross. The reality of life and freedom found in the Cross is the only thing that can fill the crushing vacuousness of our lives.
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Safety in the imagined and unlikely, rather than the very real and uncontrollable reality.
Interesting! I like the way the comic is done, aesthetically, and it’s an interestingly blunt way to end the comic. Hopeless for those with nothing outside of self, but relieving in a way for those who have the Hope of Christ Jesus as Savior.