Thursday, May 7, 2009

Dr. Strange and pop psychology

I just recently bought the collected issues of the old Doctor Strange comics, and I must say, I have a renewed appreciation for Stan Lee, their author. Lee (Leiber, actually), was not shy about using psychology and psychiatry as source material for this comic scripts. Doctor Strange is, on the surface, about "Black Magic" (whatever that is), but it's actually about the human psyche, where the fight for good over evil happens in the human mind. The nightmarish dreamscape cooked up by artist Steve Ditko is great, filled with a variety of icons of pop-art surrealism heavily influenced by Salvidor Dali (just think of Dali's painting "The Persistence of Memory") I'm trying to imagine how Doctor Strange would change is there were references to the Zohar (the sourcebook of the Kaballah & Jewish Mysticism) Floating Hebrew letters? Dark fire against Light fire? Jewish archetypes as comic characters in a nightmarish underworld? Gehenom (sp?) as the place where Doctor Strange fights his battles? Dr. Stange's battles all seem to be with his nightmares. I've got a renewed appreciation for Dr. Strange, which is actually a comic book form of pop psychology, but with a creepy underworld surrealism pop art gloss.