In response to an earlier article entitled “Is the Beast a Very Silly Atheist?” by Bleeding Cool founder Rich Johnston, writer JD Church scrutinizes the initial claims:
Beast makes his position on the matter clear. Except it’s complete nonsense. Not for anyone reading the book, but for anyone living in the Marvel Universe.
This is a man who has served on the Avengers with Thor, God Of Thunder […] And even if his godlike status can be dismessed [sic] as a powerful alien race, he’s also served with Valkyrie […w]ho can transport people back and forth from the land of the dead. Even if Beast doesn’t believe it exists[, h]e’s had his soul cleansed by Illyana’s sword. Even if he’s not meant to have a soul.
In honor of looking back upon a New Year, Rao wants to call out a writing by Richard De Angelis in June 2011 entitled, “Old Shul Justice.” In it, he looks again at the role(s) of Judaism in the rise and continuation of the U.S. comics medium, particularly through the lens of tikkun olam, “healing the world.”
Additionally, it includes a hugely useful bibliography of texts on Jews and comics (current as of 2011), both done in the comics form and as scholarly prose. De Angelis kindly includes a sample of Fred Van Lente and Ryan Dunlavey’s Comic Book Comics to help initiate the uncertain (as well as to Van Lente and Dunlavey’s wonderful Bad Twin Comics work!).
Over the summer, TheAvengers, The Amazing Spider-Man,and The Dark Knight Rises combined for over $1 billion domestically, which led Heeb Magazine‘s Arye Dworken to yearn for a “Jewish Superhero Blockbuster.” Overlooking the Jewish roots of Batman, Spider-Man, Thor, and Iron Man et al’s creators, Dworken nominates several second-tier superheroes for big-time cinema status, including Kitty Pryde (last seen played by Inception actress Ellen Page) and Batwoman (voiced at one point by The Closer‘s Kyra Sedgwick). While some on Dworken’s list have been on animated superhero shows for television, their religion was never a central (nor even noted) aspect of the characters.
In the book, time has stopped, however, life goes on. Children have forgotten to grow up and robots have forgotten who built them. There is general dis-ease in the community, as these lack of understandings have driven the human children and the robots away from one another.
It’s not until the community is visited by a down-pouring of Dapper Men that things begin to change. One Dapper Man, designated “41,” brings about the epiphany of the importance of time to the characters, and they find that their destinies are even dependent on time.
Can comics as a medium escape a dependency on chronos, everyday chronological time? Or, does the medium already achieve this more readily than other media? Do comics actually operate in a hybrid between chronos and kairos, in aevum?
Doctor Who is a cultural phenomenon in both the UK and the United States, continuing to go from strength-to-strength as it approaches its 50th anniversary in 2013. Over the show’s long history on television—and in various spin-off TV shows, audio adventures, novels and comic books—religion and religious themes have consistently been a subject of interest. In recent years the show has attracted everything from Church of England conferences dedicated to its use in preaching to guest appearances by Richard Dawkins. Abstracts of 300 words are therefore invited for a proposed edited collection examining Religion and Doctor Who. The collection will consider the subject in its widest sense, examining portrayals of religion on the show, in spin-off media (including TV, audio, internet, comic books and video games); fan cultures, and the use of Doctor Who in religious debates. The book will be aimed at popular-academic readership. Possible subjects include, but are not limited to:
• Religious or mythic themes (salvation, return, ritual etc.) in the series. • Critiques and deconstructions of religion in Doctor Who. • The use of Doctor Who to chart British religious history from 1963 to the present. • Death and the afterlife in Doctor Who and Torchwood. • The Doctor as a Christ figure. • Portrayals of non-Christian religion in the classic series or BBC revival. • Fan response to “religious” episodes. • The use of Doctor Who by religious organisations. • Religion in audio adventures, comic books and video games. • Canonicity and Doctor Who as a surrogate religion. • Doctor Who as a tool for theological reflection. • Using Doctor Who to teach Religious Studies.
Abstracts should be 300 words in length, and include a short biography of the author. Abstracts should be sent to DrWhoReligion@gmail.com. Deadline for receipt of abstracts: 20th April 2012.
The full Call For Papers can be found at Patheos.com.
@ the intersection of religion and comics: Graphic Religion
In response to an earlier article entitled “Is the Beast a Very Silly Atheist?” by Bleeding Cool founder Rich Johnston, writer JD Church scrutinizes the initial claims:
