Tuesday, July 29, 2008

Sad news and some negative feedback (finally)

Well it was only a matter of time before someone who cares about this sort of thing noticed that the Caricatures of Adventists banner contained something that looked pretty similar to the SDA Church logo.

I received an email message from Dionne A. Parker, legal counsel for the GC, informing me that while she is not offering any opinion about the content of the blog, she does have to request that I remove the offending image. Sad news is that I'll have to remove that lovely banner that I spent a lot of time making.

But seriously now folks, is the Adventist Church's logo, identity, mission, message to the world, etc. really in danger of being diluted by my image? I didn't think so, but obviously my thoughts on the matter are secondary to the thoughts of the legal counsel. Oh well. New banner on the way that will not water down the church's logo.

--------------------------------------------

In other news this week, I finally received some negative feedback! The response to this blog (by those who have bothered to comment) has been quite positive. But I have JoAnn to thank for bringing me back to earth. At the Spectrum blog, JoAnn responded to my mention of a caricature of Doug Batchelor and Neil Nedley (Amazing Facts + Weimar). She said:

"Caricature as an encouragement? Wierd. 'Adventists of many faces' by a man of many faces? I understand backhanded compliments -- remember, I have been in public school teaching for over 30 years with union tactics aplenty which included caricatures to push their viewpoints about administration/parents/government/conservatives in a 'I am nice' way portraying caricatures as "nice." Caricatures are not nice."

She then went on to say,

"Caricatures are like acid -- not good for digestion. An entire site devoted to indigestion. That's a wow. I may have to go to Weimar for help with the indigestion -- and take Amazing Facts training while I'm there. Sounds fun to me. My nephew, who has found the Adventist health message a great help, wants to vacation at Weimar. He is a dirt biker who could lift most Adventists with one arm. So, new people are coming in with more zeal than those who have been in the church for centuries -- hum, that sentence . . . seems like I have seen it somewhere before . . .
JoAnn ;)"

The thing that impressed me most about JoAnn's comments was how caricaturish they were. "An entire site devoted to indigestion..." A wonderful caricature of this blog! A dirt-biking nephew that can lift most Adventists with one arm? That's a great caricature!

See, everyone loves a good caricature. I guess that's the good news!

8 comments:

Dave Edgren said...

And of course, she (in her comments) is an excellent caricature of the verbal majority in Adventism: a victim, glorying in perceived persecution, and passing it on by talking the walk.

Veggieburger Network said...

Indeed! Greetings to Oz!

Anonymous said...

Well I for one hope that one day I will see myself as worthy of being caricatured...LOL...one day we will say..."you know you made it when you been caricatured on the Caricature blog..."

lol....God bless...

Wishydig said...

Wait. Acid's not good for digestion?

Is Weimar working on a better alternative?

Ron Corson said...

I was just reading an article from someone opposed to children lesson study guides material because it uses cartoons. And cartoons are not real so if you use a cartoon drawing to tell a Bible story you are saying the story is not real.

Also last weekend I spent in Victoria B.C. walking down on the waterfront there were numerous Caricaturist apparently they only serve masochists. Maybe that was why they cost so much.

Veggieburger Network said...

Haha! wishy and ron--both of you are so right!

I know parents who don't let their kids watch stuff like Sesame Street because there are anthropomorphic Animals. Animals don't REALLY talk, so kids, you can't watch this junk!

And let's not EVEN get started on Narnia. Heavens!

Lee said...

Likewise, not speaking to the content of your site (much of which, I found quite humorous), Dionne is, I'm afraid, correct. Yes, I know this is an old thread, but I'm just now discovering this site. The fact is, the Adventist logo is a trademarked symbol, which means, legally, it is only appropriate to use in conjunction with an official institution of the Adventist Church. Without question, this site is not an official institution of the Church. It really makes no difference if the Adventist "brand" is diluted by your use, or not. All that matters is that it's trademarked. End of story.

Having said that, however, I'm looking forward to your future work. :-)

Anonymous said...

God said go out and preach. Instead some expensive legal hawk deep in the bowels of Maryland spends countless hours and money surfing the web shutting down anything that looks like a threat.

Yet Jesus said go out and preach, not go out and shut down websites.

So my tithe now goes direct to independent ministry who don't have the time and nor the laptops and lawyers and HQ in the middle of jungles ......

May God laugh at your great work to bring them back to earth. (Heavens thought we all had to wait on earth and get working! Now we know what those $500,000 per year VPs do all day)