Approaching Religion in Comics as a Scholarly Matter
A summarization of Graven Images: Religion in Comics and Graphic Novels’ section by Darby Orcutt Comics and Religion: Theoretical Connections
Unsurprisingly, trying to find scholarly articles for comics is a difficult task to accomplish. Finding good articles talking about both comics and religion is even harder to come by, especially with having to analyze each article to see if it actually matches the search criteria.
Fortunately I was able to find a small sampling of such articles in Graven Images: Religion in Comics and Graphic Novels; a compilation of scholarly articles all centered upon how religion is presented in comics. The only downside to finding such a resources was the fact that in order to read the collection you either had to find/buy a print copy of the book or purchase the Amazon Kindle version for $30, I went with the $30 in this scenario.
The particular article I was most interested in, and the ultimate deciding factor in purchasing the Kindle access, was Comics and Religion: Theoretical Connections by Darby Orcutt at North Carolina State University. Orcutt’s main goals of the piece being how the presentation of religious themes/ideas should be viewed by the audience in a critical fashion, as well as how comics are able to present such ideology in a way that connects with the audience.
Orcutt is able to easily identify such methods of presentation and persuasion in focusing on the works of the Jack Chick, James Strum, and Deepak Chopra via Virgin Comics. The examination of each of these presented authors and their works is done so with the help of author Scott McCloud and his infamous piece Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. Orcutt specifically uses McCloud’s work on identification and visual design in relation to how the audience will perceive the piece in comparison to themselves.
Out of the three, both Jack Chick and James Strum heavily use this method on their readers. Chick known for his “Chick tracts,” Christian based gospel comics that relied on audience character identification to engage the reader in the piece. Chick used simply designed characters and basic modern stories of the time, which took drastic turns between normal and dark, to connect with the readers, in addition to promote different facets of evangelist fundamentalist based Christianity.
Similarly, Strum takes on a Christian based plot, but set it in 19th century America focusing on a faith healer instead of a multitude of short stories like Chick’s work. While Strum does maintain a similar design of easy to identify with characters, he lets a good portion of his work speak for itself, or rather cause the audience to try and interpret the visuals in relation to the contexts of the story. Orcutt describes this as a method for causing the readers to fill in what happened, showing a prime example of the “do-it-yourself” comics format.
Chopra’s work India Authentic instead tells the tales of the various Hindu gods and goddesses in easily connective stories for the audience. Orcutt states that Chopra had wanted the readers to become the focal god Ganesha while they were reading, similar to Chick and Strum’s work styles, but instead allowed readers to better understand the stories of the culture. The comic’s use of art style also helped to try and make better connections with the audience, primarily based on combining color theory and depiction of time/mood.
Orcutt’s piece definitely gives insight into how the combination of religion and comics can be used in order to connect with and/or persuade the audience with its represented themes. I agree with Orcutt that there is such power of working in this combination of storytelling and its mediums, but that the audience should be able to analyze the information which is presented and be able to apply it within their own contexts.
