Click the image above or here.

Actually, it’s “The Buddha Before he Got Enlightened.” Or so says Jon Haward, the creator of the comic Wasted and his “Tales of the Buddha Before He Got Enlightened.” Of course, Haward didn’t “create” the Buddha, and indeed, this “fat Buddha” is not really based on the historical Buddha but on the Buddhist figure Hotei. (A very common mistake, as longtime readers of the Horse have seen.)

The above comic cover was drawn by Simon Bisley, longtime collaborator of Glenn Danzig. So it turns out there’s just one degree of separation between Danzig and Buddha. (That is, one degree other than me.) …Who knew?

I haven’t seen this comic at my fantastic local comix shop. (All hail HUB Comics!) But I’ll see if I can grab one and check it out. In the meantime, you can preview this clearly irreverent new comic here.

“The Last Airbender is the tale of, oh, who the hell knows. It is basically Star Wars with a Buddhist ‘theme,’ and it stars Aasif Mandvi from The Daily Show. You may remember when this movie was being made there was a fair amount of controversy about the cast being largely white, when the characters in the source material were Asian. Attention, Asian community: You seem to have dodged a bullet.”

Yikes.

And: Defamer reports that TLA has a 4% rating on RottenTomatoes.com. That’s out of 100 percent. (Meaning: very, very bad.) Defamer has also collected some of the stunning words of hate, which have to be seen to be believed, already racked up by the film. Update: the Rotten Tomatoes rating is now up to a staggering 6%! But then again, as punk godfathers the Minutemen once posited, “The roar of the masses could be farts.”

(Sorry. But Right Speech, it seems, is not a factor when people discuss this movie.)

But don’t get too discouraged, Mr. Mandvi — you’ll still have a career. Being in intentionally laughable projects suits you better anyway.

If you’ve seen the film yourself, leave a review. And do try to be nice.

Wonderful…yet again another comment on “fat” Buddha. It is sorta funny though. Anyone else think that the one dude looks like Jesus? I think this is something that the Worst Horse should grab. A Dharma-Burger perhaps?

Not really a ‘Burger but worthy of inclusion, sure. Also worthy of your time: ZenDirtZenDust.com itself!

April 21 update: tonight’s episode picked up where this one left off (and Buddha did snort more coke). Here’s a wrap-up.

So, what is it? io9 has the report, and a couple more samples (including Spider-Man and Ultraman). (And no, “Buddhist comic geek” is not a slam. I’m one of’ em.)