JEWISH GRAPHIC NOVELS

BS"D


I have noticed that "comic books" have gradually, over the past twenty years, become more of an acceptable mainstream interest for adults. Okay, let me rephrase that: they used to be pathetically geeky & now they're COOL, even SOPHISTICATED. I am reminded of this each time I waltz into a Chapters or other mass-consumption bookstore & spy a wall of Manga in the "Art" section. Long gone are the days when I would spend a Sunday browsing through the misunderstood world of illustrated stories at Island Fantasy in Victoria. You don't have to hide your dirty little secret any longer - you can purchase comics in public now & skip the plain brown wrapper, as they are considered high art.

I have many fave graphic novels (that's what they call comics for grown-ups...if you don't believe me then read this) gracing my bookshelves interspersed with Rav Adin Steinsaltz et al, including Chester Brown's Louis Riel, Berni Wrightson's Frankenstein & Jon J Muth's Dracula: A Symphony in Moonlight and Nightmares (for which there are no images available on the web, if you can believe it, but you could look here).

But I have two Jewish favorites: the first is Greenberg the Vampire by DeMatteis & Badger, a rollicking ride through the world of secular-Jewish-fiction-author-by-day-guiltridden-vampire-by-night Oscar Greenberg. In his story we meet such characters as Lilith, who has been stalking him since birth; his Bubbe, who has been casting ancient Jewish protection spells to shield him; his funky live-in non-Jewish girlfriend (who accidentally transformed him into a vampire) & his shlumpy nephew. The rabbi in the story is totally disempowered.
The second is Fagin the Jew by comic legend Will Eisner. In this work he examines the (probable socially acceptable at the time) veiled anti-Semitism in Dickens' Oliver Twist!. One of the things I appreciate about his thoughtful portrayal of Moses Fagin à la Rosencrantz and Guildenstern Are Dead (Tom Stoppard), is that he researches the struggle for acceptance/assimilation Jews were faced with in a country obssessed with class distinction & yet which made a better home for them than anywhere else in Europe. Eisner also looks into his own past of less-than-shining portrayals of African-American superhero sidekicks & honestly admits that even a politically & socially sensitive Jew like himself can be blinded by his country to trends in racial stereotype.

They're all good reads - even the Rav Steinsaltz volumes ;+>