All posts by A. David

academic, articles and essays, contributors, online

The Cthulhu Cosmology in Hellboy

Hellboy by Mike MignolaAround this time last year, S&S’s own David McConeghy penned a compelling piece for Sacred Matters on the integration and, arguably, augmentation of H.P. Lovecraft’s Cthulhu gods in the narrative structure of Mike Mignola’s Hellboy — the comics series, its spin-offs, and its cinematic adaptations.

McConeghy hails this aspect of the Hellboy franchise in saying:

[I]t is foremost a comic that embraces the gothic as Lovecraft did in the interwar years in New England. The comic delights in paranormal abilities that connect to worlds beyond our own. It celebrates the prophetic as a link to authentic religious pasts long forgotten. It satisfies our desire to live in a demon-haunted world but feel protected by honorable, if flawed, guardians.

Hellboy and Cthulhu
DeviantArt image by 007Alfredo

Part of Hellboy‘s success, he suggests, is Mignola’s employment of Rudolph Otto’s mysterium tremendum es fascinans, “the mystery that both repels and attracts us.” The titular hero of Hellboy is a product of that same dark mystery he both seeks to confront and defend us from: “Thank goodness for Hellboy,” acknowledges McConeghy, showing the fictional character’s engagement with a fictional religion as compelling stage for real-life religiosity.

controversy, from the Internet

Funding (Another?) Super Sikh

Cover for Super Sikh featuring hero Deep Singh
Cover for Super Sikh featuring hero Deep Singh

Back in March, The Guardian newspaper reported on the successful Kickstarter campaign for Super Sikh, billed by its promoters as “a modern hero in a turban.” The comic features Deep Singh, a secret agent and Elvis-phile who encounters international intrigue during his sojourn from India to Graceland.

The four-issue series pits Singh against crazed Taliban commander Salar Al AmokTaliban, explains Siri Srinivas for The Guardian in talking with the series’ co-creators and Eileen Alden and Supreet Singh Manchanda:

Deep Singh’s battle against terrorists in Afghanistan is used as a device to address the often confused American views of Sikh people.

The pair say this misunderstanding is a particularly American phenomenon. “Remember, in the British ethos, Sikhs don’t have that same [identity]: they may be victims but there’s a lot of respect,” says Manchanda who grew up in Ethiopia and Zambia and went to college in the UK, before moving to Silicon Valley.

“But in the US there’s no positive foil. There’s no Sikh military, there’s no Sikh policemen and that is only now starting to happen,” he says.

Raj Sikh
Raj Singh

Reviews of the premiere issue have been mixed, with The Hindustan Times questioning whether Deep Singh is too much like Raj Singh, another titular Super Sikh and protagonist of an entirely separate comic. At the same time, when awareness-raising and role-modeling is the goal, do similar concepts double public recognition — or threaten to cancel each other out?

Or, best yet, could they team up?

academic, online

Limited-Time Access to Routledge’s Comics & Religion Scholarship

Through the end of August, Routledge (a Taylor & Francis Group) is offering free access to a number of its works across all of Comics Studies. There is no apparent limit to the number of titles accessed for this “Comic Book and Graphic Novel – Free Access” promotion nor any requirement for creating a login or joining a membership.

Of particular interest to religion and comics scholars might be following:

contributors

Congratulations Are in Order

Here’s to S&S’s own Andrew Tripp and Elizabeth Coody for the recent completion of their respective degrees!
10818479_10103105330764060_3955091181240171730_o Andrew earned his doctorate from Boston University’s School of Theology and can be see above with his Dean, Bryan Stone. 11392865_10205739301774825_6816019726001676994_nElizabeth, likewise, completed her doctorate at the University of Denver/Iliff School of Theology and can be seen above with her parents.

Huzzah for the new S&S doctors!

controversy, cultural, from the Internet, online

‘Antisemitism Problem’ In Marvel Movies? No, but…

Over at ComicMix, writer Mindy Newell takes The Jewish Daily Forward to task for its piece, “Do Marvel Movies Have An Anti-Semitic Problem?” Newell minces no words, calling it “the dumbest article I’ve ever read on their site.”

magnetoThe Forward article by Susan Mohall seems to hinge on Magneto, identified in the movies and (most) comics as a Jewish Holocaust survivor, being a villain as well as the nefarious  HYDRA organization having its Nazi roots effaced. Newell quickly dismantles their Magneto argument and, in terms of HYDRA, goes on to say:

Oh, Susan. I guess you never saw Captain America: The Winter Soldier and you never have watched Marvel’s Agents of S.H.I.E.L.D. HYDRA evolved, my dear. It’s gotten smarter, its adapted, it’s gotten smoother – just as our own rat-fuckers learned from Watergate – but it is certainly is still fascist, and it’s certainly not “shy[ing] away from its Nazi roots.”

For what it’s worth, Hal Jordan’s partial Jewish heritage was never featured in the Green Lantern movie, and Ben Grimm’s Jewish background has never been noted in any Fantastic Four movie. Then again, neither has Bruce Wayne’s potential tie to the Christian Sir Gawain of Grail Legend or, say, Colossus of the X-Men’s atheistic Communist roots.

Perhaps the issue that Mohell misconstrued was less some form of antisemitism in these superhero films but, instead, a compulsion towards secularizing their characters? (Even Thor, a “god,” isn’t worshiped…)

Is television’s Matt Murdock (aka Daredevil) the first of these cinematic characters we’ve seen seek spiritual help from a real-world religious institution?

DD-Church