Tag Archives: afterlife

articles and essays, contributors

Religion, Spirituality, and Comics – A Sampler (Part 1 of 3)

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) →

academic, art, contributors, events, online

Asher J. Klassen Discusses Comics, Semiotics, and Islam – Draws Superhero Afterlife

One of S&S’s founding members Asher J. Klassen gave the following lecture this week at Durham University’s Theology and Religion Department.

In this lecture I tackle first and foremost the matter of censorship, both in the lecture hall and as it pertains to depictions of Muhammad in modern media. I look at the prophet in animation and then in comics, before moving on to discuss some of the visual functions of the comics medium and connecting visual abstraction as presented by McCloud to identity as defined by religious symbols. After a brief comparison of the idea of bodily representation in Christianity and Islam I close with some thoughts on the human drive as meaning-making, cultural animals and the role of censorship as we create our history.

(The audio for the recording is a little quiet, so turn up your speakers if need be; it begins around 1:30.)

Klassen also collaborated with another S&S founding member, A. David Lewis, on an eight-page comics version of Lewis’s book American Comics, Literary Theory, and Religion: The Superhero Afterlife as “The Superhero Afterlife (Abridged)” for the Sacred Matters web magazine of public scholarship.

The Superhero Afterlife (Abridged) - page 1
Opening page from “The Superhero Afterlife (Abridged)” at Sacred Matters. Words by A. David Lewis, Art by Asher J. Klassen.

Read the full comic here.

academic, contributors

The Superhero Afterlife Is Here!

American Comic Books, Literary Theory, and Religion: The Superhero AfterlifeThis week sees the debut of S&S Founding Member A. David Lewis’s American Comic Books, Literary Theory, and Religion: The Superhero Afterlife. Based on both his doctoral work from Boston University and his American Academy of Religion (AAR) presentations, Lewis, co-editor of both Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books & Graphic Novels and Digital Death: Mortality and Beyond in the Online Age, delivers his first solo monograph in Comics Studies. Read more here.

academic, articles and essays, contributors, reviews

Sequart Reviews A. David Lewis’s New Book: “particularly timely”

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Sequart logoSequart‘s Karra Shimabukuro was given early access to the new book by A. David Lewis, American Comics, Literary Theory, and Religion: The Superhero Afterlife. Due out in November from Palgrave Macmillan, Shimabukuro detailed what readers can expect from the forthcoming book on superheroes, the afterlife, and audiences’ notions of personal selfhood.

As more and more people question the purpose and definition of self in the modern world, Lewis’ work is particularly timely.

Shimabukuro particularly noted the incorporation of theorists Benedict Anderson and Jeffery Burton Russell as personal attractions to the text. The book, she says, will be of interest to readers intrigued by the “argument for multiple selfhoods, and how this relates not only to how we view characters (in relation to reboots, revisions, and retcons), but also how we understand characters through the ever growing intertextual connections such as movies, cartoons, fan fiction, etc.”

Read more here.