Bringing back an old feature from the days of the By Rao! website, the following is offered for discussion and scrutiny:
Christian-based comics publisher and multimedia company Kingstone gives their answer, in video form, to “Why Comics?”
Rao want to know: What does this explanation/ad say to audiences? Moreover, why were these visuals selected to constitute their ad? Who is the intended audience?
Those not fortunate enough to attend the 2017 American Academy of Religion annual conference, particularly its final morning of presentations, are in luck: We’re joined by a frequent Sacred & Sequential contributor, Iliff School of Theology’s Elizabeth Coody, for a redux of her paper, “The More Savage Sword: A Theory of Biblical Text Used for Shock.” For the podcast, visual input is offered by host A. David Lewis, but online audiences can follow her accompanying Prezi here.
[The following piece was originally published at Women Write About Comics in two parts; and it is reposted here with the author’s permission, for the first time in its entirety.]
My cocktail party introduction of myself is basically, “I’m a religion scholar working on a dissertation that uses a comics to interpret religious text.” Maybe it’s not the smoothest handshake, but it’s a place to start. When I tell people this, I occasionally get quizzical looks from strangers who wonder how comics relate to religion at all. Either that or they are wondering if they are going to need another cocktail before we get into a conversation. The comics/religion relationship is a fantastic tangle that needs to be sorted out when we get into deep discussions. If we talk about religion and comics without sorting this out, we risk all kinds of misunderstandings and hurt feelings, not to mention frustrating cocktail parties.
Religion and comics have been in some sort of relationship for millennia. Stained glass church windows are a familiar Christian example; they tell the stories that are important to the builders of particular churches in different styles. Ancient peoples used comics-type language in cave paintings and Egyptian tombs to express their relationship to the supernatural. Although my own work centers mostly on Christian relationships to comics, I want to stress that there is much more out there to be discovered in comics from all the world’s religions. Comics are a medium that can deliver a particular message where text and images interact to create narrative and emotional results—something that religions of all stripes often strive to do and that comics can do with religious effect.
I conceive of the relationship between comics and religion in four categories: comics as religion, comics in religion, religion in comics, and religion and comics in dialogue. In this month’s installation, I’ll give you the first two categories (comics AS religion and comics IN religion), but be sure to follow along for the exciting conclusion soon. These categories are modeled on the four relationships between religion and popular culture more broadly as outlined in by Bruce David Forbes in his introduction to this great popular culture book with Jeffrey Mahan. They are solid tools for tackling a very messy relationship.
Continue reading The Tangled Relationship Between Religion and Comics
[The following piece was originally published at MartinLund.me and it is reposted here with the author’s permission.]
Is It a Thing? “Pantheonic Bricolage.”
If you are at all familiar with my work, you know that I have a particular interest in the intersections between comics and religion. I have spent countless hours studying comics in relation to Judaism and Jewishness, on editing a book about Muslim superheroes (the release of which is so close now I can almost taste it!), and I’m currently drafting a book about the recently deceased evangelical comics propagandist Jack T. Chick (about whom I have written here and here).
In addition to this, I’m also working on a guide to comics and world religions with a couple of fellow scholars of the topic. We have hashed out a rough structure and are working separately on our chapters. In addition to writing about the Abrahamic traditions (Judaism, Christianity, and Islam), I will also be tackling what we have chosen, for now, to call “Archaic Traditions.” (I just might make another “Is it a thing?” post about that label somewhere down the line.)
This means that I am writing about Greco-Roman, Egyptian, and Old Norse religions. And I am loving it to no end. There is so much interesting material to work with here, and I will be sharing thoughts and reviews as things progress.
But for now, I want to bounce a thing off the internet and see what happens.
I want to talk about what I have been calling, for lack of a better term: “pantheonic bricolage.” It sounds complicated, but it really isn’t.
Continue reading Martin Lund on the Possibilities of “Pantheonic Bricolage”
As she did with its opening day, special correspondent Samantha Langsdale continued to report from the 2017 International Comic-Con San Diego (aka the San Diego Comic-Con or SDCC).
In addition to her own presentation at the Comic Arts Conference (CAC), Samantha relayed intriguing notes on another presenter, Kerry Fine, and her analysis of Arigon Starr’s Super Indian:
Ok, annoyingly, Travis Langley’s name tag got left on the podium, but this is Kerry Fine from Arizona State University, She’s discussing Arigon Starr’s comic Super Indian, which, through allusions, humor, and hyperbole, challenges normative assumptions about Native American spirituality and culture.
It challenges assumptions about native being “magical” and, instead, shows the normal, everyday experiences of Native Americans whilst always being critical of colonial representations of natives.
In fact, Starr herself was invited up as a special guest.
When asked about any relevant buzz concerning the Eisner Awards, Samantha reported
haven’t heard much chat to that effect. I’ve been mildly annoyed to find nothing about Islam. We’re going back to the Small Press section today [Sunday] to rummage around, so I’ll see if I can find some indie. But overwhelmingly nothing and no panels!
She noted some Ms. Marvel cosplay but scarce else notably Islamic. Christianity, on the other hand, was well represented:
Samantha also noted that the IDW panel mentioned “plans to publish a comic about Antar” and that, along with the cosplay, Ms. Marvel was a frequently mentioned character, “a fav on almost every panel I went to about diversity/women.” (She was unable to attend the “Spiritual Themes in Comics” panel hosted by the Christian Comic Arts Society, however, where panelists ” examine[d] how spiritual themes influence the entertainment industry and how the reality of spiritual beliefs affects the culture’s perception of spiritual influences. )
Sacred and Sequential once again wants to thank Samantha for her time and notes — as always, so much to see at SDCC!
