Derek Webb expands on his views of pacifism and tells us about the comic book, or should I say graphic novel, that came from his latest project, The Ringing Bell.
In the third installment of our interview, Derek goes into his views on pacifism. He also tells us about an exciting extension of his CD.
Suite: I know that some people use “pacifists” as a snide remark, as if you want to do nothing while people die.
Derek: Exactly. And that’s what I mean. You use a word like that and people mistake pacifism with passivity, which sounds a lot like it but is totally a different idea. Which of course I’m not.
I think that in everyway it’s also our responsibility as Christians to push back the effects of the fall and restrain evil every way that we can. The model that Jesus gave us, even to the point of using ourselves as a barrier between the innocent and an aggressor, I think that’s something we absolutely should and must do.
Jesus jumped in front of the bullet for his enemies. That’s what he did. That’s the model he gave us. I think that we should be ready, willing to do that if we must. That’s not passive in my opinion. So then Jesus was not passive in the way that he dealt with his enemies, and neither should we be.
When you don’t have a lot of time, a word like that can be convenient. What I found is that I would rather be totally inefficient and inconvenient and sit for hours and hours on end and try to talk to somebody rather than just give them a yes or a no to a question like that.
At some moments that may not always be the easiest way to communicate all of that. But when you do have time to sit with someone, a lot of times the communication at that moment between those 2 people has more to do with what I believe about violence and peace than my term or my feeling about it.
If I’m willing to sit down with somebody long enough and communicate my ideas to them in a way that’s loving, and also contextualize having to do with my story and their story of redemption, I think I learn a lot more of what it means to live in peace with people.
Suite: You have a comic book out. Was that just for the pre-order type thing, or are you selling that?
Derek: Yeah. Really what it is, is more of a graphic novel, and that’s not because it’s a narrative. It doesn’t necessarily tell a story. If there are any comic book fans or people that read comic books over the years, which I have and I love that medium, every 6 or 8 comics that come out, they will bind them together in kind of a thicker paperback book that’s called a graphic novel. It’s called a trade paperback.
That kind of describes the size and look of the book we made. But it is all illustrated by this company called Portland Studios who are out of South Carolina and very, very good friends of mine. Geniuses these guys, in the graphic art world. They’re the ones who did the packaging of the record as well and I had this idea of this cover for The Ringing Bell that was this idea of kind of a reluctant peace, which is the only kind of peace that any of us ever come to.
So it’s got these 2 guys shaking hands with weapons behind their backs. This image came to me all at once and that this needed to be the cover of the record. So I called my friends at Portland Studios and they drew it for me.
Then they were listening to the record and they just had a lot of other images that came to them inspired by the record. So they called me and said "We have a lot of other visual images that really seem to go with this record; what should we do?"
I said keep drawing, you know, and let’s see. I’ve been talking to these guys for some years about doing a really bold visual counterpart to a record. We tried to do it for Mocking Bird but there wasn’t time to get it produced. So they just kept working on it.
We figured with ideas as complicated and difficult as these ideas can be, we should use every resource we have to try to communicate it as clearly as we can. Some people, the light goes on when they hear a lyric or when they hear a melody. Some people, the light goes on when they see something visual, when they see the lyrics next to something visual. Some people, it takes all of that.
So we thought if we have all of these resources between us, let’s use all of the resources we have to communicate the idea. So we put this book together basically like an extended packaging on steroids. I mean it’s like a 98-page book full of original images by these guys. It’s organized by song. It’s got these songs lyrics in it, with additional song lyrics splashed onto these visual images to help communicate it.
It’s pretty powerful and I’m really proud to be working with Portland Studios and to have been able to produce this thing. We did include it with the pre-orders but we also have them available in a lot of retail stores. In fact, in some retail stores you can get it for free if you buy the record. We’re also selling them on my website if people are interested in them.
Derek Webb Interview Part One: Derek talks about the title of his new CD and writing songs.
Derek Webb Interview Part Two: Derek talks about peace and pacifism.
Derek Webb Interview Part Four: Derek talks about using different mediums to communicate a concept.
Derek Webb Interview Part Five: Derek talks about his courtship and having fun.
Derek Webb Interview Part Six: Derek talks about reuniting with his friends in Caedmon's Call
