Faith in Comics

[drice6900]

Holy heroics, Batman!

Faith sets these comics apart

 

November 13, 2006

BY DAVID CRUMM

FREE PRESS RELIGION WRITER

 

Look! It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's ... it's a rabbi!

 

And right beside him, it's a black preacher with a wicked kung fu kick. And, who else? A Hispanic Catholic guy in a black leotard, shouting, "Hola!"

 

Yes, it has come to this. The growth of diversity in religious media has hit comic books to produce -- tah dah -- new, spiritual superheroes.

 

Suddenly, comic books are not only cool -- they're holy.

 

There's Rabbi Harvey of the Wild West, who tames tough towns with his Jewish humor. There's Code, a mysterious evangelist who punctuates his preaching with punches. And there's El Gato Negro (The Black Cat), who abandon's Superman's phone booths for confessional booths, so he can unburden his soul after battling with mobsters.

 

"Comics have come a long way in just the last 15 years, from a time when many parents didn't want their kids reading them," Bob Smethers said last week. He and his wife, Jill, own Comic City stores in Novi, Pontiac and Canton. They're planning to expand the Canton store early next year.

 

"These days, I'm invited by librarians and teachers to give workshops on choosing good comics," Jill Smethers said.

 

Her husband added: "Hollywood helped a lot, too."

 

Big-budget movies with Batman, Spiderman, the X-men and other heroes have turned comic books into a gold mine for Hollywood. Comics are expanding so rapidly in print, on television and on the Internet that total sales figures aren't available.

 

However, this fall, after 91 years of publishing the annual "Best American Short Stories," Houghton-Mifflin has launched a new annual series, "The Best American Comics," boiling down the thousands of new comics to an annual Top 30.

 

New comics, new faith

 

Perhaps a comedian like Adam Sandler may star someday in the movie version of "The Adventures of Rabbi Harvey" (Jewish Lights, $16.99), a 121-page graphic novel hitting bookstores this month. Unlike comic books, which usually are printed as thin magazines, graphic novels basically are long comic books that are bound like paperbacks.

 

Rabbi Harvey author and artist Steve Sheinkin, 38, of Brooklyn, N.Y., said he isn't interested in duplicating older-style comic books like Superman. As a kid, Sheinkin said, he wasn't interested in comics.

 

"For me, it was later that I got interested, when I discovered things like 'Calvin and Hobbes,' " Sheinkin said. "Now, that's regarded as a classic among the newer comics."

 

For years, Sheinkin's main income came from writing history textbooks. But, like the creators of El Gato Negro and Code, Sheinkin said his development of Rabbi Harvey was entwined with his own deepening interest in faith.

 

"I grew up Jewish, but Judaism didn't really start to come alive for me until I began appreciating more about the humor and wisdom in the Jewish tradition," Sheinkin said.

 

His Rabbi Harvey is a tall, solitary figure who wanders the Wild West like Clint Eastwood, taming towns.

 

In one story, a mob of bad guys is considering whether to hang him or shoot him. Rather than reaching for a six-shooter, Harvey peppers captors with so many clever questions that the dull-witted thugs wind up setting him free.

 

A black cat crosses artist's path

 

In Dallas, illustrator Richard Dominguez, 46, is on a similar spiritual path. He was raised Catholic, but fell away from the church until he attended a renewal program in the 1990s.

 

As his faith deepened, he began sketching a Hispanic superhero he dubbed El Gato Negro, a cat-like persona similar to Batman in that his ability to fight crime ranges from martial arts to high-tech weapons.

 

"I grew up reading comics, and it always bothered me that there were never Hispanic superheroes with their own books," Dominguez said.

 

In the 1990s, when comics weren't as hot, Dominguez self-published a handful of issues, but sales were slow. Then, earlier this year, the National Catholic Reporter ran a story about his comics and suddenly, there was renewed interest in his character.

 

The buzz about El Gato is strong enough, he said, that by early next year, he'll relaunch El Gato comics. Back issues can be found in some stores or through special orders.

 

"I struggled in the past to find a market for El Gato," he said, "but things are changing for comics now."

 

Finding hope in the Code

 

That's also the assumption of California-based artist, author and TV producer Michael Davis.

 

"I grew up in a really rotten neighborhood in Queens in New York, and my mother's doctrine was always to turn the other cheek," he said. "But I was able to watch Batman on TV, and that's when I learned to draw pictures of Batman."

 

Over the years, Davis -- who said he's in his 40s -- worked on cartoons, books and magazines for the Cartoon Network, DC Comics, Disney and Simon & Schuster. "And, eventually, I realized that I was guilty of creating a ton of content, a lot of which had gritty and dark themes. As I get older, I want to create things that are much more positive."

 

The result, which will hit stores by the end of this year, is a new group of comics featuring Christian heroes, called the Guardian Line. Davis said they're slated to appear in major bookstores nationwide.

 

Chief among the new bimonthly comics is "Code," featuring a wealthy African-American martial artist who wakes up one day with amnesia. Since he can't recall his regular profession, Code decides to follow what he believes to be God's guidance each day.

 

The first edition of the new series suggests that his one-word name refers to his practice of defending the 10 Commandments in the dangerous streets of his metropolis. "The 10 Commandments are a code," he says at one point.

 

"These new comic books are set in this fictional city we call New Hope," Davis said. "It's like most big cities, with a cross section of people from all over the world living there: Chinese Americans, African Americans, Jewish people, Latinos, everybody.

 

"And they have all the problems that people face when they come together in any big city, except that these books will have a biblical worldview that, through a real faith in God, we can all come together and live together in peace," Davis said. "Now, you may call that just a comic book story, but that really is my vision of what this country ought to be like."

 

Free Press article link

[The Troll King]

 

Didn't Chaci's side-kick, Willie Aames, do this years ago?

 

Not to mention that Alias is doing nothing but religion friendly comics now.

 

No more Victoria's Secret Service!

 

[the-comic-trader]

 

.... interesting.

[Ivanko]

And that's one to grow on!