The idiosyncratic master Chester Brown continues his thoughts on sex workThe iconoclastic and bestselling cartoonist of Paying for It: A comic-strip memoir about being a john returns with a polemical interpretation of the Bible that will be one of the most controversial and talked-about graphic novels of 2016. Mary Wept over the Feet of Jesus is the retelling in comics form of nine biblical stories that present Chester Brown s fascinating and startling thesis about biblical representations of prostitution. Brown weaves a connecting line between Bathsheba, Ruth, Rahab, Tamar, Mary of Bethany, and the Virgin Mother and reassesses the Christian moral code by examining the cultural implications of the Bible s representations of sex work. Mary Wept over the Feet of Jesus is a fitting follow-up to Brown s sui generis graphic memoir Paying for It, which was reviewed twice in the New York Times and hailed by sex workers for Brown s advocacy for the decriminalization and normalization of prostitution. Brown approaches the Bible as he did the life of Louis Riel, making these stories compellingly readable and utterly pertinent to a modern audience. In classic Chester Brown fashion, he provides extensive handwritten endnotes that delve into the biblical lore that informs Mary Wept Over the Feet of Jesus.
