Hay-Soos

This week’s series in Dilbert caused quite a stir. It featured a new guy in the office whose name is pronounced hay-soos and spelled Jesus. I drew those strips a few months ago, and in my typical careless way I didn’t realize they would be running around Easter time. Oops.

You can see the series at www.dilbert.com while they are still in the archive.

As you might imagine, I got a lot of e-mail about this strip. Comments were about evenly divided between people who are deeply offended and people who think it was my best work yet. Interestingly, the people most amused often described themselves as religious, and those offended often noted that they were not especially religious.

My favorite rhetorical question, which I received an alarming number of times, was “Why don’t you mock Mohammed next? Huh? Why not?”

Well, aside from the blindingly obvious reason that I prefer life over death, I didn’t realize I was making fun of Christianity this week. It’s a standard cartoon practice to take well-known historical or fictional stories and put other characters in those roles. I did the same thing with The Wizard of Oz, and no one thought I was insulting Dorothy.

Anyway, I had to answer a lot of angry e-mail. Here’s a typical letter I received, with my pithy answer at the bottom.

In a message dated 3/11/2008 9:54:25 P.M. Pacific Daylight Time, (address deleted) writes:

Hello! Mr. Adams,
Mr. Adams I just want to tell you that I don’t really appreciate you making a mockery of my faith. I used to think that your comic strip was funny, now I think it is very disgusting and not funny at all. I have found your last comics strips in reference to my Lord and Savior Jesus Christ very offensive. There is a place for everything and there is a place for humor and humor has its limits, especially when it comes to those things and issues that some of us hold as sacred. I will pray for you and that some day you may come to know Jesus as your Lord and Savior. Otherwise you will find Him some day as your judge, and He will justly judge you for your sins and whether or not you believe in Hell that day you will believe and you will repent when you see Him face to face, but then it will be too late. Repent from your wicked ways and stop making fun of my Savior.

Thanks for your time.

Pastor (name deleted).
California

My response…

Thank you for taking time out from feeding the poor to complain about comic strips. I know Jesus would have played it the same way.

Scott

Comments

[Creature of Habit]

Hello Scott!
I just found this blog, forwarded by a friend, and I have to say the creepy email and your reponse were funny. I laughed out loud, a hearty gaffaw.

I have never read a Dilbert cartoon (I've 'heard of it', but never read it). That may make me a freakish mole person, I dunno. But this blog is very, very funny.

[NK]

"Well, aside from the blindingly obvious reason that I prefer life over death"

Just died laughing!

[Ginny]

If Jesus can cope with all the other hideous things that have been done either from people who claim to support him or from those who want to eliminate all mention of him completely,I'm sure a cool cartoon won't make him unleash his thunderbolts.

I can see our congregation giggling away as it makes the rounds along with the collection plate.

And it's got people talking about Jesus at Easter.Which is more than he gets most years....

[Just Me]

Jesus (of Nazareth) was a funny guy himself. Otherwise, why when he wanted to make a point, did he have to say 'I tell you solemnly...'. Just to draw people's attention that he wasn't joking this time.

Also, he was a party guy, changed the water into wine. And good wine at that.

I think he would find these columns funny. Remember, if God didn't have a sense of humour, why is sex so ridiculous?

[Dave Nelson]

I'm working on a webcomic that centers around a pastor (findingelim.com). I constantly am concerned about what might offend my readers. Someday I think having Jesus appear in the comic would be a great story line. In your case, I think Jesus was treated in much the same way as Aslan from the Chronicles of Narnia series, just in a style that fits your comic. I appreciate your efforts.

[Chad]

god I wish I could orally satisfy you thrice daily.
keep up the good work!

[Jesus (pronounce Hay-Soos)]

Scott,

I am a Spanish grown Catholic, with a very Catholic background. Maybe this is the reason why my parents named me Jesus, pronounce Hay-Soos.

Apart from the obvious well known guy there are more people in this world using that name.

I found the comics very funny.

I am working in an office environment and I usually I have suffer jokes because my name and sometimes (well most of the time) I have been the originator of those jokes.

To me it is just a name, and it has not being until I was working in an English-speaking environment that I found that it was so funny having such a name.

I don't feel offended at all. To me these cartoons show a bit a real situation. Somebody call Jesus (hey-Soos) is working in an office and people make jokes out of that, everyday business for me.

It is quite funny when you have to spend 8 to 10 hours in a boring working grey environment.

Scott thanks very much for 3 minutes of laugh and smiles that you have gave me this week,

Jesus (pronounce Hey-Soos).

[K]

Isn't it funny that the offended people are so often "not that religious". Yeah. If you're taking the time to directly write cartoonists about how mad you are that they referenced your deity of choice in a less-than-biblical manner, you're pretty damned religious, dude. The whole "not that religious" is something they tell themselves to self-justify their outrage -- I mean, just imagine what a REALLY religious person must think about this!

And I never cease to be amazed at "I usually/used to love your work, but now that you have done this I will never read it again". I really wonder how often either of those two statements are when used in combination.

[ASM826]

I thought the strips were funny, but your comment that you "prefer life over death" and therefore cannot mock Islam as you have Christianity is telling. It should make you rethink some of the views you have espoused in this blog over the last couple of years. If your freedom to write what you choose is already limited by your fear of reprisals, then you have underestimated the threat and should be pushing for an all out effort to regain your freedom.

[Jonathan]

I thought the Hay-Soos strips were great!

I'm Irish and from a devout Catholic family. Unfortunately for them I'm also an engineer and the whole religion thing just has too many inconsistencies for my liking. I believe there's something out there that's greater than us, I just don't know what it might be. But I am open to the idea that everything in the bible may, one day, prove to be all true. If I can do that why can't religious people accept that it may all be a load of bull. And until it's all either proven or disproven let's all have a laugh about it in the Dilbert strips!

Long live Hay-Soos. May he be blindly worshiped for the next 2000 years!

[Jim]

Scott,

It was great! I loved it. I only wish there were a few more strips, it ended too soon. Great job.

By the way I'm Catholic.

[synapticmisfires]

I'm not the most religious fellow I guess, but I found the series quite amusing. I certainly wouldn't call it joking at the religion's expense, it's just an allusion to a well-known story. It doesn't matter if you think it's fictional and a reader doesn't, it's still just a part of culture, all you did was refer to it.

[Pietro]

This looks strange. Three days with zero comments, then suddenly 900 comments pop up, and there's hardly a comment against the strip.

[jazzact13]

For what it's worth, I thought it was rather funny. I was more curious about the series, not offended.

And Wally being Judas? I could see that :-)

[pooper725]

You probably won't publish this, but here's a joke I heard a few weeks ago.

Little kid to father: Daddy, if Jesus was a Jew why is he named after a Mexican?

[dan]

I think the overwhelming response is positive, keep up the good work!
And yes I already posted once, now I just want to see you break 1000 responses!
=)

[Paul]

He WAS feeding the poor. Just believe, Scott. Hey, it ain't rocket science.

[Rob P]

Heh. I thought this series was pretty funny, and the "punch his pilot" line was clever.

For those of you keeping score, I'm a theologically conservative Christian, but socially and politically rather moderate.

[Agenda?]

So, Scott... why is it that when you state that:

"the people most amused often described themselves as religious, and those offended often noted that they were not especially religious."

You then go on to show us only a response from an offended & religious person?

I smell an attempt to create a high number of responses by starting another 'Christianity' discussion. And, sadly, it worked (again).

[Kath]

Can Hay-soos make the dino come back? I loved that guy.

I'm an atheist and I thought the strip was funny.

[gordon_goosemonster]

Is it just me or does Jesus (the one from the Bible) come across as a bit gay?
I mean he wore a dress and hung out with 12 dudes all the time.

[Jim]

I'll have to admit that my laziness prevented me from reading every one of the nearly 1000 comments, but my pseudo-random sampling seems to contradict your assessment of theistic-complimenters and nontheistic-detractors. Fudge 'em if they can't take a joke, anyways!

Put me down as (yet another) heathen who thought this series was classic Dilbert. By far the funniest was the sixth, especially the delayed laugh from the 3rd panel when I made the connection that none of the (alleged) Christ's followers saw fit to write anything about Him until generations after his (alleged) life. Have you been reading biblical criticism?

I so wanted to make a "rested on the seventh day" joke, but I see someone else beat me to it. Oh, well, as a smug, liberal, quasi-intellectual elitist I'll comment on it anyway, and then smell my farts and call them sweet... (oh, wait, that was a different cartoon...)

I'll also agree with the person who asked for Wally as a hare krishna, but you have to have him call them hairy fishnuts. (damn, a different cartoon again!)

Thanks for the fun,
Jim

[Introibo]

Mr. Adams,

I'm a Roman Catholic seminarian and I quite enjoyed the comic strips. I wasn't offended at all.

Have a blessed Easter!

[Tim]

Hi Scott,

I'm from South Africa, speak Afrikaans, and read our daily newspaper "Die Burger" (English: The Citizen).

I thought that you might be interested to know that the newspaper changed the name "Jesus" to "Moses" in their Afrikaans translation of your comic strip...

Too bad, but it was still funny... :)

(I'm an atheist, but the Afrikaans community is still very religious down here...)

[Grizzly Adams]

I see a lot of messages saying I was offended or that I was not offended. This is looking at it from the wrong angle. The question is 'Was Scott Adams trying to offend people'?
If Scott is just creating a funny story line that has a Jesus character, but did not attend to offend anybody with it, then it is not offensive. If Scott created a story line with the sole intent to piss off Christians, then it is offensive. Was this meant to be offensive, or are some people just over sensitive.