Tag Archives: Frank Miller

A multitude of issues pertaining to religion and comics have filled the media and the Sacred and Sequential site in 2016: Islamophobia, superhero gods, idolatry and blasphemy, proselytizing, memorializing. Below are the five most-read articles from our pages; in toto, they all seem to orbit concerns of the medium’s essential alignment with either Christianity, Judaism, or the far, far more esoteric. Is there battle for the “soul” of comics amassing?

5. Four-Color Christ Jesus
10/31: Ron Edwards of Comics Madness penned this birthday reflection on Jesus, comics, Jack T. Chick, and The Cross and the Switchblade (along with eye-opening comments from his readers).

4. Jack T. Chick dies at 92
10/25: Jack T. Chick likewise headlines this post by Martin Lund, who explores the difficulty of Chick’s impact and legacy.

3. Jews and Comics: The Decade in Review
2/2: The Jewish Comics Blog‘s Steven Bergson addresses the flaws in religion & comics reportage, particularly by a January Haartez article.

2. Questioning Frank Miller and Superman’s “Jewish Essence”
10/13: Lund approaches the “Judaism and comics” issue from a new perspective, this time triggered by Frank Miller’s comments to CBR.com.

1. Sacred Texts: Lovecraft, Alan Moore, and Religion in Providence
2/9: Bobby Derie of Facts in the Case of Providence gives S&S readers a tour of Alan Moore’s latest (and last?) comics series along with its deep linkages to the study of religion.

contributors, controversy

Questioning Frank Miller and Superman’s “Jewish Essence”

October 13, 2016 Martin Lund 1 Comment

I have been asked to comment on a short piece that was published yesterday on CBR.com, which I have to agree calls out for a response and fact-check. The piece announced that Frank Miller has said in an New York Comic-Con interview that he wants to “tackle one of the oldest, but oft overlooked, origin stories in the entire industry: Superman’s Jewish heritage.” The article then goes on to make a few questionable claims, many of which I have seen before, in my research on Superman and the so-called “Jewish-comics connection.” This notion holds that Superman, and – depending on who you read – the superhero genre, the US comics industry, or the comics medium itself, were created by Jews and has a sort of “Jewish essence.”

Let us return to the quoted line about Superman’s supposed, but “oft overlooked” origin story and Jewish heritage. It does not take much effort to poke a hole in the claim that this is an overlooked topic. In the past ten years alone, numerous books have been published that have this issue as their central focus: in 2006, Rabbi Simcha Weinstein published Up, Up, and Oy Vey! How Jewish History, Culture, and Values Shaped the Comic Book Superhero; in 2007, comics writer and writing teacher Danny Fingeroth published Disguised as Clark Kent: Jews, Comics, and the Creation of the Superhero; in 2008 comedian and journalist Arie Kaplan published From Krakow to Krypton: Jews and Comic Books; and in 2012 masculinity scholar Harry Brod published Superman is Jewish? How Comic Book Superheroes Came to Serve Truth Justice, and the Jewish-American Way. On top of this, there are several other books about Superman or Jews and comics more generally, as well as innumerable newspaper and online articles, in which claims about Superman’s “Jewish origins” are similarly made. Let us also not forget that what Miller proposes has already been done; in 1998, for Superman’s 60^th anniversary, DC put out a series of Man of Steel comic books in which the superhero traveled back in time to face the Nazis and in which Siegel and Shuster’s Jewish heritage got a nod.

As entertaining and interesting reading as the books and articles mentioned may provide, they suffer from a lack of support for their arguments, and rely mostly on recycling the same tropes and claims in a sort of internal feedback loop. This has led to a collection of common assumptions about what Superman “is,” based on nothing but the fact that his creators were Jewish. But once you shine a light on these claims, they start to fall apart. I will not go into a more general charting of these books or their claims here – for that, you can check out my forthcoming book on the subject or this post on my old, now-defunct blog – but will focus only on the latest article.

Continue reading Questioning Frank Miller and Superman’s “Jewish Essence” →

academic, contributors, online

Comics Alternative Podcast Features Roundtable Discussion on Religion and Comics

October 28, 2015 A. David

On 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.

articles and essays, controversy, cultural, interviews, reviews

The 99, Captain Israel, Habibi, Holy Terror, and More…

October 3, 2011 A. David

It has been a positively massive few weeks in the topic of Religion & Comics, particularly in terms of Islam and Western culture, and a bevvy of links and stories bear highlighting, even en mass. In no particular order:

PBS will be airing a documentary on the rise of The 99 and the endeavors of its creator Dr. Naif al-Mutawa on Thursday, October 13th at 10 p.m. EST. Blogcritics.org has a brief overview of the show, entitled Wham! Bam! Islam!, as part of the new season of Independent Lens.
Perhaps on the flip-side of The 99‘s message, Tom Spurgeon at The Comics Reporter relays a news story from the India Express on the arrest of cartoonist Harish Yadav (a.k.a. Mussaveer) on the charge of insulting Muslims with his work. Yadav was released later that day, apparently none the worse for wear, unlike Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat who was beaten for his outspoken opposition to his local regime.
Al Jazeera has published the reaction of University of California – Irvine Professor Mark LeVine on the emergence of superhero Captain Israel by Arlen Schumer. LeVine says, “Turns out – as far as I can tell – this comic is not a prank dreamed up by the Daily Show’s writing team during their summer hiatus, or even more plausibly, by a couple of bored Hebrew School students. ‘Captain Israel’ means business! His task: Defend Israel at all costs from her most dangerous enemies!”
A panel from Captain Israel by Arlen Schumer
The concurrent releases of Frank Miller’s Holy Terror and Craig Thompson’s Habibi during the 10-year anniversary of the September 11th terrorist attacks have gotten a great deal of notice in a number of distinct ways. NPR’s “On Point with Tom Ashbrook” dedicated an hour to Thompson and his latest effort, paying particular attention to the 600+-page graphic novel in terms of love and sexuality. (Moreover, of particular interest may be the Comments section for the broadcast’s web page.) Taking a different slant, Robot 6 over at ComicBookResources.com quoted writer G. Willow Wilson’s take on Habibi, praising Thompson’s effort and its beauty but also that “some of Thompson’s attempts to invert cliché get away from him.” Islamicate.org‘s Hussein Rashid also points to Wilson’s take on Habibi, that the book is more about mysticism and the Qur’an than about Islam: “I found myself wondering about the author’s own spiritual journey. How did Thompson, raised a conservative Christian, come to be interested in the mysticism of the Qur’an? That’s a book I’d read, if he were ever inclined to write it.”

Meanwhile, Miller’s work has garnered much more alarm. When Miller moved the project from DC Comics (perhaps with their blessing) to the new Legendary Comics imprint from Legendary pictures, the anti-terrorism graphic novel shifted from featuring the DC-owned Batman to Miller’s new vigilante, The Fixer. Wired magazine has called the terrorist-bashing extravaganza “fodder for the anti-Islam set,” and David Brothers of Comics Alliance calls it, for all Miller’s artistry, “a hateful, ill-considered, simplistic, ugly, nasty little book.” At the same time, though, Pakistani writer Avirook Sen with The International Express online says that “if this was serious, they wouldn’t just give the most important job of our times to some newborn superhero with a second-rate name.”