Book Review: Comics, Culture, and Religion: Faith Imagined

 reviewed by Dominick Grace

Kees de Groot, ed. Comics, Culture, and Religion:  Faith Imagined. New York:  Bloomsbury Academic, 2024. 264 pp. US $39.95 (Paperback). ISBN:  978-1-3503-2162-5. https://www.bloomsbury.com/us/comics-culture-and-religion-9781350321588/ (open access - free download)

 Comics, Culture, and Religion:  Faith Imagined, edited by Kees de Groot, adds to the growing list of books addressing religion in comics (2024 also, see Grafius and Morehead’s Horror Comics and Religion). The book also participates in the growing trend towards globalism in comics scholarship. While American texts, such as Maus, Watchmen, and Craig Thompson’s Habibi, are addressed, the book also covers European, Japanese, and Indian texts, and others on religions other than Christianity. These features are all to the good. While not every chapter, perhaps, will be of use to every reader, anyone interested in the range of comics with religious elements, and/or the relationship between comics and religion per se, will find material of interest here, and scholars interested in the specific topics of individual chapters will wish to check those ones out, at least. The scholars, whose work appears here, are mostly European, so though the lens through which most look is Western, it is not, with a couple of exceptions, North American. This is also all to the good. Diversity of topics and of scholarly voices remain important to the growth and robustness of scholarship generally, and comics scholarship specifically, given that comics are a worldwide phenomenon, but comics scholarship has not, as yet, fully encompassed that global reality.

Nevertheless, this collection is a mixed bag. The chapters are all in English, but many of the authors are not native speakers, so the prose can be stilted and occasionally, grammatically flawed. This might seem like a niggle, but careful editorial oversight should have been able to smooth out such infelicities without compromising the authors’ voices. Furthermore, the scholars included are not, generally, comics scholars per se, but rather religious studies scholars, who do bring an important perspective to a book on comics and religion, but who also do not always have the depth of comics knowledge or focus on comics-specific aspects of what they discuss that comics scholars may be looking for. The books’ approach is also oriented more towards social science than humanities, which is hardly a limitation or flaw, but it does mean that comics scholars more on the humanities side of the discipline may find this book less useful than will their social sciences colleagues. (Full disclosure:  I come from the humanities, so the methodologies and interests of some of these papers fall outside my own areas of practice, interest, and knowledge.)

The book is divided into four parts. As de Groot writes in his introduction:

 

The first part, Comics in Religion, starts with religions. How do religious communities and institutions use comics to communicate with their audience and why and when do they protest against them? The second part, Religion in Comics, starts with comics. How are religious beliefs, rituals, symbols, leaders, stories, and practices represented, criticized, and discussed in comics? The third part, Comics as Religion?, discusses the cultural role of comics in cultivating a sense of the sacred and making meaning (7-8). Part four, Learning from Comics, asks, “What and how do comics teach about culture, about religion, and about the intertwinement of the religious and the social?” (8).

 

The quality of the essays varies considerably. Some are well written and researched, and clearly argued; others fail on one or more of these fronts. Many of the essays also don’t seem to me to end up having much of use to say. For instance, Paula Niechcial’s “The Reception of Comics on Zoroastrianism” sounded like it would offer a useful exploration of quite an esoteric (to me) topic. However, her quantitative study of the reception of two comics had very low responses--in the case of one of the comics she was asking about, only one of her 91 respondents indicated being familiar with it. Consequently, it is difficult to reach reliable conclusions about responses to these comics, based on this research. Others drift from the book’s focus. For instance, the one on “The Magic of the Multiverse:  Easter Eggs, Superhuman Beings, and Metamodernism in Marvel’s Story Worlds,” by Sissel Undheim, has much more to say about film and TV than the comics--and there is much one might discuss about how Marvel Comics have treated (or mistreated) religion. Line Reichelt Føreland’s “Comics and Religious Studies:  Amar Chitra Katha as an Educational Comic Series” offers useful information on comics as educational tools and on the history of the comics she is discussing, but does not really answer her opening question:  “How can comics be used in religious studies?” (205; my emphasis). What would have seemed to me obvious examples to consider of comics that try to proselytize--Spire comics, Jack Chick tracts, for instance--are not even mentioned.

On the other hand, several pieces are strong, whether on comics familiar to North American readers. For instance, in “Implicit Religion and Trauma Narratives in Maus and Watchmen,” Ilaria Biano’s exercise in “framing Maus and Watchmen in the context of the implicit religiosity of their traumatic narratives” (141) offers useful insights into these canonical comics in their cultural context. Evelina Lundmark tackles the weaponizing of online outrage to attack comics that don’t conform to a particular religious orthodoxy in “Cancelling the Second Coming:  Manufactured Christian Outrage Online,” offering valuable insights. Irene Trysnes provides what is, for an outsider, an excellent analysis of the use of religion in Norwegian comics, in “From Subordinates to Superheroes? Comics in Christian Magazines for Children and Youth in Norway.” Christoffe Monotte takes a new look at Eisner’s A Contract With God in terms of “sociology of religion and migration sociology” (222), in “A Contract with God or a Social Contract?” Other papers were on Preacher, on Craig Thompson’s Habibi, junrei manga, the comics of Kaisa and Christoffer Leka, and other topics.

The final words of the conclusion are, “To be continued.” This is a fair conclusion. This volume is to be commended for its exploration of a diverse array of comics through a religious studies lens, but it also leaves room for additional work. The exploration of religion and/in comics does indeed need to be continued further than it goes here.

 

Table of Contents

Introduction: Comics and Religion in Liquid Modernity, Kees de Groot (Tilburg University, Netherlands)
Part I: Comics in Religion
1. From Subordinates to Superheroes? Comics in Christian Magazines for Children and Youth in Norway, Irene Trysnes (University of Agder, Norway)
2. Cancelling the Second Coming: Manufactured Christian Outrage Online, Evelina Lundmark (Uppsala University, Sweden)
3. The Reception of Comics on Zoroastrianism, Paulina Niechcial (Jagiellonian University, Poland)
Part II: Religion in comics
4. Drawn into Krishna: Autobiography and Lived Religion in the Comics of Kaisa and Christoffer Leka, Andreas Häger and Ralf Kauranen (Åbo Akademi University, Finland)
5. What Would Preacher Do? Tactics of Blasphemy in the Strategies of Satire and Parody, Michael J. Prince (University of Agder, Noway)
6. Islam and Anxieties of Liberalism in Craig Thompson's Habibi, Kambiz GhaneaBassiri (Reed College, USA)
Part III: Comics as Religion?
7. Implicit Religion and Trauma Narratives in Maus and Watchmen, Ilaria Biano (Istituto Italiano, Italy)
8. Manga Pilgrimages: Visualizing the Sacred / Sacralizing the Visual in Japanese Junrei, Mark MacWilliams (St. Lawrence University, USA)
9. Comics and Meaning Making: Adult Comic Book Readers on What, Why and How They Read, Sofia Sjö (Åbo Akademi University, Finland)
Part IV: Learning From Comics
9. The Magic of the Multiverse. Easter Eggs, Superhuman Beings and Metamodernism in Marvel's Story Worlds, Sissel Undheim (University of Bergen, Norway)
10. Comics and Religious Studies: Amar Chitra Katha as an Educational Comic Series, Line Reichelt Føreland (University of Agder, Norway)
11. A Contract with God or a Social Contract? Christophe Monnot (University of Strasbourg, France)
Conclusion: Comics as a Way of Doing, Encountering, and Making Religion, Kees de Groot (Tilburg University, Netherlands)
Bibliography
Index

 

 

Graphic Novel Reviews: Enchanted Lion Books

 

Reviewed by Liz Brown, Outreach and Instruction Librarian, University of Colorado, Colorado Springs.

Enchanted Lion Books features a catalogue primarily from the Eurocomics scene, although with diversions to other countries and continents. They frequently feature illustrations with strong painterly influences, including works by well-known artists, such as Matthew Forsythe, Daniel Salmieri, and Yuki Ainoya. The subject matter is poetic, contemplative, and emotionally aware. Their titles, particularly from their picture book line, have won multiple awards and recognitions. Many of their titles are clearly chosen for broad appeal across age ranges, and their Unruly Imprint is for “picture books intended specifically for adults and teenagers.” Readers who already read graphic works are likely to be a receptive audience to this line, and additional appeal may come from those who enjoy and collect visually-based books, such as artistic monographs. The following reviews include books marketed towards their middle grade/young adult readers.

            Blexbolex. Translator:  Karin Snelson. 2023. The Magicians. Brooklyn, NY:  Enchanted Lion Books.

         The Magicians is a story of three self-serving magicians who escape their confines only to be pursued by a stubborn Huntress and the single-minded Clinker, who are intent on keeping their mischief under control. The plot follows its own internal logic, rather than a strict narrative structure, playing with the concept of the characters’ internally-generated methods of creation. The magicians, as with artists, can create their own realities, but also get stuck inside that which they create. Over the course of the story, clear lines of who is the protagonist and who is an antagonist erode as the characters’ identities are interrogated and manipulated by outside forces.

Each page of the book is a full panel, with a few lines of spare dialogue or explanatory text captioning the framework of the story. Blexbolex takes advantage of the generous gutters to entrust his audience to fill in details and nuance. The artwork features Blexbolex’s characteristic style, but the illustrations are more visually complex than his prior work for picture books, including densely-layered stencils that create a broader color palette featuring half-tones and shadows. Visual references to vintage illustrations call to mind the works of Henry Darger, with additional cross-cultural references to Asian graphic arts.

 

Fig. 1. The Huntress succeeds after a battle. Page 106.

         While the fairy tale framework of the story might appeal to young readers, the visual complexity, absurd bends in the plot, irreverent humor, and focus on the development of character identity suggest that older readers--teens and adults--are a more likely audience for the work.

         Isol. Translator:  Lawrence Schimel. 2024. Loose Threads. Brooklyn, NY:  Enchanted Lion Books.

Loose Threads is one of six picture books created for the exhibit, “Palestinian Art History as Told by Everyday Objects,” organized by the Palestinian Museum in Birzeit, Palestine. It imagines a story on the surface of the hand-embroidered shawl that illustrator, Isol, received when visiting the Tamer Institute for Community Education. The work plays with the concept of the front side of the embroidery, where the designs are legible iconography of traditional Palestinian cross-stitching, and the back side of the embroidery, where you see the abstract shapes formed by the work between the stitches. Isol’s story is a digital collage about the characters living on the visible side of the embroidery. They keep losing objects that slip through the small tears in the fabric, into “the Other Side.” Plucky heroine, Leilah, sets out to mend the tears, but her patches don’t have the intended effect.

 

Fig. 2. Leilah dreams about the inhabitants of the Other Side.

         The images in this work are largely full-page spreads with no more than five sentences of text, broken into five short chapters. It would be a good transitional book for students who progress from picture books into longer material and who are working on reading independently.

As the Gazan genocide continues to unfold, this book has particular interest and poignancy in sharing Palestinian culture through material objects, but it is worth noting that Isol is a Spanish-speaking, Argentinian artist invited to work on the project, not a Palestinian herself. The book’s theme of mending is both a literal device in the story, but also alludes to generational healing and the passing down of heritage.

        Oyvind Torseter. Translator:  Kari Dickson. 2016. The Heartless Troll. Brooklyn, NY:  Enchanted Lion Books.

         A contemporary retelling of the Norwegian fairytale, “The Troll with No Heart in His Body,” The Heartless Troll begins with the third son setting out to rescue his brothers and make his fortune. Torseter has an established cast of characters whom he grafts into different roles throughout his books. Central is the Moomin-like, donkey-headed hero, Prince Fred--simple, trusting, and malleable--who is frequently the protagonist in Torseter’s works. But more interesting--both in writing and visual design--are the newer characters introduced for the story. Prince Fred’s anthropomorphic, reluctant nag provides an amusing counterpoint to Fred’s tepid heroism. Torseter gives voice to what is traditionally an unspeaking role in the story, using the steed’s cowardice as a source for his witticisms. The monstrous Troll visually calls out art history references, including Leonard Baskin’s prints and Picasso’s “Guernica.”

 

Fig. 3. The first night of Prince Fred’s quest.

The illustrations revel in their physicality, with inked lines and textured backgrounds imitating the grain of drypoint etchings, and intentionally-visible collaging of materials in large spreads. The drawings feature spare lines on large swathes of black, with limited color employed for emphasis. The work is in the same milieu as Anne Simon’s comics, especially her adaptation of Greek myth in The Song of Aglaia, but Torseter sticks to sparser dialogue, a simpler plot, and less allegorical intentions. His retelling is amusing and visually interesting, but lacks the substance to hold up to deeper probing.

             Oyvind Torseter. Translator:  Kari Dickson. 2023. Mulysses. Brooklyn, NY:  Enchanted Lion Books.

         Mulysses is a composite story, drawing tropes from multiple sea-faring sources, but not a true adaptation of any particular one. The story contains pursuit of a menacing whale, as in Moby Dick, escaping the island of a one-eyed monster, as in Ulysses, plumbing the ocean depths for mysteries, as in 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, but with an irreverent and absurd tone that is uniquely Torseter’s own. The comic’s primary cast is, once again, made up of Torseter’s recurring characters--the eponymous, mule-headed protagonist; his elephant-headed, sea-captain foil; and generic, female, “harbor tavern gal” love interest; along with cameos of other recognizable characters in the background. Mulysses is out of work and about to be evicted. With a one-week deadline looming over him, before he loses all his worldly possessions, he signs on to a questionable voyage captained by an eccentric millionaire in hopes that the reward will be enough to recover his belongings from storage. Of course, with both an inept captain and crew, only mayhem can ensue.

 

Fig. 4. An average day for Mulysses at sea.

Along with Torseter’s established grainy line work, collaged spreads, and limited color palette, he has started incorporating printmaking techniques into his work. He uses stamp printing for texture in his panels--clothing and hairstyles for background characters, wheels on vehicles, furniture, waves in the sea--and also layers colors in halftones, either in imitation of or truly printing with a risograph. The use of these printing methods is tentative and experimental, but the results seem worth pursuing further, as they add tactility to the illustrations, which Torseter is clearly in pursuit of when making his art. The book’s design is in a horizontal format, which intentionally calls to mind photograph albums, as one might have once used to store vacation snapshots; however, it should still fit on most standard bookshelves. While the content is appropriate for all ages, Mulysses’ motivating worries over rent and work mark this as a comic geared for adults. It would appeal to fans of The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (dir. Wes Anderson, 2004)