Synopses & Reviews
Comic books have increasingly become a vehicle for serious social commentary and, specifically, for innovative religious thought. Practitioners of both traditional religions and new religious movements have begun to employ comics as a missionary tool, while humanists and religious progressives use comics' unique fusion of text and image to criticize traditional theologies and to offer alternatives. Addressing the increasing fervor with which the public has come to view comics as an art form and Americans' fraught but passionate relationship with religion, Graven Images explores with real insight the roles of religion in comic books and graphic novels.
In essays by scholars and comics creators, Graven Images observes the frequency with which religious material—in devout, educational, satirical, or critical contexts—occurs in both independent and mainstream comics. Contributors identify the unique advantages of the comics medium for religious messages; analyze how comics communicate such messages; place the religious messages contained in comic books in appropriate cultural, social, and historical frameworks; and articulate the significance of the innovative theologies being developed in comics.
Synopsis
Comic books have increasingly become a vehicle for serious social commentary and, specifically, for innovative religious thought. Practitioners of both traditional religions and new religious movements have begun to employ comics as a missionary tool, while humanists and religious progressives use comics' unique fusion of text and image to criticize traditional theologies and to offer alternatives. Addressing the increasing fervor with which the public has come to view comics as an art form and Americans' fraught but passionate relationship with religion, Graven Images explores with real insight the roles of religion in comic books and graphic novels.
In essays by scholars and comics creators, Graven Images observes the frequency with which religious material—in devout, educational, satirical, or critical contexts—occurs in both independent and mainstream comics. Contributors identify the unique advantages of the comics medium for religious messages; analyze how comics communicate such messages; place the religious messages contained in comic books in appropriate cultural, social, and historical frameworks; and articulate the significance of the innovative theologies being developed in comics.
Synopsis
Comic books have increasingly become a vehicle for serious social commentary and, specifically, for innovative religious thought. Practitioners of both traditional religions and new religious movements have begun to employ comics as a missionary tool, while humanists and religious progressives use comics' unique fusion of text and image to criticize traditional theologies and to offer alternatives. Addressing the increasing fervor with which the public has come to view comics as an art form and Americans' fraught but passionate relationship with religion, Graven Images explores with real insight the roles of religion in comic books and graphic novels.
In essays by scholars and comics creators, Graven Images observes the frequency with which religious material—in devout, educational, satirical, or critical contexts—occurs in both independent and mainstream comics. Contributors identify the unique advantages of the comics medium for religious messages; analyze how comics communicate such messages; place the religious messages contained in comic books in appropriate cultural, social, and historical frameworks; and articulate the significance of the innovative theologies being developed in comics.
Table of Contents
TABLE OF CONTENTS
Foreword: Looking for God in the GutterDouglas Rushkoff (Creator, Testament; The New School) IntroductionChristine Hoff Kraemer (Cherry Hill Seminary) and A. David Lewis (Boston University), editors
NEW INTERPRETATIONSThe Devil's Reading: Revenge and Revelation in American ComicsAaron Ricker Parks (McGill University) London (and the Mind) as Sacred-Desecrated Place in Alan Moore's From HellEmily Taylor Merriman (San Francisco State University) Drawing Contracts: Will Eisner's LegacyLaurence Roth (Susquehanna University) Catholic American Citizenship: Prescriptions for Children from Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact (1946-1963)Anne Blankenship (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) Gold Plates, Inked Pages: The Authority of the Graphic Novel G. St. John Stott (Arab American University, Jenin) Comics and Religion: Theoretical ConnectionsDarby Orcutt (North Carolina State University) Killing the Graven God: Visual Representations of the Divine in ComicsAndrew Tripp (Boston University) Echoes of Eternity: Hindu Reincarnation Motifs in Superhero Comic BooksSaurav Mohapatra (Creator, India Authentic) The Christianizing of Animism in Manga and Anime: American Translations of Hayao Miyazaki's Nausicaä of the Valley of the WindEriko Ogihara-Schuck (Dortmund University of Technology)
RESPONSE and REBELLIONOn Preacher (Or, the Death of God in Pictures)Mike Grimshaw, University of Canterbury Superman Graveside: Superhero Salvation beyond JesusA. David Lewis (Creator, The Lone and Level Sands) "The Apocalypse of Adolescence": Use of the Bildungsroman and Superheroic Tropes in Mark Millar and Peter Gross's ChosenJulia Round (Bournemouth University) From God Nose to God's Bosom, Or How God (and Jack Jackson) Began Underground ComicsClay Kinchen Smith (Santa Fe College) A Hesitant Embrace: Comic Books and EvangelicalsKate Netzler (Independent Scholar) Narrative and Pictorial Dualism in Persepolis and the Emergence of ComplexityKerr Houston, (Maryland Institute College of Art) POSTMODERN RELIGIOSITY
Machina Ex Deus: Perennialism in ComicsG. Willow Wilson (Creator, Cairo) Conversion to Narrative: Magic as Religious Language in Grant Morrison's InvisiblesMegan Goodwin (University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill) "The Magic Circus of the Mind": Alan Moore's Promethea and the Transformation of Consciousness through ComicsChristine Hoff Kraemer (Cherry Hill Seminary) and J. Lawton Winslade (DePaul University) Religion and Artesia / Religion in ArtesiaMark Smylie (Creator, Artesia) Present Gods, Absent Believers in SandmanEmily Ronald (Boston University) Tell Tale Visions: The Erotic Theology of Craig Thompson's BlanketsSteve Jungkeit (Yale University) Selected Bibliography Appendices