Comic Belief comicbelief

If you answer "May the Fourth Be With You!" with "And also with you!" then Comic Belief might be for you!
This year we're celebrating this Fandom Feast by asking whether Luke Skywalker isn't, just a little bit, a Doubting Thomas. Come romp with us through the Original Trilogy, and let's kick around why it's so important to have skeptic heroes, and how profound it is when they finally do take a leap of faith. We talk about hope and doubt, sacramental speaking, and what orthodoxy can mean at its best and worst. Wars may not make one great, but right relationship with things bigger than ourselves sure does. May the Fourth be with You!

Hey! Were you worried we were stuck in cryosleep for fifty-seven years?!
We're not saying we weren't ... but we gave Mother instructions to alert us if we approached 426. You know -- Alien day? And we woke ourselves up to make sure we got an episode out to honor it!
We decide to pick up the thread from one of our earlier episodes by talking about how Alien takes the familiar experience of being in a workplace and turns it both into a space full of horror and an opportunity to band together. We talk about what it's like to be controlled by our job and what freedom means in the face of that. And we give some teaser hints about what's coming next from Comic Belief.
Stay tuned, Believers!

Need an Audiobook treat? We recommend Project Hail Mary. It's way up the Comic Belief alley, and it was an award-winning favorite of 2021 for Audible.com listeners.
The book has some mystery elements, so this episode has several spoiler tags -- you can hear our pitch for why you should read books by author Andy Weir, then you can hear the basic premise, and finally if you proceed past the spoiler warnings, we'll talk about why this is some great Comic Belief content to review! (Though Megan points out several times that even knowing some of the plot and twists, she thoroughly enjoyed the book. And we make sure not to spoil the big ending!).Suffice to say, if you like playing in the sandbox of slightly-more-sciencey sci-fi, and like characters who can inspire, this is a book well worth reading. And you can, of course, hear about it on a podcast well worth listening to, here at Comic Belief!

After a winter break basically as long as the stewardship of Gondor, we're back to talk Lord of the Rings with guest host (the Right Reverend) Craig Loya! Craig explains what it means to live a "nerd-adjacent" life (if we can even call that living?) and dive into the Lord of the Rings for the first time, books and movies alike. Led by his innocence, we take our own journey there and back again and talk about how the Lord of the Rings story models faith, friendship, and history's call to stand against evil.As a bonus: is your cellphone playing Lord of the Ringtones with your soul? All that and more on the first Comic Belief episode of 2022!

Have you been wandering a cold land hearing whispers that a figure of great dignity was about to arrive and bring great joy and hope into your seemingly endless winter?
Why, I'm sure it's our guest, the Reverend Heidi Haverkamp!
A few years ago, Heidi wrote an Advent devotional drawing on The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe, wanting people to have a chance to use its land of imagination and rich imagery to stir our hearts and minds as we draw near Christmas. Please join us in welcoming her as we talk over how CS Lewis's gifts continue to help young -- and perhaps even more, old -- Christians find our way home to a loving God who is both warm and wonderful and also a bit terrifying.
We talk about taking sin seriously and taking joy and grace more seriously, and take a few of our own turns wandering in just past the back of the wardrobe. See you there!
Heidi's books can be found at the links below!
-Advent in Narnia: Reflections for the Season (Westminster John Knox, 2015)-Holy Solitude: Lenten Reflections with Saints, Hermits, Prophets, and Rebels (Westminster John Knox: 2017)
-Now available! Everyday Connections: Reflections and Practices for Year C (Westminster John Knox: 2021)
- Year A and Year B to follow in Fall 2022 and Fall 2023! 
www.heidihaverkamp.net 

Dune. Arrakis. Desert planet. Frank Herbert‘s 1965 novel has had a really weird journey to the silver screen, but Denis Villeneuve‘s 2021 remake is an incredibly polished update to the cult classic story.


We re-read the book and re-watched the David Lynch version to go over some of the big themes and questions. We tried fairly hard to keep spoilers limited until the very end of the episode, so you should be (mostly) safe to listen if you‘ve only seen Dune Part 1 and don‘t want to see any big reveals coming from the upcoming continuation.

That said, what do we make of Herbert‘s weirdly dense future humanity, with a struggle set on a denuded planet over the fuel of starships and metaphysical awareness alike? What is good and what is evil in a world covered with a morality as beige as its topsoil? And will Ben and Megan make it through a whole episode without accidentally saying ”George Herbert” instead of ”Frank Herbert?”

All this and more on this week‘s Comic Belief!