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.

Why is it okay for Man to censor God?

When putting together the Comic Book Siddur, I made sure that there was no "gratutious" violence, that is, instances of people hitting each other. The only violence I illustrated had to do with the weather, and those are Acts of God. Still, some of my critics feel that the very image thunderstorms, electrical energy, and cosmic fire is too violent, and thus "inapproprite", even though that imagery is very much a part of the Bible. You only have to read the upcoming parsha, Shemini, to see how graphic and gross the torah can get. This is where we see the preist Aaron preparing a sacrifice for God. He slaughters a calf, and when proceeds to dab the calf's blood at various places of the alter. It had to be pretty bloody, because Aaron then takes the calf's fat, kidneys and liver and burn them at the base of the altar as an offering. The pungent smoke that results is also part of the offering to God.

Now, without going any further into the details of this parsha, doesn't this strike you as a bit graphic? I can only imagine what one of my critics would say about this imagery, if it were to be illustrated in comic book form. Too gross? Too graphic? But this ritual is at the core of our religion. Even though later, it was substituted with prayer (prayer being a sacifice of ourselves to God), we still have this very graphic imagery as part of our literary tradition. I always get a kick out of watching a little old granny approaching the bima to read a portion such as this.

Recently, Aline Kominsky Crumb spoke at our local JCC, and she let out the word that her husband, R.Crumb, has finished working a comic book version of Genesis, warts and all. I can't wait to see it. Imagine what he'd do with Exodus, with it's graphic descriptions of sacrifices to God. This is not to revel in the gore, but rather, to ask the question "Who are we to censor God's language?"

Marvel Comics & the Passover Plagues, more entries!

Rabbi Benjamin Sharff (editor of the Comic Book Siddur has come up with some suggestions for addition Marvel Comics characters to represent the Passover Plagues :

Plague of Death of the First Born: Dr. Doom

Plague of Hail: Storm

Plague of Frogs: Toad

Plague of Wild Beasts: Beast

Plague of Darkness: Mysterio

Marvel Comics & the Passover Plagues

With Passover upon us, I got to musing how the plagues in the passover story would make great inspiration for some Marvel Comics Supervillains. So I did some checking online, and sure enough, almost every plague has it's corresponding supervillain. Sometimes it's a stretch, but there's enough correspondence for me to make my point! So, in the spirit of passover, here they are: the Marvel Comics supervillain equivalents of the Passover Plagues.

The Plague of the Pharoah (why not? Even though he's not regarded as a plague, he should be): Pharoah

Plague of Locusts: The Locust

Plague of Dead Livestock, Dead Fish, and Boils: The Plague (Bubonicus)

Plague of Dead Livestock, Dead Fish, and Boils (another version): Bacillus

Plague of Frogs: Leap Frog

Plague of Flaming Hail (well, actually just flame; I couldn't find flaming hail): Flame

Plague of Darkness: Dweller-In-Darkness

Theater of the Seder

I've always had a visceral love for Passover, for its sheer theatricality. Everything on the seder plate is symbolic. If it tastes bitter, there's a reason. If it tastes salty, there's a reason for that too. Same for sweetness. I'm also a big fan comic books, and how the comic book art form is a wonderful way for telling a story. But truth be told, not even comic books holds a candle to the re-enactment of our story through tastes, smells, and activities.

As an artist, objects take on a symbolic significance. Oftentimes, the meaning of the symbols is very personal, only understood by you. But for passover, we all understand the meanings of the foods on the Seder plate: with as many senses as we can, we are reminded of the Passover experience, of our slavery in Egypt, of God's plagues against Pharoah, and our ultimate freedom.

I got to thinking about how far the symbolism went. Rabbi Jill Jacobs, in her article on the "My Jewish Learning" site, has a nicely organized breakdown of the meanings of the various foods. She even says something about their placement. Imagine, we don't just thank God for our food, but we also give each food a role in a choreographed table top theater. One thing that I like about Rabbi Jacob's article is that she concludes by inviting the reader to make the seder personal by bring an object that represents liberation to him or herself. Thus, her seder would involve a kind of show-and-tell experience.

Not that this would all be good. Once you get a table of us together, and inviting them to basically kvetch, it could go anywhere. Once you start talking about symbols of freedom, you're bound to start dwelling on stories of captivity as well. What if your seder guest's meaningful symbolic artifacts brought up bad memories? And then there all all of those cups of wine!

I wonder if this great tradition of having a seder, with its symbolic foods, doesn't point the way towards a more theatric and interactive type of literature? Suppose a trend caught on, where the authors of books would include food suggestions at various parts of their stories. I've heard of parties based on a theme from something in real life. But imagine that an author included a food shopping list with their books. That would take writing in a whole new direction: authors would have to write with flavors and aromas (maybe included as notes in the back of the book) Or imagine meeting with friends at a scene from a book, and ordering what one of the characters ordered from the menu.

Only someone who loved the seder would come up with nutty ideas like this.

Moral Vision and Moral Confusion

One of the first prayers our siddur has us say in the morning is "Thank you God for giving us the ability to distinguish darkness from light". In the Comic Book Siddur, I illustrate this as a caped character running and pointing his way towards the sun, out from billowing dark clouds. With this imagery, it's clear that there is "Light" and "Dark", and that it's easy to tell the differene: Black billowing clouds with angry face = Dark; Bright shining smiling sun = Light. That's a simple graphic convention I used to provide a simple meaning to that blessing, to illustrate darkness and light, and how they are different. But if you examine the wording of that blessing, you'll see that the real meaning is much more profound.

It's not enough that God separated Darkness from Light in the early days of Creation. What we're thanking God for is our ability to tell the difference. But who can't tell the difference between darkness and light? Those who are blind. The prayer thanking God for opening the eyes of the blind immediatly follows the prayer thanking God for letting us distinguish darkness from light.

If were are take these prayers at face value, they are trivial, for it's obvious what the difference is between dark and light: one is defined by the other. Light = absence of Darkness, and vice versa. That same goes for the phrase "opening the eyes of the blind". If we were talking about those who are literally blind, then why would it even be in the siddur? Most of us can see; only a fraction of Humanity is without eyesight.

The only way to make sense of both of these prayers is on the metaphorical level. The concepts "dark", "light", and "blindness" have spiritual meaning only as it relates to our soul (that is, the seat of our emotions). I mean, the literal (or "simple") meaning of "light", "dark", and "sight" is nice enough; the world is filled with visual wonders, and our eyes allow us to appreciate them. But think about the moral meaning of these terms (light, dark, sight/vision): the siddur is advising us against moral confusion. We must pray to God that we maintain the ability to tell the difference between right and wrong, or else we're lost, blind, stumbling around in the dark with no direction home. Before you know it, you may be convincing yourself that Bad is Good, and vice versa. We should pray to God that we have a moral foundation, and that we don't forget who we are.

So how do you illustrate that in a comic book? By having a guy in a cape running out of an angry dark billowing cloud into a smiley happy bright sunshiney face.

Why Get Pissed at the Prayer for Peeing?

Some people just can't handle any reference to urination and defication, even if it's in the siddur. One of the the early morning prayers, "Asher Yatzar", has us thanking God for the various orafices and cavities in or bodies. The prayer goes on to get descriptive (quoting the ArtScroll Siddur): "If any one of them (our cavities or orafices) were to be ruptured or blocked, it would be impossible to stand here before You. Anyone who's ever had trouble urinating or making a bowel movement can appreciate this prayer.

In my book, the Comic Book Siddur", I illustrate this particular prayer with a guy sitting on a box, in an artistic reference to Rodin's sculpture "The Thinker". I pointed a word balloon to his mouth, with the text of the prayer reduced to: "Thanks God, for making me regular!"

Surprisingly (or maybe not so surprisingly) some people find that illustration offensive. "You've got a guy sitting on a toilet!", a woman explanined to me; "I just think that it's in poor taste!" What baffles me is that my illustration of the prayer, and my english translation of it ("thanks for making me regular!") is much more tame than the actual english translation as found in the Art Scroll siddur. The "Asher Yatzar" prayer explicitly talks about bodily cavites being obstructed making it impossible to relieve oneself. That imagery gets into your head just by reading the prayer right out of the Art Scroll siddur. But in the Comic Book Siddur, it's all sanitized and euphemized, while still getting across the same idea. I don't show someone who's bodily orafices have been obstructed, who'd having an impossible time urinating or defacating. That imagery sprung from the original authors of the siddur. But when I come up with some counter-imagery, namely, a superhero sitting on a soapbox, musing about life (ala Rodin's "Thinker") suddenly I'm the one being offensive. And to think that the big problem with a comic book version of the siddur in the first place had more to do with the fact that it had illustrations. Some people are comfortable describing disturbing graphic scenes with language, but illustrating them -- even in a sanitized and euphemistic way --suddenly makes them objectionable? Go figure...