In August, Sequart featured an essay by the University of Calgary’s Tom Miller writing on the “transformation project” of Christian comics. Though he admits to a “small sample,” Miller focuses the essay’s attention on a particular category of Christian comics, namely “the holy works adaption” and its “two sub-categories: the tribute and the telling.”
He differentiates between the two by noting that ‘tellings’…
…eschew the poetry of the source material. Spiritual matter aside, the Bible is a work of beautiful poetry. So perhaps another answer to the question of what these texts bring to the original is a negative answer: they bring a removal of the poetry of the Bible. This removal of poetry is one of the most significant differences between the telling and the tribute adaptations, as we will see.
Miller alludes to two other categories of Christian comics beyond holy works adaptations, so perhaps Sequart will have Miller produce two sequel essays in the not-too-distant-future.
Part of Rao’s modus operandi is to catch religion and comics stories in the news as they happen and save them to a repository for later re-reading, analysis, and then write up. Of course, while that allows for cautious commentary and limited knee-jerk reaction, it also can cause a back-up of reportable items, sometimes having them fall completely off the radar.
In this case, however, there’s been another intriguing effect to this scheme: The backlog of reportable items is hinting at a trend.
The International Museum of Women featured the work of artist Katie Miranda as part of their “Muslima: Muslim Women’s Art & Voices” exhibition. The first part of her story “Tear Gas in the Morning” features semi-autobiographical protagonist “Barbara Silverman, a Jewish-American artist volunteering as an activist and human rights worker in the West Bank […transforming] from a naîve and idealistic volunteer trying to save the world, to a seasoned activist hardened by a year and a half of nonviolent resistance and human rights work in one of the world’s most complex conflict zones.”
PRI’s The World spoke with Israeli cartoonist Uri Fink about the imprisonment of Mohammed Saba’aneh, a cartoonist for Al-Hayat al-Jadida, the Palestian Authority’s official newspaper. According to Cartoon Movement, he was released on July 1st, five months after his arrest and nearly three months after the PRI coverage.
Response to the Burka Avenger is still unfolding, but, unquestionably, it will be met with a steady stream of new news stories on comics engagement with Islam globally, culturally, artistically, and politically. They are everywhere.
Rao wants to know: Does modern Islam have a special relationship with the comics medium?
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:
Back in mid-2006, Today.com reporter M. Alex Johnson took a look, albeit a superficial one, at the religiosity of Spider-Man, The Thing, X-Men villain Rev. Stryker, the Atheist and others with “At the Comics Shop, Religion Goes Graphic.”
Graphic Medicine, founded by Ian Williams in 2007, was relaunched with MK Czerwiec in 2012, and they caught the “Graphic Fiction” panel (moderated by Shelly Wall) at the Toronto Comics & Medicine conference that year. Presenters included Steven Bergson with “From Ivanhoe to Rex Mundi: Jews and Medicine in Comic Books, Comic Strips, and Graphic Novels,” Jeffrey Monk with “A Ghost of an Idea: A Reflection on My Comic Adaptation of ‘A Christmas Carole’ for the Medical Humanities,” and Lorenzo Servitje with “Empathy in the gutter: Participatory delusion in graphic adaptation of Shutter Island.”
Read the Spirit, an “online magazine covering religion and cultural diversity” as well as an extension of Dr. Wayne Baker’s Our Values program, answered the question to “Why Comics and Comic Books Are Important Today!” — and the solution seems to be “independent comics artist and author” Kurt Kolka.
Most recently, Gene Yang of Comics in Education provided a valuable, digest-sized overview of the “History of Comics in Education,” spanning from 1933 to the turn of the 21st century — an adjacent topic to Religion & Comics but relevant and useful for a sense as to how serious academic discussion has arisen not only in but also for the classroom.
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:
In the wake of the Boston Marathon Bombing and capture of suspect Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, Boston University Associate Professor Kecia Ali was invited as a guest blogger for NPR affiliate WBUR’s Cognoscenti where she recounted not only running a 5-kilometer fundraiser with a “Heroes and Villains” theme but also having to convince a fellow runner that her costume as Dust of the X-Men was actually heroic.
Dust, of course, brings the veil front and center. She may be a rare positive representation of a Muslim woman in comic books, but her character is affected by Orientalism and sexism. Does she break down stereotypes, or does she reinforce them?
So overall, can we appreciate a character like Dust? I think we can; however, there is a lot of room for improvement. […H]er character is incomplete and her character suffers from stereotypes that are due to misunderstandings about Islamic beliefs and practices.
What with the recent headlines generated by DC Comics’ introduction of Simon Baz as a new Green Lantern, are Marvel Comics readers likely to be reintroduced to Dust anytime soon?
Over at Dreamcatcher.com, George Atherton provided the Internet a service by saving a cataloging the Tibetan Book of the Dead from Thomas Coville’s defunct personal site. The illustrated work itself attempts to paint a (digital) picture of the psycho-spiritual levels of the Tibetan afterlife, the Bardo Thodol.
The final level of the Tibetan Bardo Thodol, as envisioned by Thomas Coville.
