All posts by A. David

Pilgrimage to Nerd Prom in Esquire

In 2009, novelist Raven Leilani left her Seventh Day Adventist church. A year later, she attended the New York Comic-Con — and she found faith again.  As she wrote for Esquire last month:

When fandom is good, it is earnest, generative. I felt it then, how the event had been loved into existence, how it was particular and communal. But for women, it is complicated. By the time I was in college, my fandom had quieted. The decision to go to Comic Con was a hail Mary of sorts

EVAN DAVIS / GETTY IMAGES

The convention became an “accidental manifestation” to her and a testimony to the power people put into their fictions, “proof that the fantastic can be made real.”

Leilani’s new book Luster debuts this month.

The Kingstone Comics Story

[The following column was provided by Kingstone.]

Sometimes God gives you a dream or a task or a vision and you just know that it just has to be done. But sometimes, for whatever divine reasoning that will be only be understood in another time and place, God also sovereignly allows daunting challenges in the fulfilling of that call and vision. That is the Kingstone Comics story.

If a case could be made that some type of unseen force wanted to prevent something from happening, the Reverend Art Ayris could potentially be a living proof text for that case.  The journey to completing the most complete visual adaptation of the Bible ever done almost did not happen at several stops along the way. Continue reading The Kingstone Comics Story

Jane Foster: Valkyrie – Glimpsing Transcendence in Death

[This column by Michael J. Miller originally appeared on his site My Comic Relief. It is copied here with the permission of the author.]

The centerpiece of Jason Aaron’s epic seven year run writing Thor: God of Thunder/The Mighty Thor/Thor was Jane Foster lifting Mjölnir when the Odinson found himself unworthy to do so.  She became Thor, the Goddess of Thunder, and the stories that followed were the best Thor comics I’ve ever read.  It may be the best executed single story arc I’ve ever ready in any comic ever.  When the Odinson eventually reclaimed his title as the God of Thunder, Jane returned her focus to her civilian life, medical career, and – most importantly – fighting the cancer raging inside her.  However, her superhero career was far from over and the stories Jane Foster now finds herself in (written first by Jason Aaron and Al Ewing and now by Jason Aaron and Torunn Grønbekk) dance along the mysterious, wonderous, frightening, sacred threshold that is the dividing line between life and death.

When the Dark Elf Maliketh’s War of the Realms invaded Earth, Jane – mortal and powerless but with her cancer now in remission – once more stood alongside gods and heroes to fight his evil army.  Maliketh’s forces were ultimately vanquished, but not without great sacrifice.  Among those fallen in battle were all the Valkyrie.  In Norse mythology (and similarly in the Marvel Universe) the Valkyrie are a race of warrior women who decide who lives and who dies in battle.  The Valkyrie then had the sacred duty of transporting the souls of those who died to the realm they’d reside in for their afterlife.  At the end of the War of the Realms, Jane Foster was given the responsibility and the gift of being the last Valkyrie.

Valkyrie 4

Jane bonds with Undrjarn at the end of the War of the Realms. / Photo Credit – Marvel Comics

Continue reading Jane Foster: Valkyrie – Glimpsing Transcendence in Death

Jewish Grandpa Created Legendary Supersoldier

Cover to MY CAPTAIN AMERICAEarlier this month, Jewish Boston sat down with Newton’s Megan Margulies to discuss the legacy of her grandfather Joe Simon (born Hymie Simon) , co-creator of Captain America. Her new memoir, My Captain America: A Granddaughter’s Memoir of a Legendary Comic Book Artist, examines how her grandfather-artist was both “supremely proud of being Jewish” while simultaneously “not very religious.”

His parents were very strict and religious, and I think that sort of scared him off from it a little bit. But obviously with his creation of Captain America and fighting Nazis and giving his voice to that showed how important his lineage is and his family who came from Europe and England. And whenever I brought home a guy, he always asked, “Is he Jewish?” He was very concerned about that. I think Captain America is definitely his most Jewish-related character, but a lot of the creators back then in the Golden Age were children of immigrants and Jewish.

Margulies’ book goes on sale next week, and she will be speaking virtually at Brookline Booksmith next Friday, August 7th.

Interfaith-ish Delivers Again on Comics

The folks over at Interfaith-ish, led by Jack Gordon, have been doing extraordinary work over the last few years, not the least of which because they frequently bring the subject of comics and religion to their audience’s ears.

Therefore, with their latest episode entitled “The Punjabi Black Panther,” we wanted to showcase a few of their other episodes on the subject near and dear to our hears. Our readers are encouraged to subscribe to their podcast, but here are the standout installments for S&S: