All posts by A. David

academic, online

Elizabeth Coody and Christine Hoff Kraemer, Unquestionably “Women Write About Comics”

Women Write About ComicsOver at Women Write About Comics, two of S&S’s founding members, Elizabeth Coody and Chiristine Hoff Kraemer, engaged in a marvelous discussion about Kraemer’s role in the 2010 Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels and her subsequent work. Their interview lauds not only Carla Speed McNeil, the groundbreaking comic creator behind Finder, but also Jill Lapore’s work on the originator of Wonder Woman, William Moulton Marston.

His Wonder Woman stories from the 1940s demonstrate distinctively different values, including a commitment to nonviolence. After his death, later writers took the character apart, until by the early 1960s Wonder Woman had been demoted to Secretary of the Justice League and would stay behind while the male superheroes left on missions. Wonder Woman has had a few interesting rewrites since then, some more sophisticated than others, but I don’t think she’s ever been as revolutionary a character as she was in those early days.

Read more on this and their views on Blankets, on Y the Last Man, and on Promethea here.

http://womenwriteaboutcomics.com/2017/01/25/comics-academe-christine-hoff-kraemer-on-graven-images/

from the Internet

Muslim Heroines (and Their Comics Fans), Assemble!

(The following article by Madison Mahida Lynn originally appeared at Muslim Girl in May of 2016. It is republished here, slightly edited,  with her permission.)

Welcome to the Golden Age of Muslim Women in Comics

MONET ST. CROIX, AKA MThis is a good time to be a nerd. Marvel’s superheroic epics have taken over the box office, and most importantly comics have become cool again. Or, maybe they have? It depends on who you ask. If you’re asking us, then yes, comics are DEFINITELY COOL.

Unlike the seemingly monochromatic nature of heroes in Marvel’s cinematic oeuvre (we love the MCU but let’s be real, the leads of their films tend to feature a strong diversity of white men named Chris), the comic universe is a multifaceted medium with diverse voices leading the way. At the center of this movement is a group of badass Muslim girls–scientists, doctors, high school students, superpowerful mutants, and more–leading the way.

We could go through a dozen articles talking about the different Muslim girl characters making waves in the medium, but for now I will detail the biggest movers & shakers in comicdom. This is the team that defines today’s era as The Golden Age of Muslim women in comics.

So, let’s meet the team!

THE NAVIGATOR:

Fatima
The Midas Flesh, Writer Ryan North, Artists Shelli Paroline & Branden Lamb

fat dap coop 2

This current era of “Muslim girl Comic Heroism” didn’t begin with that geeky Pakistani teenager from Jersey City, as most would assume. A few months before Marvel released Ms. Marvel #1, indie publisher Boom! Studios released their first title on a new imprint. The Midas Flesh is a sci-fi adventure with a familiar story: A small rogue band of resistance fighters seek a powerful weapon to put an end to oppressive imperial powers. That is where the familiarity ends. The Midas Flesh stays true to the standards of its genre, but turn conventions on its head over and over. The eight-issue run features talking dinosaur scientists, Greek gods, and a deep mythology encapsulated in a richly creative universe.
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online

Got Comics? “Golem” Found, Always Seeking More!

Here at Sacred and Sequential, we always welcome individuals interested in the study of religion and comics to write original pieces or review works for us, so long as they’re scholarly in nature or approach. But we also invite people simply to tip us off about new works or trends they’re seeing, even if there’s no analysis yet formed.

THE GOLEM OF SOUTH FLORIDATo that end, we want to thank stalwart colleague Steve Bergson for signaling us about a new series, The Golem of South Florida (available now from Comixology). From independent Pittsburgh comics publisher Punch Press comes a story of the legendary Jewish golem, planted now in modern-day Florida, having to “protect the local Jewish community from all new adversities: inclement weather, voting recalls and the high cost of prescription drugs.”

If you have or know of a new comics series that might benefit from the scholarly analysis of religion and comics scholars — or if you think religion and comics scholars would, conversely, benefit from analyzing such a work — don’t hesitate to contact our Sacred and Sequential team via the Contact link in our masthead.

controversy

Alt-Right Traces in Comics Publisher’s Past, Now Marketing Trump?

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Pope Francis is an extremely popular figure. His Holiness was once known as Jorge Mario Bergoglio of Argentina before he ascended to the papacy, just as his predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI was previously Joseph Aloisius Ratzinger of Germany. And, at the time of his own ascension, it made no small news that, as young Ratzinger, Pope Benedict XVI was a member of the Hitler Youth (though, reportedly, an unenthusiastic and even subversive one).

So, when it was announced last year that the publisher formerly known as Bluewater Productions would do the graphic novel The Life of Pope Francis, eyebrows might not have been raised. After all, comic book biographies of real-life celebrities and political figures had been Bluewater’s modus operandi, having also done an earlier biography of Jesus Christ.

Bluewater Productions, however, is no longer Bluewater Productions. Their site currently lists their new name as Tidalwave Comics in its URL and its logos. But traces of their site content as well as their listings on sites such as Comixology and Tumblr still has them listed under their 2015 rebranding: Stormfront Comics.

As noted by Bleeding Cool, that new name has some ugly connotations:
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