More characters have arisen even since the article’s publication, including Red Dagger & Amulet in Ms. Marvel or Sofia & Nasser of Sheriff of Babylon. Currently, funding is being raised on Patreon for a second new volume of CBR’s number-one Muslim character, Kismet, Man of Fate.
Author A. David Lewis signs his new graphic novel, “Kismet, Man of Fate,” at Comicazi comic store north of Boston on Dec. 4, 2018. RNS photo by Aysha Khan.
Lewis rattled off a list of common tropes about Muslim characters he hoped to avoid with his character: the “noble savage” who is uncorrupted by modern civilization; the mystical Muslim superhero; the docile Muslim woman; the perishable “cannon fodder”; and, more broadly, Muslim characters being carelessly boiled down to a nebulous racial and religious mass.
For Lewis, writing a Muslim superhero was also an opportunity to address the connection between superhuman ability and cosmology. Do the powers to, say, fly or manipulate fire come from God?
It will be exciting to see if this leads to greater discussion about religion in comics, the superhero genre specifically. Can there be a secular narrative on a character who credits his abilities to some aspect of divinity?
(And, normally, we would warn “don’t read the Comments,” but there may be something informative to them at RNS, potentially.)
Comics scholar and Sacred & Sequential founder A. David Lewis opens up about both the process and the motivation behind his new comic book Kismet, Man of Fate – Volume 1: Boston Strong. The series, which is a modern-day update of the 1940s Muslim superhero, had been delivered in online installments for much of the past year, but it now comes to comic shops in print for the first time this week.
[F]or the more liberal-leaning comics creators of the Golden Age, I think there was a fascination with other cultures, even if it was only at the surface level. […] I doubt there was any real thought given to the real-life practitioners or inheritors of this lore, just as I think there was little deference given to Muslims or Asians with Kismet and Green Turtle, respectively. There may be something complimentary in comics creators seeing the potential for this non-Western material to fuel their stories, but it was largely Orientalist and filled with Anglo-centrist presumptuousness.
Lewis teams with artist Noel Tuazon, Rob Croonenborghs, Taylor Esposito of Ghost Glyph Studios, and Kel Nuttal in bringing Kismet back to publication. Publisher A Wave Blue World (AWBW) also secured Heathen‘s Natasha Alterici for the cover art and The Tempest‘s Laila Alawa for the Foreword, with book and logo design by Nicola Black.
Muslim identity and practices are featured more comics than ever, from mainstream titles like Ms. Marvelto independent graphic memoirs. This panel at the 2017 Massachusetts Independent Comics Expo (MICE) takes stock of this important growing field — including the brand-new book Muslim Superheroes: Comics, Islam, and Representation — and presents the perspectives of both academics and creators. Featuring discussion with Hussein Rashid (Religion Professor, Barnard College; Contributor, Muslim Superheroes), A. David Lewis (Instructor, MCPHS University; Co-Editor, Muslim Superheroes; writer, Kismet, Man of Fate), Sara Alfageeh (Illustrator, Co-Director, BOY/BYE series MIPSTERZ project), and Hillary Chute (English Professor, Northeastern Unitersity).
A. David Lewis, Hillary Chute, Hussein Rashid, Sara Alfageeh
@ the intersection of religion and comics: Graphic Religion
