Have You Ever Heard of Jan Lööf?

New blog on the kid: In Sweden, a Christian True Believer is "Luna Lovegood" · Assorted retorts from yahoo boards and elsewhere: I Think the God's Not Dead Movies Have a Point · Creation vs. Evolution: Have You Ever Heard of Jan Lööf?

When I was a child, he was drawing comic books.

And, while they are clearly beaufiful exercises in fantasy on a Tintin level, they have a dark side. He was Evolutionist back then, presumably still is, alas. At least, it was clearly the case in 2001.

But back to my childhood. More precisely, before I was Christian, perhaps last year before grandpa died, certainly first year after ... I already loved Tintin, and here was a guy presented as a "Swedish Tintin" ... It seems Casterman was pretty cool with it, since their representative Carlsen/if, later Carlsen Comics was the same publisher that also published Felix ... the comic series by Jan Lööf.

The very first adventure he wrote involved "the Great Ape Island" (It only came in his sixth album, since the other story in it was a bit short). It features apes carrying guns and a man whose name is a pun on "dad" and "Tarzan" (those who know Swedish will know exactly what I mean) and who doesn't do a really good job of sorting things out there, at least initially. It is noteworthy Jan Lööf started drawing Felix in 1967 and Planet of the Apes came out as film in 1968 ... but the novel already in 1963. Talking apes is obviously one way of rubbing in the message that we descend from something like apes.

But the second story and the first album features Felix with a time machine. There is a scientist who is able to make one (normally that ability would belong to God, to allow things or information to travel through time and that even backwards). There is a scene where Felix lands among dinosaurs and steals an egg. He also gets hold of a caveman. Yes, that kind of caveman. The way things were in the bad old days when Neanderthals were painted as subhuman. But mostly, they visit ancient Greece and come across (anachronistically for BC times) a "pillar saint" or a Stylite, who is not very devout, but somewhat of a trickster.

There is a highly politicised comic book with Felix, which features a Revolution. Obviously the Leftist Revolutionaries are the good guys (though far from perfect). In the third album, vampires, werewolves, and a monster created by a scientist called Frank N. Stein (nudge, nudge) who obviously succeeds in infusing near human life into his monster make Transylvania more dangerous between them than it need be. Hey, Twilight Saga at least left out the Scientist and the Monster! We appreciate the consideration, Stephenie Meyer! I have forgot how exactly Felix managed to get vampyres out of normal people's lives, but I don't think he was using a crucifix all that much. I seem to recall, like with Nosferatu, sunshine was more important.

I would be unfair to Felix if I didn't mention that the adventure with Cecilia (from a circus van) was poetic, and I am moved by that last Felix strip with Felix growing up, 2015. Last item on this page when you scroll down, best if you know Swedish:

fiffige Felix, INDEX
https://www.angelfire.com/space/u_line/felindex.htm

But the idea of putting Jan Lööf here is, not only does he have another album with bona fide spacemen (obviously more believable than Christian stuff to the author), but he also made another comic strip with spacemen, successfully fought off by Olof Palme and our King, who was a fan of Olof, who unlike himself was elected, and Olof was magnanimous, but we see even more evolutionist stuff in 2001 children's book "Sifferboken" ... the scientist (who resembles Felix if and when he got old) teaches animals to count, in pursuing runaway animals he gets into conflict with an apparent priest (mix between very traditional Lutheran clergyman, as to collar, and a Catholic one as to broad hat, the cassock being common to both), the scientist finds the priest cantankerous, when the animals get back an egg has hatched and we witness the birth of a pterosaur. Later on the girl who witnesses all this visits, and three more eggs have hatched, with a sabre toothed tiger, with a mammuth, and with a cave man — more stupid than the beasts, since he cannot be taught to count. Jan is restating the point he made in the time machine album.

The aesthetics of the comic are somewhat Tintin, no doubt, but owe most to the early three: Tintin in the Soviets, in Congo, in America. Crooks are more humane, basically all of the adult world, except scientists like Propp in the time machine album, and a possible "Felix as old" in the Numbers book, and pretty women, are loosers, who deserve pity. When Tarzan meets this treatment, no problem, but when he etends it to Phantom of Bengali (Semic Förlag not being Carlsberg Comics!) it backfires. This might be the reason why, apart from children's books, Jan Lööf is not translated into English. For Felix, there is perhaps a rare translation into German, Pauls Abenteuer, but Felix is mostly read in Scandinavia.

I think Felix is about as Pro-Evolutionist, Anti-Christians, at least Anti-Clerical, Science believing and pro-Revolutionary as entertainment got West of the Warsaw Pact especially in children's books. Except, for older children, and for teens, on the pro-Revolutionary side, a comic book set in Zimbabwe during the time when the official name was Rhodesia. Also Swedish.

I think he may have in a very great degree contributed to making Sweden a country with extreme secularism as it is today. So, he might be going to Hell, but he is not there yet. A rosary for his conversion would be a worthy cause, as he's 84, it would be about time. He's also a jazz musician, and made some TV acting. Far from introducing this Secularist, Scientist, Evolutionist and Anti-Clerical ideology, he was arguably totally in line with what the Danish daily Politiken. They have stood for Social liberalism since 1884. And that's where Felix strips (originally Felix was named Alf) were first published, prior to any album.

Hans Georg Lundahl
Paris
Sts. Cyprian and Justina, Martyrs
26.IX.2024

Nicomediae natalis sanctorum Martyrum Cypriani, et Justinae Virginis. Haec, sub Diocletiano Imperatore et Eutolmio Praeside, cum multa pro Christo pertulisset, ipsum quoque Cyprianum, qui erat magus et suis magicis artibus eam dementare conabatur, ad Christianam fidem convertit; cum quo postea martyrium sumpsit. Eorum corpora, feris objecta, rapuerunt noctu quidam nautae Christiani, et Romam detulerunt; quae, postmodum in Basilicam Constantinianam translata, prope Baptisterium condita sunt.

PS, for Felix och tidsmaskinen, it was less than a decade since Shanidar 1 had been discovered, but for 2001, Sifferboken, if Jan Lööf had been interested in the discoveries as discoveries, he could have known "cave men" were not brutes. Or Neanderthals, for that matter. Now, Jan Lööf, as a draftsman and a jazz musician certainly has an artistic conscience, but when it comes to intellectual things, well, we don't do serious studies of Marco Polo by reading Mickey Mouse, and even less of Edmond Rostand's Cyrano by reading Donald Duck. As long as you know there is much more to the story than what Jan Lööf gives, fine. But many Swedes grew up knowing not much more, or at least not until Jan Lööf had already formed their attitudes. Or, for that matter, the Trade Unions, who had about the same attitudes as he, both to the Church and to Evolution./HGL

PPS, it seems Shanidar 1 may have been somewhat disabled as to vowel sounds, not having the full variation we normally have — which is not really a problem if they were speaking Hebrew in the pre-Flood world, since meanings do not stick that closely to chosing the right vowel. People sharing this trait could have developed a version of Hebrew with reduced vowel variations. But same study also shows Neanderthals with totally normal capacity for vowels, like La Chapelle or La Ferrassie./HGL