cultural, events

Huffington Post Features Muslim Superheroes — VOTE NOW!

Thirty-two of the comics world’s Muslim superheroes — and who thought there were that many, really? — are profiled in the Huffington Post‘s Religion section, squaring off in March Madness brackets-style.

Huffington Post on Muslim Superheroes

Characters from Marvel Comics, DC Comics, Teshkeel Media, and a host of other, independent publishers are all featured as readers vote on who will advance to face each other. Which hero has what it takes to be the finest Muslim superhero out there? (And how many did you know already, eh?)

The Tournament will be running all through the NCAA finals into April. Voting is free and open to all!

academic, raowantstoknow

The Hero Worship of Professor Robert M. Price

American theologian Robert M. Price has written, among others, The Case against the Case for Christ, The Reason-Driven Life: What Am I Here on Earth For?, and Paperback Apocalypse: How the Christian Church Was Left Behind. But what that last title might only hint at is the religion and philosophy professor’s abiding interest in popular culture, namely comics.

Over at his personal website, people can read the full, free collection of Price’s thoughts on religion and comics with the complete archive of his “Hero Worship” columns. The host of The Human Bible and The Bible Geek podcasts also tackles topics like Kingdom Come, Marvel Man, and “The Death of Superman” storyline, all from his religious skeptic perspective.

The Human Bible with Robert M. Price

Certainly, Price has his detractors (e.g. Reverend John Rankin, William Lane Craig, Bart Ehrman), little has been said about his reflections on comics — far little than, say, his writing on H.P. Lovecraft.

Rao Wants to Know:  Is Price a true comics scholar or a scholar who dabbles with comics?

reviews

Library Journal Masturbation Specialist Recommends Graven Images

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Longtime Library Journal reviewer (and author of The Big Book of Masturbation) Martha Cornog gave the following plaudits in March of 2011 to Continuum International Publishing’s Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books & Graphic Novels, distinguishing it from attempts before it:

…Graven Images appears to be the first to take a broader and more academic approach, collecting 21 essays from a conference of the same name held at Boston University. While most of the contributors have faculty appointments, five are comics creators. Themes range across religions and denominations, from expected topics (animistic and Christian themes in the manga/anime Nausicaä) to surprising ones (connections between religion and underground comics).

VERDICT This varied and thoughtful collection invites more serious consideration of the medium thematically and hopefully presages additional conferences and collections.

Among her other credits, incidentally, Ms. Cornog is also the co-editor of Graphic Novels: Beyond the Basics and Mangatopia: Essays on Manga and Anime in the Modern World. And For SEX EDUCATION, See Librarian.

The BIG Book of Masturbation

(NOTE: Bloomsbury acquired Continuum in 2011, and Graven Images continues as the imprint of Bloomsbury Academic.)

articles and essays

Batman and the Tibetan Comic Book of the Dead

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.

A page from Thomas Coville's Bardo Thodol
The final level of the Tibetan Bardo Thodol, as envisioned by Thomas Coville.

Coincidentally, this work was highlighted in a brief posting by Rev. Danny Fisher back in 2008 entitled “Holy Bardo, Batman” — that same year, the very same superhero enacted a death sequence as part of Grant Morrison’s Batman R.I.P. storyline where he entered a comatose trance enabled from his secret Tibetan training. (Chronicled by Prof. Jeffrey J. Kripal in his book Mutants and Mystics.)

controversy, cultural, raowantstoknow

Batman for only Judeo-Christians, implies politician

Rep. Louie Gohmert

In July of 2012, the Huffington Post reported that Representative Louie Gohmert (R-TX) responded to the Aurora movie theater shootings by stating that “the shootings […] were a result of ‘ongoing attacks on Judeo-Christian beliefs.'” These comments from The Heritage Foundation’s “Istook Live!” radio show have some ugly implications to them: not only do Batman movies attract primarily Judeo-Christian audiences (hmm, ok…) but that the victims of the shooting were paying the price for attacks on specifically this theology. Link this to the relatively Orientalist nature of the first and third films’ villains (i.e. Ra’s al Ghul), and there’s a growing strain (see previous “By Rao!” posts) of either Islamophobic or non-ecumenical taint artificially attaching itself to Batman’s mythos.

Rao wants to know: Is Batman becoming associated with a particular faith?

@ the intersection of religion and comics: Graphic Religion