Introducing ROOK
A new weekly comic from the little station on Commercial Street in Atchison, Kansas.
Every campus has its own stories.
Some happen in classrooms. Others begin in the Abbey church, on a sidewalk between classes, in the cafeteria, or over coffee after Mass. Most are too small to make the campus news—but years later, they’re the moments alumni remember most clearly.
When I was a student at Notre Dame, one of the highlights of opening The Observer was Michael Molinelli’s Molarity. It wasn’t just a comic strip—it became part of the shared memory of campus life. It captured the people, the conversations, the quirks, and the events that made Notre Dame feel like Notre Dame.
I’ve often wondered what something like that might look like for Benedictine College.
ROOK is my attempt to answer that question.
The goal isn’t satire for its own sake. It isn’t to poke fun at Benedictine. Quite the opposite.
ROOK is a celebration of campus life—its friendships, guest speakers, symposiums, Raven traditions, residence halls, engineering projects, discernment, campus ministry, athletics, Abbey life, and all of the wonderfully human moments that make a Benedictine education memorable.
Some weeks the strips will be lighthearted.
Some weeks they’ll gently poke fun at ourselves.
Some weeks they’ll quietly celebrate something beautiful that happened on campus.
But my hope is always the same: that someone reads a strip and smiles because they recognize a piece of their own Benedictine experience.
If that happens, then ROOK will have done its job.
I’d love your help building this series.
If something happens on campus that makes you laugh, makes you think, or makes you say, “Someone ought to make a comic about that,” leave a comment below. Some of the best ideas are likely to come from the Benedictine community itself.
Welcome to ROOK.
I hope you’ll enjoy the journey.
ROOK is a weekly comic from the little station on Commercial Street in Atchison, Kansas.