The Greatest Hope

“What does the 'S' stand for?”
“It's not an S, on my world it means 'Hope'.”

This was my immediate thought when 'HOPE' was said as a topic, I suppose in many ways, I find hope in Superman, in my 'world', he means hope. Superman is a great story.

It's like the great stories Mr Frodo, The ones that really matter.
That meant something, even if you are too small to understand why, but I think Mr Frodo, I do understand, I know now. Folk in those stories all inspire hope, from similarities shared with a greater story.

Help me Jesus,
YOU'RE MY ONLY HOPE.

The idea behind this piece was to show how modern film and media can point towards Christ,
It is split as three seperate pieces within one frame.
The first piece "On My World, it means HOPE" sets out the beginning of the argument that these characters in film and TV in their own fictional 'worlds' are representations of "hope" this includes the famous line from Star Wars "Help me Obi-Wan Kenobi, You're my only hope", Superman's iconic logo, and Gandalf arriving at Helm's Deep rekindling hope in to the lives of men.
This part of the piece was done as a grayscale pencil sketch

The second part of the trilogy of pieces is titled "The Great Stories" In this piece I was aiming to look at what made the characters be seen as hope, looking at their stories and characteristics. And as we look closer at their stories, we can take some of the most hopeful moments and begin to see the story of Jesus
- A child arriving on earth, both fully human and all powerful
- A 'weak' human, yet displaying the compassion and forgiveness of his father
- Someone who sacrificed their life for the undeserving as a willing victim, yet defeated death
- A king crowned, for the good of all people
Since several of these characters originate in comic books, That is the style I chose to tell this story in. and as we have moved closer to Christ I have started to add in colour and pen around the key elements of each scene.

The Culmination of this artwork is "You're my only hope" recognising that the characters are only hopeful because they are reflections of the true hope in Jesus. by combining all of the best qualities of the previously shown heroes Jesus is displayed as a greater source of hope than they are, The Greatest Hope. Hope in fiction can only exist due to the reflections of Jesus. Jesus is the origin of hope and therefore the only hope.