S&S noticed this too late in 2018 to include for Hannukah last year, so for Hannukah 2019, we’re asking the following “festival of lights” questions of this Comic Vine list:
Chag sameach!
In the first part of this religion, spirituality and comics sampler, we looked at Mark Waid and Alex Ross’ Kingdom Come, Vertigo’s Lucifer, and Matt Hawkin’s The Tithe. In this instalment of the sampler we turn to a couple of Superman stories, encounter the mysterious Phantom Stranger, and investigate a murder in the Vatican.
The trade paperback, Superman: Redemption, brings together three different Superman stories with religious contexts:
Angel: Superman #659.
Redemption: Action Comics #848 & Action Comics #849
The Beast from Krypton: Superman #666.
The stories are interesting because the writers use an existing ‘non-religious’ narrative world or character – Superman – to explore something of the notion of religion and religious authority. Continue reading Religion, Spirituality, and Comics – A Sampler (Part 2 of 3)
Keshet, the organization for LGBTQ equality in Jewish life, has put out this call on Twitter for multiracial queer superheroes for inclusion in their poster series:
Is your LGBTQ Jewish hero a person of color? Nominate your hero for Keshet’s LGBTQ Jewish Heroes poster series! Our first 3 hero posters are of white queer Jews. We want to better reflect the multiracial reality of the Jewish people. Nominate a hero here- https://t.co/iaGfIu63WL
— Keshet (@KeshetGLBTJews) October 29, 2019
Are you a character with an eligible character? Know of one you want to recommend? Follow this link to their form and aid in their efforts “to do better and reflect the multiracial reality of the Jewish people.”
Sacred and Sequential‘s own Elizabeth Coody was featured by the Sioux City Journal this past week for her work at Morningside College and recent participation in the “Graphic Novels and Comics across the Humanities” conference. Food and Lifestyle reporter Earl Horlyk notes Dr. Coody’s astute observation that illustrations of Jesus as Caucasian or even quite muscular say “more about an artist’s interpretation than anything in the Bible.”
Additionally, S&S would like to further applaud our colleague for the wonderful sentiment behind her quote: “Well, I think it’s a sin to depict Jesus as dull.”
Ever since I can remember, I’ve been a reader of comics. I grew up on the old Planet Comics black-and-white newsprint anthologies of DC titles before moving onto the more expensive and imported coloured individual issues of Marvel and DC from the US and the weekly issues of Tornado and 2000AD from the UK. Because I’d read anything in that format, I read various religious tracts and comics, as well as graphically-adapted works of classics like Jules Verne’s Mysterious Island or Mary Shelley’s Frankenstein, and the serialised comics in the back of the daily newspaper.
I’ve always been intrigued by the power of these storied images, and as a Christian theologian with an interest in popular culture, I’ve spent the last twenty years or so collecting comics and graphic novels that have religious themes and material or touch on spiritual matters. Sometimes these comics are representations of sacred texts like the Hebrew or Christian scriptures; other times they explore themes of sacrifice, redemption, faith, and suffering. They might take an established comic book character and explore their religious dimension or fashion a detailed cosmology inclusive of heaven(s) and hell(s). There is something about the graphical format that lends itself to not just traditional narrative prose but also to poetry, to wordless stories, non-linear storytelling, and being able to tell stories from a variety of cultural and ethnic settings.
In these posts I’m going to highlight ten particular comic titles that I might recommend to people if they asked for examples of religion and spirituality in comics and graphic novels. I’ve deliberately steered away from graphical adaptations of religious texts like the Bible or material intended to educate or encourage the faithful. I may do a series on those eventually as they are also very interesting, but in these posts I want to highlight where we might find religion and spirituality in other contexts. I do not expect everyone (or anyone!) to agree with my choices, but I hope get you thinking about how people are telling religious and spiritual stories in this format. Continue reading Religion, Spirituality, and Comics – A Sampler (Part 1 of 3)