Welcome to my blog! I am currently enrolled in a course which explores Judaism through comic books. Not just the religious practice itself but the public perceptions, impacts and history of how these two subjects have been intertwined.
On the first day of class we went over the texts which had been selected and I was surprised at the range of comics and graphic novels which would be used! It should be an interesting set of readings. I have always found fiction serves as a great medium for conveying spiritual and philosophical content. By invoking a fictional world the author can often get the reader to suspend their natural suspicions and doubts long enough for them to see old issues in a new light. Also by getting the reader to empathize with the characters by building an interesting story, a lot of wisdom often sneaks into fiction. Points that would be argued against or rejected with a closed mind if it was in a non-fiction format are given a chance this way.
An example of this comes to mind from a series of books I first read probably about 22-24 years ago. The Dragonlance series of novels by Margaret Weis and Tracy Hickman explore the issues of maintaining faith in the absence of miracles as well as the dangers of blind faith. The questioning and revelations are interwoven in a fantasy epic and most readers probably do not even notice the importance of these topics to the story. That is the strength I was thinking of with graphic novels and comics. Readers are being exposed to ideas and thoughts they would refuse to read about without the "fun" story and easy to read format.
Well I think that is enough of my thoughts of the topic, time to dig into some of the reading.
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