Tag Archives: christianity

academic, art, from the Internet

DHQ Features “Graphic Images of YHWH,” Adapting Ezekiel to Comics

In their final issue of 2015, Digital Humanities Quarterly (DHQ) dedicated nearly the entirety of its content to the theme “Comics as Scholarship.” Included among the sensational pieces there was B.J. Parker’s daring imagining and annotation of Ezekiel 16, a text “early Jewish communities were wary of including […and] Christian communities have likewise wrestled with.” Parker not only fashioned his own comics version of the scripture but also some of his own exegesis. Such an approach, says Parker, “requires the scholar/artist to engage in fascinating and novel means of reflection.”

A panel from B.J. Parker's adaptation of Ezekiel 16 (DHQ 9.4, 2015)

B.J. ParkerSee Parker’s graduate student profile at Baylor University. His full adaptation can be downloaded as a .PDF file or .CBZ file for viewing (sans annotations).

academic, from the Internet

The Marriage of Theology and Graphic Novels

Earlier in the year, the Pittsburgh Theological Seminary’s Rev. Derek R. Davenport proposed a rather intriguing hypothesis: that graphic novels were ideal for theology. He admits that it’s not the most intuitive or necessarily comfortable fit — but it’s a text-and-medium marriage that was meant to be.

As people of faith, we don’t know what to do with art. We surround ourselves with it, invest huge sums of time and money creating it, and then we ignore it.

[…] So let’s do a thought experiment.

Imagine that there was an art form specifically created to address the issue of our relationship with God. Imagine that it was created apart from official church ties, allowing it to maintain freedom from iconoclastic tendencies. Imagine that it could integrate multiple genres like drawing, painting, poetry and literature. Imagine that it had the breadth to explore even questions that some might consider inappropriate or offensive.

This is the graphic novel.

The Reverend is quick to point out that it’s not a direct correlation: not all graphic novels are engaged in theology nor are all graphic novels that could be engaged in theology of high quality. But, nevertheless, the relationship is there (and he nicely tips his hat to S&S at the same time).

Read more of Reverend Davenport’s work on religious symbols and symbology here.

levity, online

Brian Cronin on “That Time the Greek Gods Fought Jesus”

Since there may be little immediate scholarly value to this, Sacred and Sequential offers the following without comment (so we’ll use CBR‘s Brian Cronin’s comments from last year on The Godyssey):

The comic opens with Avengelyne having a premonition that Zeus and the Greek gods are upset with Christianity since no one worships the Greek gods any more.

Now do note – this is a DREAM. This did not ACTUALLY happen in the comic. I suspect that that was something that occurred to the creators after the fact, as it seems kind of out of place as “just” a dream, but to be fair, they clearly DO state in the comic that it is a dream. However, as a premonition it is on point as Zeus IS pissed and it is up to Avengelyne and Glory to stop this war between the Greek gods and the angels of heaven before things went too nuts.

…ok, one comment: In 2013, this property was optioned for a movie development.

We now return to incisive, scholarly analysis.

academic, contributors, online

Comics Alternative Podcast Features Roundtable Discussion on Religion and Comics

Religion-PanelistsOn Monday, the Comics Alternative podcast hosted a “special roundtable” discussion featuring S&S’s own A. David Lewis, Elizabeth Coody, and Jeff Brackett on the subject of religion and comics. One-half of the show’s “2 Guys with PhDs,” Derek Royal, led the animated conversation, spanning all manner of engaging topics:

The subjects that come up during the discussion range from superheroes and myths, manifestations of the afterlife, adaptations of religious texts, biographies of religious leaders, expressions of heaven and hell, the crossroads of faith and ethnicity, and parodic (even heretical) representations of religious figures, doctrines, and practices.

At times on the panel the discussants clash or come at books from different angles — for example, Jeff and David disagree on the usefulness of Craig Thompson’s Habibi and Derek pushes back on the “religiousness” of such comics as Maus, A Contract with God, and Persepolis — but the talk is always lively and insightful. Among the many texts they reference are Neil Gaiman’s Sandman series, Mike Carey’s Lucifer, Justin Green’s Binky Brown Meets the Holy Virgin Mary, Robert Crumb’s The Book of Genesis Illustrated, Sean Murphy’s Punk Rock Jesus, Mark Waid’s Kingdom Come, Mark Millar’s American Jesus, and Craig Thompson’s Blankets. They even discuss comics as religious propaganda, such as what you’ll find in the Spire comics published by Archie during the 1970s and the ever-present Chick tracts.

A panel from Spire Comics’s Christian-themed ARCHIE.

As Royal noted, there was plenty more to be said, so, based on their audience’s response, a follow-up discussion could well be in the works!

Listen to the episode either on the Comics Alternative website, downloaded to your personal device, or via iTunes.

contributors, levity, reviews

Review of HOLY F*CKED #1: “Provocation for Provocation’s Sake” [Redux]

HOLY F*CKED #1Earlier this year, I reviewed Nick Marino and Daniel Arruda Massa’s miniseries Holy F*ck. Throughout the run, I consistently found the series to be missing that certain something. The artwork was consistent and the writing delivered several gags that were independently funny without fully meshing with each other. My final verdict was that the series as a whole seemed directionless, almost scattershot. But I also kept wanting more. I find myself in that same situation as fall starts creeping in.

Last week, Marino and Arruda Massa returned with the first issue of Holy F*cked. With that, we are cast once more into the lives of Jesus, Satan, and the nun Maria, who have all found happiness in Los Angeles. Jesus has gotten real big into skateboarding (I am certain that although this hasn’t really been explained, it will eventually play a big role). Jesus and Satan are living together, and pretty early on we find out that the devil is pregnant. For her part, Maria works in a soup kitchen, regaling the homeless with old war stories.

Of course, we know that their bliss can’t last. Anansi, the African spirit that most often takes the form of a spider and is connected with knowledge, overhears the news and reports it to Hercules. Hercules is thirsting for revenge: after Jesus and his cohorts defeated Zeus, Mount Olympus deteriorated from a prosperous, “grand utopian metropolis” to a wasteland. And so, out of rage and jealousy that the man who took away his family is about to start his own, Hercules resolves to murder Jesus Christ. Setting his plan in motion, he goes to Earth and, disguised as Thanatos Kostas (a play on the Greek personification of death and a word meaning roughly “constant”), a newcomer to town who is passionate about charity work, he infiltrates the soup kitchen.

That, more or less, is the story.

Continue reading Review of HOLY F*CKED #1: “Provocation for Provocation’s Sake” [Redux] →