12/04/2025
He "shaved" up for it.
JOKE-OGRAPHY:
If you look in your Bibles (you brought yours, right?), in Malachi 4:5-6, the Jews are given a prophecy that, before the Lord comes, Elijah will return to turn the hearts of men. In Matthew 3, John the Baptist is introduced through many Elijah-parallels. John lives in the wilderness and wears a camel-hair garment and a leather belt just like Elijah, and he's recognized by many of his Jewish contemporaries as an obvious prophet after centuries of prophet-less-ness. Most importantly, he spends his whole ministry preparing everyone (through his baptisms and his word) for the coming of the Lord, 𝔧𝔲𝔰𝔱 𝔞𝔰 𝔱𝔥𝔢 𝔭𝔯𝔬𝔭𝔥𝔢𝔠𝔶 𝔣𝔬𝔯𝔢𝔱𝔬𝔩𝔡.
In this cartoon, Jesus and John are portrayed as young cousins, based on Luke's account of their mothers, Elizabeth and Mary, being relatives. Cartoons featuring young Jesus & John have been a fun mainstay in the Tomics line-up for quite some time now. I have a blast drawing them, and I'm very happy when people enjoy reading them! Some might notice that, in my comics, John's original green tunic was recently replaced with the more biblically-accurate camel-hair garment he's wearing here. Consider this cartoon the completely-necessary lore-consistent explanation I know EVERYONE'S been simply DYING for.
In this cartoon, I depict a fictional episode from young Jesus & John's lives where John reveals to Jesus the kind of camel-hair garment he plans to wear in his "wilderness prophet era" (foreshadowing his role in the actual Bible). He refers to it as "Elijah chic" which means "Elijah-inspired elegance and fashion" (foreshadowing his role as a new Elijah). When Jesus asks where he bought the hair, John looks confused and asks, "Buy?" implying he did NOT obtain the hair through monetary transaction, nor did it ever occur to him to do so. Instead, as evidenced by the half-naked camel behind him, he simply cut the hair off a perfectly functional camel to make his costume, much to the distress of the camel's owner. So, no, John didn't buy the hair, but I guess you could say he... "shaved" up for it. (Thank my brother for that one.)
