Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary

Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary is a 44-page autobiographical

Autobiographical comics

Autobiographical comics are autobiography in the form of comic books or comic strips. The form first became popular in the underground comics movement and has since become more widespread...

comic book

Comic book

A comic book or comicbook is a magazine made up of comics, narrative artwork in the form of separate panels that represent individual scenes, often accompanied by dialog as well as including...

from 1972 by American

People of the United States

The people of the United States, also known as simply Americans or American people, are the inhabitants or citizens of the United States. The United States is a multi-ethnic nation, home to people of different ethnic and national backgrounds...

cartoonist

Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

Justin Green. It was the first long autobiographical

Autobiography

An autobiography is a book about the life of a person, written by that person.-Origin of the term:...

work to appear in underground comics, and was extremely personal, detailing Green's childhood struggle with a disorder which in Catholicism

Catholicism

Catholicism is a broad term for the body of the Catholic faith, its theologies and doctrines, its liturgical, ethical, spiritual, and behavioral characteristics, as well as a religious people as a whole....

is referred to as scrupulosity

Scrupulosity

Scrupulosity is a psychological disorder characterized by pathological guilt about moral or religious issues. It is personally distressing, objectively dysfunctional, and often accompanied by significant impairment in social functioning...

, and was later diagnosed as obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive-compulsive disorder

Obsessive–compulsive disorder is an anxiety disorder characterized by intrusive thoughts that produce uneasiness, apprehension, fear, or worry, by repetitive behaviors aimed at reducing the associated anxiety, or by a combination of such obsessions and compulsions...

(OCD).

The book had such a long-lasting influence that Green has come to be thought of as one of the most significant underground comics creators. The comic book influenced many other cartoonists of Green's generation and beyond to explore their own personal histories; Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman is an American comics artist, editor, and advocate for the medium of comics, best known for his Pulitzer Prize-winning comic book memoir, Maus. His works are published with his name in lowercase: art spiegelman.-Biography:Spiegelman was born in Stockholm, Sweden, to Polish Jews...

said it made his graphic novel

Graphic novel

A graphic novel is a narrative work in which the story is conveyed to the reader using sequential art in either an experimental design or in a traditional comics format...

Maus
Maus
Maus: A Survivor's Tale, by Art Spiegelman, is a biography of the author's father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It alternates between descriptions of Vladek's life in Poland before and during the Second World War and Vladek's later life in the Rego Park neighborhood of...

possible.

Overview

Binky Brown (the alter ego Green used in all of his autobiographical stories) exhibits compulsive behavior from an early age, but shortly before puberty he begins to develop an elaborate system of obsessions based on the fear that he will contaminate religious sites with his sexual thoughts. Eventually he begins to believe that "rays" from his penis (later emanating also from his hands and feet, and even from furniture) must be kept from striking churches or images of Mary. This disturbing psychological case study is portrayed with frequent touches of humor, as Binky also faces more usual challenges of adolescence. The story follows Brown/Green through his early twenties, when he finally achieves some control over his intrusive thoughts.

At the time he drew the book, Green did not know about OCD and described his condition as neurosis

Neurosis

Neurosis is a class of functional mental disorders involving distress but neither delusions nor hallucinations, whereby behavior is not outside socially acceptable norms. It is also known as psychoneurosis or neurotic disorder, and thus those suffering from it are said to be neurotic...

, which he blamed largely on his Catholic upbringing. After being diagnosed with OCD, Green softened his position on Catholicism—though he did not return to the Church—and, in his foreword to The Binky Brown Sampler, described the story as "a sin of youth ... [but] done out of internal necessity."

Reception

The book has had a huge, immediate and long-lasting influence on alternative

Alternative comics

Alternative comics defines a range of American comics that have appeared since the 1980s, following the underground comix movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s. Alternative comics present an alternative to "mainstream" superhero comics which in the past have dominated the US comic book industry...

and underground comics. Robert Crumb

Robert Crumb

Robert Dennis Crumb —known as Robert Crumb and R. Crumb—is an American artist, illustrator, and musician recognized for the distinctive style of his drawings and his critical, satirical, subversive view of the American mainstream.Crumb was a founder of the underground comix movement and is regarded...

, Art Spiegelman

Art Spiegelman

and Jim Woodring

Jim Woodring

Jim Woodring is a Seattle-based cartoonist, comic book author, artist and toy designer. He also produces fine art works in a variety of other media, including painting and charcoal....

have all talked about Green's work as having a fundamental influence on them, Spiegelman going as far as to say, "Without Binky Brown there would be no Maus
Maus
Maus: A Survivor's Tale, by Art Spiegelman, is a biography of the author's father, Vladek Spiegelman, a Polish Jew and Holocaust survivor. It alternates between descriptions of Vladek's life in Poland before and during the Second World War and Vladek's later life in the Rego Park neighborhood of...

," in his introduction to Last Gasp

Last Gasp

Last Gasp is a book and underground comix publisher and distributor based in San Francisco, California.- History :Founded in 1970 by Ron Turner to publish the ecologically-themed comics magazine Slow Death Funnies, followed by the all-female anthology It Ain't Me Babe, Last Gasp soon became a major...

's Binky Brown Sampler.

The book was ranked #9 on the prestigious Comics Journal's list of the 100 best comics of the century, one place higher than Robert Crumb

Robert Crumb

's highest-ranked place.

Publishing History

Year	Title	Publisher	Format	Status
1972	Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary	Last Gasp Eco Funnies Last Gasp Last Gasp is a book and underground comix publisher and distributor based in San Francisco, California.- History :Founded in 1970 by Ron Turner to publish the ecologically-themed comics magazine Slow Death Funnies, followed by the all-female anthology It Ain't Me Babe, Last Gasp soon became a major...	Comic book	Out of print
1995	The Binky Brown Sampler	Last Gasp Last Gasp Last Gasp is a book and underground comix publisher and distributor based in San Francisco, California.- History :Founded in 1970 by Ron Turner to publish the ecologically-themed comics magazine Slow Death Funnies, followed by the all-female anthology It Ain't Me Babe, Last Gasp soon became a major...	Softcover collection	In print
2009	Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary	McSweeney's McSweeney's McSweeney's is an American publishing house founded by editor Dave Eggers.Apart from its book list, McSweeney's is responsible for four regular publications: the quarterly literary journal,...	Deluxe hardcover	In print

Overview

Reception

Publishing History

Further Reading