The London-based Albion Calling blog recently featured a full-length interview with Dr. Christine Hoff Kraemer, co-editor of Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels. As both an instructor for the Department of Theology and Religious History at Cherry Hill Seminary and the author of Seeking the Mystery: An Introduction to Pagan Theologies, Kraemer was asked, in particular, about the works of Alan Moore and her own personal interaction with the Magus:
I wrote Moore a fan letter, telling him a bit about myself, my religious leanings, and my academic studies. A month
passed, and then a mysterious package from the UK arrived, containing a stack of Moore’s ritual theater CDs, an unpublished article on chaos magick, two copies of Promethea Vol. 2 (one signed for me to keep, one to lend out), and a warm and encouraging note. I was floored!
Kraemer notes, though, that while being a fan of Moore and even a scholar considering his work is quite popular, “many comics scholars either don’t take his spiritual philosophy seriously (preferring instead to focus on his politics) or simply don’t have the background to understand and interpret it.” She offers that this “gap in Moore scholarship” is one she is addressing with her work.
Learn more about Kraemer at Cherry Hill here.
Over 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.
