All posts by A. David

Mapping Heaven, Hell, and Superheroes

Grant MorrisonReaders of superhero comics have been buzzing this week about the release of Multiversity #1 from the mind of award-winning writer Grant Morrison. The new, dimension-hopping series also features a revised map of DC Comics’ storytelling universe…with some notable repercussions. As the site Multiversity Comics notes:

While the multiversal map depicts the Source Wall as existing beyond Monitor Space and the Orrery of Worlds, characters of the DC universe have often interacted with it, or at least aspects of it. What lies beyond the Source Wall isn’t entirely clear. It is often described as a void, known sometimes as the source. It is home to a omnipowerful, God-like being referred to at times as “The Presence” or “The Overvoid.” Morrison has likened this area to a blank page, upon with the stories and pictures of the DC universe are written, drawn, and told (which makes the pun of the “Source” rather clear).

In addition to this meta-approach to the God-like Source of the DC Universe, there is also the flatly plain charting of Heaven and Hell amongst all the other realms. A peculiar theology seems to be underpinning Morrison’s outlook on the company’s fiction…

 

Multiversity-map

Fifth Anniversary of the Religion and Graphica Collection at Boston University STH Library

Quietly celebrating its five-year anniversary this year, the Religion and Graphica Collection at the Boston University School of Theology Library remains a one-of-a-kind resource for comics scholars. Available through inter-library loan (ILL), the Collection was founded 2009 through a fund from the Humanities Foundation, and much of their catalog can be found online at http://www.bu.edu/sthlibrary/collections/the-religion-and-graphica-collection/ .
Lucifer, volume 9

Millar (vs. Morrison’s) Christian Use for Swamp Thing

In their ongoing analysis of comic book writer Mark Millar’s body of superhero works, Sequart recently featured a piece written by Colin Smith on Millar’s Christian undertones for the Swamp Thing series, as compared to his collaborator Grant Morrison’s more universalist streak. Read here.

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Material Religion of Comic Books Discussed Immaterially on Twitter

Over on Storify, S&S’s own A. David Lewis has curated an online Twitter discussion between himself, S. Brent Plate, and S&S’s Asher J. Klassen, Elizabeth Coody, and Jeffrey Bracket on the materiality of comics in terms of modern religion. Read here.

 

S. Brent Plate
S. Brent Plate