Over at Slate, Arie Kaplan considers whether Spider-Man is Jewish, based on input from actor Andrew Garfield, novelist Michael Chabon, and producer Avi Arad. Or, at the very least, is he a “crypto-Jew,” especially considering his brand of humor? Read more here.
(Thanks to Steve Bergson, editor of The Jewish Comix Anthology and proprietor of the Jewish Comics blog for spotting this one. I think he’d appreciate the relevance of the clip below.)
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.
Hanukkah catch you off-guard during Thanksgiving? Have a gentile interested in Hebraic culture for Christmas? Then look no further than Yiddishkeit: Jewish Vernacular and the New Land, edited by Paul Buhle along with the late and revered Harvey Pekar.
James Bucky Carter at En/Sane World says, “Mench up and stop being a putz,” urging people to get it, especially as it also features work by Danny Fingeroth, Neil Kleid, Spain Rodriguez, Peter Kuper, Nick Thorkelson, and David Lasky.
Tablet makes an even better argument for reading it, suggesting that Yiddish has a necessary abrasiveness which perhaps has saved it from getting entirely lost in assimilation. Their site also features excerpts from the book, so why not give it a read, nu?
On the heels of ReligionLink’s less-than-comprehensive topical overview of religion and comics, The Huffington Post recently made its own attempt. Written by Professor S. Brent Plate, an expert on religion and American visual culture, kept his commentary narrow and targeted on the Judaic elements. While not pioneering new trails in the exploration of the medium (and the superhero genre) in terms of Judaism, Plate does bring the discussion largely up to date on the eve of Superman’s latest film incarnation in Man of Steel. One suspects, though, that if there’s something new or more to say on what Plate calls “the sacredness of superheroes,” it’ll come from outside Judeo-Christian discourse.
Over the course of the past year, various pieces — pertinent both to comics in terms of religion specifically or simply the serious consideration of comics — have come to light that either fell through the cracks at the time or deserve some wider coverage. They include:
And then there’s just this odd/funny/insulting/compelling comic from Kevin Moore’s In Contempt comics from back in 2008. No better place to put it than here:
