Criminal Procedure and Trials in Nigeria 9780567687, 9780567687975, 9780567713919

Citation preview

SCRIPTURAL TRACES: CRITICAL PERSPECTIVES ON THE RECEPTION AND INFLUENCE OF THE BIBLE

21 Editors

Matthew A. Collins, University of Chester Michelle Fletcher, King’s College London, UK Andrew Mein, Durham University, UK

Editorial Board

Michael J. Gilmour, David Gunn, James Harding, Jorunn Økland

Published under

LIBRARY OF HEBREW BIBLE/ OLD TESTAMENT STUDIES

689 Formerly Journal for the Study of the Old Testament Supplement Series Editors Laura Quick, Oxford University, UK Jacqueline Vayntrub, Yale University, USA Founding Editors David J. A. Clines, Philip R. Davies and David M. Gunn Editorial Board Sonja Ammann, Alan Cooper, Steed Davidson, Susan Gillingham, Rachelle Gilmour, John Goldingay, Rhiannon Graybill, Anne Katrine Gudme, Norman K. Gottwald, James E. Harding, John Jarick, Tracy Lemos, Carol Meyers, Eva Mroczek, Daniel L. Smith-Christopher, Francesca Stavrakopoulou, James W. Watts

ii

THE BIBLE AND COMICS

Women, Power and Representation in Graphic Narratives

Zanne Domoney-Lyttle

T&T CLARK Bloomsbury Publishing Plc 50 Bedford Square, London, WC1B 3DP, UK 1385 Broadway, New York, NY 10018, USA 29 Earlsfort Terrace, Dublin 2, Ireland BLOOMSBURY, T&T CLARK and the T&T Clark logo are trademarks of Bloomsbury Publishing Plc First published in Great Britain 2024 Copyright © Zanne Domoney-Lyttle, 2024 Zanne Domoney-Lyttle has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as Author of this work. For legal purposes the Acknowledgements on p. ix constitute an extension of this copyright page. Cover design: Jade Barnett Cover image © Jon McNaught All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, or any information storage or retrieval system, without prior permission in writing from the publishers. Bloomsbury Publishing Plc does not have any control over, or responsibility for, any thirdparty websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library. Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data ISBN: HB: 978-0-567-687-968 ePDF: 978-0-5676-8797-5 ePUB: 978-0-5677-1391-9 Series: Library of Hebrew Bible/Old Testament Studies, volume 689, Scriptural Traces volume 21 ISSN 2513-8758 Typeset by Deanta Global Publishing Services, Chennai, India To find out more about our authors and books visit www​.bloomsbury​.com and sign up for our newsletters.

For Simon

vi

CONTENTS List of Figures Acknowledgements

viii

ix

Chapter 1 INTRODUCING THE BIBLE AND COMICS 1 Chapter 2 READING THE BIBLE AND/AS/IN COMIC BOOKS 9 CASE STUDIES Chapter 3 ‘WORD-FOR-WORD’ BIBLE COMICS AND SARAH: CHALLENGING

AUTHORITY 35 Chapter 4 MANGA BIBLES AND POTIPHAR’S WIFE: DRAMATIZING EMOTIONS 65 Chapter 5 PLAYFUL COMIC BOOK BIBLES AND REBEKAH: BREAKING BOUNDARIES 89 Chapter 6 SATIRICAL AND SUBVERSIVE COMIC BIBLES AND EVE: REVEALING TEXTS 111 Chapter 7 DRAWING CONCLUSIONS 130 Bibliography Index of References

143 153

FIGURES1 ‘Gen. 15:13-16:2’, R. Crumb, The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb 45 ‘Gen. 16:3-6’, R. Crumb, The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb 49 ‘Gen. 16:1-8’, T. McNinch, Illustrated Genesis in Hebrew 58 ‘Gen. 39’, Siku, Manga Bible 71 ‘Gen. 39 (p. 1)’, from Japanese Bible 80 ‘Gen. 39 (p. 2)’, from Japanese Bible 83 ‘Gen. 39 (p. 3)’, from Japanese Bible 85 ‘Gen. 25:19-26’, S. Rosenzweig and A. Freeman, The Comic Torah 98 ‘Gen. 25:19-26’, B. Powell Smith, The Brick Bible 105 ‘Gandalf ’s Garden (p. 6)’, D. Rooum, Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament 123 6.2 ‘Gandalf ’s Garden (p. 7)’, D. Rooum, Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament 124 6.3 ‘Gandalf ’s Garden (p. 8)’, D. Rooum, Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament 125 7.1 ‘Sarah, Sarah, Come out of the shadows’ (p. 231), S. Lightman, The Book of Sarah 138 3.1 3.2 3.3 4.1 4.2 4.3 4.4 5.1 5.2 6.1

1. T h ough it would have been highly preferable to include a larger number of images throughout this volume, it has been a difficult and expensive process to get the requisite permissions for the images included above. This is worthy of note since if the conversation around cultural Bibles is to be advanced, more support is required in this area to ease the process. As it is, my heartfelt thanks to Sarah Blake who joined me on my quest to contact several publishers during the Covid-19 pandemic, and whose persistence means we have the above images to enjoy in this volume.

ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS This book has been a long time coming. It was derived from my PhD thesis which was completed and successfully examined in February 2018, ‘Drawing (non) Tradition: Matriarchs, Motherhood and the Presentation of Sacred Text in The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb’ (University of Glasgow, 2018), but has changed course significantly over the intervening years to expand, develop and examine more titles and themes than did my original thesis. It survived a global pandemic, an unsought-after change of career and many of life’s other interruptions. As such, my first thanks must go to Sarah Blake and Dominic Mattos of Bloomsbury/T&T Clark for their enduring patience, support and belief that this project would ever be complete. I am truly grateful for your gentle reminders and insistence the project would be complete. Thanks also to Matthew A. Collins, Andrew Mein and Claudia V. Camp for publishing this within the Scriptural Traces Series, where it sits well alongside other illustrious and creative titles, and a special thanks to Mat, who has championed me from the first day we met all those years ago at the Society for Old Testament Studies Summer Meeting. The book would not have been conceived, let alone completed, without the influence of many teachers, lecturers and professionals I have had the good fortune to both study under and work with over the years. Though she has now passed, I wish to acknowledge my printmaking and mixed media art teacher, Silvana McLean, who was the first person to teach me to kill my darlings as a young art student. Her lesson has never left me, and it was needed for the successful delivery of this project. Dr A. K. M. Adam was the first lecturer who encouraged me to pursue a study of comic books and biblical studies back in Glasgow in 2013 and has continued to champion me from afar. Thanks go to him and to Dr Margaret Adam for their support, encouragement and friendship. I wish also to thank former teachers and colleagues at the University of Glasgow, including Prof. Charlotte Methuen, Prof. Scott Spurlock, Prof. Sean Adams, Dr Jonathan Birch, Dr Samuel Tongue and Ms. Christine Roser, all of whom have provided encouragement and friendship in different forms and at different times. Thanks to Dr Katie Edwards and Dr Mia Spiro, who provided constructive and helpful feedback during my PhD Viva examination; I have incorporated their suggestions into this book including (I hope) to stop overusing the comma in my writing. My thanks to Prof. Laurence Grove, who provided expert guidance and supervision during my MTh and PhD from the perspective of the world of comic books. I am most appreciative that he recognized the value in what I wanted to do and never discouraged me from pursuing my goals even if they seemed somewhat leftfield at times. I cannot overstate how important Dr Sarah Nicholson has been not only to this project but to my development as a person. The evolution from

x

Acknowledgements

lecturer to supervisor to colleague and then to friend was the natural outcome of years of enlightened discussions, gentle challenges, bottles of wine and excellent reading recommendations. Long may our friendship continue. I would like to thank my family – Anja, Paul, Astrid and Jody – for their continued cheerleading efforts. To Willow, Jack and Nell in particular, I hope that you will always understand the value of stories as they create joy, foster curiosity and provide rich entertainment. The three of you have already provided me with such riches through your own stories. Finally, comics creator Grant Morrison once said that we live in the stories we tell ourselves. Simon, you are my story.

Chapter 1 INTRODUCING THE BIBLE AND COMICS

In 2009, underground comix legend R. Crumb produced a singular work, The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb, which purports to be a faithful, graphical interpretation of the book of Genesis from the Hebrew Bible. Spanning over 200 pages, Crumb’s illustration of Genesis took over four years to complete and was moderately successful when published. It won the Harvey Award for Best Artist and was nominated for the coveted Eisner Award in three different categories.1 Crumb’s comic book version of Genesis spent sixteen weeks at number one in the New York Times bestsellers’ list for Graphic Novels.2 Crumb’s comic book retelling of Genesis is not all that unique. It belongs in a long line of comic book versions of the Bible, and an even longer history of illustrated Bibles (and relatedly, children’s Bibles). In recent years, the number of comic books based on biblical stories available on the market has increased, and they range in detail, fidelity to the text and target audience as well as in style, content and format. There are those biblical comic books like Crumb’s which claim to be straightforward retellings of scripture and which therefore aim to omit as little textual source material as possible.3 Then, there are those biblical comic books which are based on scripture but which are much freer in either omitting 1. ‘The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb’, W. W. Norton, accessed 4 August 2019, http://books​.wwnorton​.com​/books​/The​-Book​-of​-Genesis​-Illustrated​-by​-R​-Crumb/. 2. ‘New York Times Bestsellers: Hardcovers in Graphic Novels’, New York Times, accessed 10 July 2019, http://www​.nytimes​.com​/best​-sellers​-books​/2010​-02​-21​/hardcover​ -graphic​-books​/list​.html. 3. I acknowledge that ‘straightforward retelling of scripture’ is a highly problematic term, and I explore this in the first case study which focuses on The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb (W. W. Norton, 2009). In this instance, however, I use the term loosely to identify the perceived aims of the artist/writer, and to distinguish between biblical comics which are designed to be a loyal adaptation of the Bible, and biblical comics which have no such concern. Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated falls into this category, as well a forthcoming digital comic, ‘The Word for Word Bible Comic’, which claims to be an ‘unabridged, historically rich graphic novel of the Bible with a high view of scripture’. See: Simon Amadeus Pillario, ‘The Word for Word Bible Comic’, accessed 4 February 2020, http://www.wordforword bibl​ecomic.com.

2

The Bible and Comics

or embellishing certain details, stories or characters for ideological or political reasons (mostly).4 There are comic books which use biblical stories or characters within their story-arcs but which significantly adapt and transform them into something not readily associated with biblical scripture,5 and lastly there are those biblical comic books which retell the Bible in a light-hearted, humorous, or satirical manner.6 These ‘biblical’ comic books are often created as a mockery of sacred text and are likely to have a political or social agenda attached to them, such that they are unlikely to attract a religious audience. It is more probable that they will annoy or even offend such a group. These groupings, of course, often wildly overlap with one another and the distinctions presented here are somewhat arbitrary though meant to help the reader understand the range of biblical comic books on the market. Each biblical comic book, no matter what approach the author/artist takes ranges in terms of target audience (i.e. is it for religious or secular readers? Adult or youth? Seasoned comics reader or not?), style, purpose, intention and level of engagement with the primary source of the Bible. As such, no biblical comic book belongs to one single genre, is created from one unified approach, nor can be interpreted with a particular meaning in mind. Additionally, the principal mode of storytelling by juxtaposing image with text only muddies the interpretive waters further especially around, for example, issues of fidelity to the biblical text, interpretation of biblical stories, and whether comics can be regarded as exegesis, midrash, adaptation or something completely different. Much like any style of biblically based literature, biblical comic books are part of that wide tapestry of cultural reception of the Bible, each with their own unique relationship with the Bible. After all, remediating ancient, biblical text into modern graphical comic books impacts how we read both the comic book and the 4. Most biblical comics published by Christian publishing houses follow this route and tend to be directed towards children to capture their imagination and make the Bible more appealing. Thus, they often omit material which is not ‘child-friendly’ and embellish or alter material to make it more appealing to a young audience. See for example: Michael Pearl et al., The Kingstone Bible (Fruitland Park: Kingstone Media, 2011); Doug Mauss and Sergio Cariello, The Action Bible: God’s Redemptive Story (Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2010); Mike Maddox and Jeff Anderson, The Lion Graphic Bible: The Whole Story from Genesis to Revelation (Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2004); and Basil Wolverton, The Wolverton Bible: The Old Testament & Book of Revelation Through the Pen of Basil Wolverton, compiled by Monte Wolverton (Washington: Fantagraphic Books, 2010). 5. See for example: Peter Gross and Mark Millar, American Jesus Volume One: Chosen (Berkeley: Image Comics, 2009); Mark Waid and Alex Ross, Kingdom Come (Burbank: DC Comics, 1996). These examples use characters and themes from the Bible, and while the stories are loosely based on scriptural ideas, the final product bears little or no resemblance to biblical narrative. 6. See for example: Winshluss, In God We Trust (London: Knockabout, 2014); Tony Bennett, ed., Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament (London: Knockabout Comics, 1987).

1. Introducing the Bible and Comics

3

Bible. Moreover, the relationship between the two challenges traditional ideas of what a Bible really is and how one should interact with it. Can comic book Bibles like Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated really be treated as Bibles in their own right? Or do they lack the same value of cultural and sacred capital held by the traditional, leather-bound Bibles found lining church pews or bookshelves in the home? What even is a Bible anyway, and how do our preconceptions about ‘The Bible’ affect how we pick up biblically related pop-cultural products like comic books? If we add to this mix questions relating to gender, sexuality and other diversity markers (such as representations of disability, ethnicity, race, body type and age) a pattern emerges which shows the ways in which biblical comic books start to interact with identity and biblical narratives. One may expect that contemporary media like comic books would engage with popular-cultural debates around issues like sexism, racism, LGBTQ+ (Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Transgender and Queer +) rights and more. After all, the ability to produce and consume comic books quickly means they are well placed to speak to current issues and they often do (e.g. The Amazing Spider-man: Revelations was produced in the weeks following the 9/11 attacks on New York as a response to the atrocity since Peter Parker lives in and protects New York7). Since the beginning of the #Me-Too movement (2017 onwards), comic books have increasingly acknowledged and even incorporated storylines and characters which reflect a diverse audience including women, nonbinary people, trans communities and people of colour. Similarly, biblical comic books have realized the opportunity to interpret biblical narratives through the lens of diversity and inclusivity. As such, they often present stories which are traditionally read as patriarchal and androcentric in alternative, liberating ways for women, BIPOC (Black, Indigenous and People of Colour) and LGBTQ+ communities. In short, biblical comic books can enable new interpretive spaces for characters within the text, and also for readers of the text to find representation in texts which may historically have excluded them. Addressing the ways in which biblical comic books enable new interpretive spaces for minoritized communities to find representation and expression in the pages of the Bible demonstrates the unique position of subcultural products and their subsequent ability to counter or subvert authoritative, oft-exclusionary texts. This book uses case studies to demonstrate how biblical comic books can function as non-controllable vehicles of cultural expression which challenge the concept of ‘the Bible’ as a singular text, arguing for cultural Bibles as equivalently authoritative and iconic in their space as retellings of ‘the Bible’.

Structure and Approach Reading biblical comics involves skills which borrow from both literary and visual reception of the Bible. The methodological chapter of this book first explores the 7. J. Michael Straczynski, The Amazing Spider-man: Revelations (New York: Marvel, 2001).

4

The Bible and Comics

concept of cultural Bibles, what constitutes a Bible, and how using a cultural-critical lens may help illuminate how ‘meaning’ is made from biblical texts rather than being found in biblical texts.8 What follows is an outline of the approach I take in this book based upon Alderman and Alderman’s suggestion that cultural-biblical products like comic book Bibles often ‘[allow] different theologies to emerge’9 due to the way they are both produced and consumed. I use the term ‘approach’ rather than ‘methodology’ or ‘theoretical framework’ following J. Cheryl Exum’s insistence that her work on visual criticism is indeed an approach rather than a strict framework which must be adhered to (this is further explained later).10 Finally, the methodology chapter contains a glossary-cum-theoretical explanation to key terms used in comics studies. This is included since it is assumed the reader may not be overly familiar with such terminology given that this book is aimed at biblical scholars in the first instance. It is hoped by including this section, the reader may refer to it throughout the course of the case studies. Furthermore, this section elucidates the key differences between reading a text-only work vs. a textimage narrative (or, indeed, a visual piece). Following the methodology, this book contains four case studies, each of which takes specific biblical narratives and comic books which retell those narratives as their subject. All are approached from a visual-critical framework and use the approach outlined in the next chapter. The first case study in Chapter 3 explores the world of so-called ‘word-for-word’ comic Bibles and their retelling of the story of Sarai and Hagar in Gen. 16:1-6. Drawing upon the work of R. Crumb and his The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb (2009) and Timothy C. McNinch’s Illustrated Genesis in Hebrew (2018), this chapter demonstrates the ways in which cultural retellings can challenge dominant patriarchal agendas by utilizing form and function associated with biblical comics. By focusing on the ‘narrativity of images’11 and by placing illustrations in conversation with the text they represent, the reader is better positioned to understand how text-image narratives both relate to and oppose ‘original’ biblical stories, simultaneously reflecting the ancient words of the Bible and contemporary cultural concerns, as well as demonstrating Beal’s concept of multiple cultural Bibles (explored and explained in the next chapter).12 The second case study explores the world of manga Bibles through two popular examples: Siku’s The Manga Bible: From Genesis to Revelation (2007) and OnePeace Books’ The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition (2012), to present a visual-critical   8.  Timothy Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond: Toward the Cultural History of Scriptures’, Biblical Interpretation 19 (2011): 364.  9. Isaac M. Alderman and Christina L. Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted: Biblical Texts in Comic Form’, ARTS: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies 22, no. 4 (2011): 22–36, here 22. 10. J. Cheryl Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary: Visual Criticism from Hagar the Wife of Abraham to Mary Mother of Jesus (London: Bloomsbury, 2019), 4. 11. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 4. 12. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 364.

1. Introducing the Bible and Comics

5

reading of Gen. 39:1-20, the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. This chapter demonstrates the ways in which the creators of these works have used visual and textual tools to re-present Gen. 39:1-20 in a format which is rooted in the visual aesthetics of manga, but which also speaks to traditional biblical interpretations of the story. Such a combination emphasizes the pronounced othering of Potiphar’s wife, a move which casts her as a one-dimensional powerful seductress against Joseph’s passivity in the narrative. One might think this is nothing new; however, the format of manga relies on dramatic moments and heightened emotions to relay the story to the reader, something which in the case of Gen. 39:1-20 means the story is often presented without much detail or nuance further exacerbating Potiphar’s wife as the villain of the story against Joseph’s status as hero. In short, the style and format of manga mostly precludes any chance of interpreting Gen. 39:1-20 as anything other than a hero narrative with Joseph assuming that role, emphasizing action over storytelling. Relatedly, this chapter demonstrates that even where some comic book Bibles show some fidelity to the text, any omission of detail in the graphic retellings often becomes much more obvious since less space is given to details and more emphasis is put on action. This opens the manga versions to questioning by the reader and allows them greater control over how they read the story from their own social position. In the third case study, we turn to what I have termed ‘playful’ comic book Bibles; that is, comic books which ask the reader to engage with them in ways similar to how we may engage with toys, colouring-in books and other imaginative paraphernalia. As noted by Helene Høyrup, connecting reading, culture, aesthetics and play is intrinsic to problem-solving, embracing transformation and creating culture on a broad scale.13 Thus, playfully and imaginatively toying with biblical texts which may prove troublesome or at least difficult to understand in their textual forms is a way of negotiating and contextualizing their content in nonprescriptive ways. Taking an intersectional approach of playfulness, creativity and humour as a starting point, this chapter focuses on Aaron Freeman and Sharon Rosenzweig’s The Comic Torah (2010) and Elbe Spurling’s The Brick Bible: A New Spin on the Old Testament (2011) and how they represent the story of Rebekah in Gen. 25:21-26. The chapter demonstrates the ways in which toying with the text of the Bible through colourful and funny text-image renderings is one of the most successful ways to challenge established and traditional readings of the Bible. In this case study, we see the ways in which comic book creators can maintain a sense of fidelity to the text (which some readers will deem important) while also pushing the boundaries of the story to be more inclusive and less reliant on potentially exclusionary and often harmful readings. However, this raises the

13. Helen Høyrup, ‘Towards a Connective Ethnography of Children’s Literature’, in More Words about Pictures: Current Research on Picture Books and Visual Verbal Texts for Young People, ed. Naomi Hamer, Perry Nodelman and Mavis Reimer (London: Routledge, 2017), 93.

6

The Bible and Comics

question about the difference between satire, humour and playfulness, a question which is addressed in the final case study of the book. The last case study takes satirical or subversive comic book Bibles as its focus, reflecting on the figure of Eve and the story of the Fall and expulsion from Eden in Genesis 3. Comic book Bibles such as Winshluss’s In God We Trust (not used in this book) and the anthology Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament (various artists and writers) intentionally satirize or subvert biblical narratives as a way to simultaneously challenge authoritative Bibles, bring humour and humanity back into the text, and enable the text to be at least partially claimed by secular/ non-religious communities in a literary sense. We will focus on the latter, since it raises questions about what claims secular and non-religious communities can have over the Bible as a literary product, and the ways in which comic book Bibles may facilitate this. Conversely, the use of satire and subversion in biblical retellings often legitimizes the authority of the text, depending on who is doing the interpreting, as we will see.14

Why Comic Book Bibles? The relationship between comic books and the Bible is a natural partnership. Charles Hatfield suggests that from a reader’s viewpoint, comics would seem to be radically fragmented and unstable. I submit that this is their great strength: comic art is composed of several kinds of tension, in which various ways of reading – various interpretive options and potentialities – must be played against each other. If this is so, then comics readers must call upon different reading strategies, or interpretive schema, than they would use in their reading of conventional written text.15

The same can be applied to reading biblical texts. Just as comics are composed of ‘several types of tension’, so are the multiple texts which make up the Bible. Just as there are multiple ways of reading and interpreting comic art and literature, there exist multiple strategies and approaches to reading the Bible which bring to the fore different themes and ways to interpret the text. The similarities between the production and consumption of comic books and what we know of the production and consumption of biblical texts suggest that applying reading strategies for comic books onto biblical literature might be a profitable way of extrapolating meaning or at least viewing afresh potential readings of the Bible: ‘[T]o the already 14. Leslie Cushing Stahlberg, ‘Refuse, Realism, Retelling: Literal and Literary Reconstructions of Noah’s Ark’, in Subverting Scriptures: Critical Reflections on the Use of the Bible, ed. Beth Hawkins Benedix (London: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009), 23–44, here 38. 15. Charles Hatfield, ‘An Art of Tensions’, in A Comics Studies Reader, ed. Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester (Mississippi: University of Mississippi Press, 2009), 132–47, here 132.

1. Introducing the Bible and Comics

7

daunting (and controversial) issue of reading, then, we must assume several new complexities if we are to understand what happens when we read comics.’16 Academic circles have spent many an hour on the relationship between the Bible and literature, the Bible and art, and the Bible and culture. Studying the Bible and comic books combines many of the elements of these studies, while developing an approach which extends beyond the reach of existing works. The question should not be, ‘why comic book Bibles’ but rather, why not?

Clarification of Terms Comic Book: I use the term ‘comic book(s)’ or ‘comics’ specifically throughout this book instead of ‘graphic novel’. Within the field of comics studies, there has been some debate on the use of the term ‘graphic novel’ which to some (myself included) indicates a hierarchy within comics which should not exist. The use of the word ‘novel’ is particularly problematic, potentially differentiating between long-form and short-form comics, with the implication that long-form comics belong to a higher stratum than short-form comics. In my opinion this is not the case, and while it is correct to observe there are many different genres and styles within the world of comic books, I am uncomfortable with the suggestion that some comic books are higher in intellectual (and often monetary) value than others because of their length or complexity. My opinion on this was informed by an illuminating paper and discussion led by Dr Erin La Cour (University of Utrecht), at a seminar hosted by the Stirling Maxwell Centre (University of Glasgow), which was based on her article ‘Comics as a Minor Literature’.17 However, if I am citing a scholarly work which refers to any of the comic books referenced within this book as ‘graphic novels’, I do not change this to ‘comic book’. Remediation: Since part of the central argument in this book is that biblical comic books are not just retellings or illustrated versions of the Bible, I mostly use the term ‘remediation’ to refer to the re-interpretation of the Bible in comics. I avoid ‘illustrated version’ in particular (though I will use ‘version’ occasionally), since I argue that referring to works as ‘illustrated versions’ diverts the reader’s attention from the exegetical textual work within those comics and focuses it instead on the imagery alone. Both text and image are important in comic books. Further, ‘illustration’ draws illustrated Bibles to mind, and while biblical comic books share many traits with illustrated Bibles, and are arguably rooted in their history and tradition, they are more complex and detailed than illustrated Bibles which tend

16. Hatfield, ‘Art of Tensions’, 132. 17. Erin La Cour, ‘Comics as a Minor Literature’, Image [&] Narrative 17, no. 4 (2016), accessed 4 May 2020, http://www​.imageandnarrative​.be​/index​.php​/imagenarrative​/article​/ view​/1336.

8

The Bible and Comics

to have images intermittently. Thus, while biblical comic books borrow from the genre of illustrated Bibles, they exist outside of their limitations. Similar to ‘illustration’, I also do not feel that ‘adaptation’ and ‘interpretation’ are helpful terms. ‘Adaptation’ limits the potential of reading a comic book as anything more than an adaptation of biblical text. One of the questions which arise from my analysis of the case studies concerns the interpretive space which biblical comics inhabit, and ultimately, what biblical comics are in terms of reception and use. ‘Adaptation’ potentially limits the exploration of those research areas, tying biblical comics to the ‘original’ text of the Bible. ‘Interpretation’ has similar limitations, but also implies that the creator of a comic book has made an interpretation of the text which suits their own needs. This may be true in some cases but is too simplistic to be of help in this book; instead, I have chosen to use ‘remediation’. ‘Remediation’ is a term used by J. David Bolter and Richard A. Grusin in their book Remediation: Understanding New Media.18 In their study, Bolter and Grusin describe remediation as the appropriation of the content of one medium into another, usually in terms of ‘new’ media (e.g. digital photography) retelling something originally found in an ‘old’ medium (i.e. a painting).19 In the case studies of this book, comic book creators have remediated ancient biblical text (literature) into a comic book. Remediation is either complete or visible; if complete, this refers to a new medium presenting itself without connection to the old medium it is remediating.20 For example, Jason Aaron’s comic book The Goddamned adapts the story of Cain and Abel but without explicit reference to the biblical text or acknowledgement of the source.21 Visible remediation refers to pieces of an old medium becoming part of, or inserted into, a new medium so that it remains visible even though it now belongs to a new adaptation.22 Biblical comic books most comfortably fall into this category, taking the text of the Bible (from various authoritative sources) and inserting it into a new medium of text-image synthesis. In Bolter and Grusin’s words, ‘[t]he work becomes a mosaic in which we are simultaneously aware of the individual pieces’ and their new, inappropriate setting.’23 I argue that readers of biblical comics are often aware of the biblical origins of the text thanks in part to the continuous signposting of sources throughout the comics, as well as references to biblical text, and that the incorporation of the new medium of images alongside the text highlights the dichotomous elements of the comic book. It is because of this that I choose to use remediation over any other potential description. 18. J. David Bolter and Richard A. Grusin, Remediation: Understanding New Media (Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999). 19. Old media can remediate new media as well, but it is not as common. See: Bolter and Grusin, Remediation, 5. 20. Bolter and Grusin, Remediation, 47. 21. Jason Aaron and r. m. Guéra, The Goddamned, Vol. 1 (Portland: Image Comics, 2017). 22. Bolter and Grusin, Remediation, 47. 23. Bolter and Grusin, Remediation, 47.

Chapter 2 READING THE BIBLE AND/AS/IN COMIC BOOKS

Starting from Dillenberger’s work in the 1960s, scholars in various fields have analysed the effects of juxtaposing image and text: Dillenberger with regard to biblical texts,1 W. J. T. Mitchell with regard to literature2 and Scott McCloud with regard to comic literature.3 Much less attention has been devoted to the effect generated by presenting a familiar ancient text in an unfamiliar graphical medium. There is little doubt and abundant evidence that the study of comic books in academia has grown in popularity over the previous decades. Several highly reputable journals devoted to the study of comics exist, including: The International Journal of Comic Art, European Comic Art and The Journal of Graphic Novels and Comics. There are several online forums devoted to the study of comics, from the broad-ranging Comix-Scholars list4 to the subject-area specific Sacred & Sequential.5 Globally, there are now several annual and biennial conferences, such as the International Graphic Novels and Comics Conference, and the International Bande Dessinée Society Conference, both of which have close links with the University of Glasgow. Additionally, several of the more consumerdriven and fan-oriented Comic-Cons which take place across the world have academic conferences attached to their programmes; arguably the most famous of these is San Diego Comic-Con, which hosts an academic conference entitled Comic Arts Conference alongside its other popular events. Similarly, in the UK the Leeds-based convention Thought Bubble runs a two-day academic conference, The Comics Forum, as part of its week-long convention.

1. John Dillenberger, Images and Relics: Theological Perceptions and Visual Images in Sixteenth Century Europe (New York: Oxford University Press, 1999). 2. William J. T. Mitchell, Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representations (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994); and, Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology (Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1986). 3. Scott McCloud, Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art (New York: HarperPerennial, 1993). 4. T he Comix-Scholars list-serv offers a more private forum for academic discussion on comics and is members-only. It is available at: http://www​.english​.ufl​.edu​/comics​/scholars/. 5.  Sacred & Sequential is available at: http://www​.sacredandsequential​.org/.

10

The Bible and Comics

Despite the rise in comic scholarship, very little serious academic attention has been paid to the subject of the Bible in comics; even less attention has been paid to the connection between the Hebrew Bible and graphic narratives. Moreover, there is a serious dearth of attention given to the concept that popular-cultural products may be read as versions of biblical narratives rather than as mere retellings. This includes comic books, but could extend to pop music (and associated videos, e.g. Lady Gaga’s songs ‘Judas’ [2011] and ‘Bloody Mary’ [2011]),6 TV shows (such as ‘Lost’ [2004–10] or Buffy the Vampire Slayer [1997–2003])7 and even sports entertainment such as wrestling (one need only watch WWE’s character The Undertaker to see how biblical stories have been lifted straight from the pages and thrown into the proverbial wrestling ring).8 Such a lack of scholarly attention means that those questions first put forward in the introduction to this book have gone unexplored: Can comic book Bibles like Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated really be treated as Bibles in their own right? Or do they lack the same value of cultural and sacred capital held by the traditional, leather-bound Bibles found lining church pews or bookshelves in the home? What even is a Bible anyway, and how do our preconceptions about ‘The Bible’ affect how we pick up biblically related popcultural products like comic books?

What Is a Bible? Timothy Beal argues that there are certain criteria that a text must possess for it to be defined as a ‘Bible’.9 These include that the text must be authoritative, univocal, practical (i.e. a reference manual or How-To guide). Bibles should be accessible to anyone and everyone, comprehensive in content and exclusive. On this last criterion, Beal argues that there should be no alternatives, no rivals and no competition with regard to the perceived ultimate authority. Bibles are allencompassing, all-knowing and all-powerful. This is the ‘iconic cultural meaning of the Bible [. . .] the Bible is above all an image of divine authority, the perfect book by the perfect author’.10

 6. Magdalene Cybulska, ‘Women in 21st Century Pop: Reimagining Biblical Themes’ (MTh Diss., University of Glasgow, 2022).  7. Sarah Nicholson, ‘Buffy the Philistine Slayer: Echoes of Samson in the Buffyverse’, in Cultural Bibles in Popular Visual Entertainment, ed. Rebekah Welton and Zanne DomoneyLyttle (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2023).  8. Zanne Domoney-Lyttle, ‘Wrestling with the Bible: Kingmakers, Crucifixions and Creed in WWE Sports Entertainment’, in Cultural Bibles in Popular Visual Entertainment, ed. Rebekah Welton and Zanne Domoney-Lyttle (London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2023).  9. Timothy Beal, The Rise, and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book (Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011), 4. 10. Beal, Rise and Fall of the Bible, 4.

2. Reading the Bible and/as/in Comic Books

11

This is a lot to ask from one book and partly explains the sacred and cultural capital that Bibles seem to possess. For many, the Bible gets its divine authority from God, and there is arguably no higher authority than that. For others, the Bible is imbued with authority given to it by powerful individuals who have spent time poring over the ancient texts in a bid to extract meaning and sense from their pages. People like Clement of Rome, Justin Martyr, Thomas Aquinas and later, Martin Luther, John Calvin and William Tyndale were key figures in developing traditions of biblical exegesis and biblical theology. Later still, and we look to wellknown names like Karl Barth, Dietrich Bonhoeffer and Rudolf Karl Bultmann for some enlightenment on what biblical texts might mean for us in a modern context. There is no other book in Western history which has claimed the attention of such illustrious names, nor indeed been given such authority by God. Biblical comic books do not have such weighty figures behind them. Indeed, the origins of comic books as cheap, disposable, funny bits of culture often mean they are not taken seriously at all, and this is reflected in the fact that comics scholarship has only seriously existed in the past forty years. Comic books lack authority in the realms of culture, literature and art, never mind in critical-biblical circles. There is therefore an inherent tension between authority and medium which exists when comic books seek to re-present sacred texts in an alternative, graphical format which does not comply with the history of the Bible as a ‘cultural icon of faith as black and white certainty’.11 The traditional text-only Bible will always claim authority over any alternative media retellings which seek to reproduce those sacred texts. The sacred value we place on the Bible as an object as well as perceiving it as a ‘cultural icon’12 has sometimes been a ball-and-chain around the proverbial foot of biblical interpretation. Expecting one book (or a collection of books to be more accurate) to hold all the answers to life, universe and everything places a burdensome weight on those thin, fragile papery pages. The answers to even the most difficult questions of life must be contained in those texts because historically and from a religious perspective, we have been told that that is the case. This has led to many skewed and out-of-context interpretations of texts which often have little-to-no bearing on modern life and its complex situations. By seeing the Bible as an authoritative guide to all moral and ethical issues, this also frequently impacts our ability to recognize, remember and appreciate the humanity, creativity and downright weirdness of those texts. We can become disconnected from the stories of life, love, rage, jealousy and wonder because we’re too busy trying to find the meaning behind the strange words. Unfortunately, a consequence of this insistence on reading the Bible through authoritative (read: traditional) lenses for so many centuries means many people have effectively been written out of the Bible’s history. Worse than just being written out, many have been oppressed and marginalized by those with the power 11. Beal, Rise and Fall of the Bible, 5. 12. Beal, Rise and Fall of the Bible, 5.

12

The Bible and Comics

to favour specific interpretations over others. For centuries (if not longer), Bibles have been whitewashed, interpreted from patriarchal perspectives with littleto-no regard for women, non-binary and trans populations. They have been read and interpreted to suit colonial (i.e. white) viewpoints. They have been translated in ways which wound, harm and exclude LGBTQ+ communities. They have more or less completely ignored the disabled community. In short, many ‘traditional’ interpretations suggest that there is a perfect vision of a human being made in the image of God, which, if you do not resemble or reflect, excludes you from its pages.13 Furthermore, since only certain people (nominally authoritative white men) are ‘allowed’ the authority to interpret and translate the pages of the Bible, anyone who does not fit into those categories has a difficult time writing themselves back into the Bible. The voices of Black communities, of women, of non-binary and LGBTQ+ communities, and of disabled people have been, and continue to be, frequently silenced when it comes to interpreting the Bible (though this is thankfully beginning to change).14 Outside of exegetical and Midrashic scholarship on the Bible, it is also true that the Bible’s cultural ‘afterlives’ include the many paintings and films that perpetuate traditional, but ideologically marked, representations of biblical 13. T h ere are numerous scholars who have explored this claim from a multitude of angles, including LGBTQ+ discourse, theology and the Bible: Christopher Greenough, ‘Ambiguities, Authenticity and Actualisation: Life Story Research with a Bisexual Christian’, in Bisexuality, Religion and Spirituality: Critical Perspectives, ed. A. Toft and A. Kam-Tuck Yip (London: Routledge, 2020), 102–19; ‘“Queer Eye” in Theology and Biblical Studies: “Do you have to be queer to do this?”’ JIBS 1, no. 1 (2019): 26-41; ‘Activism in the Queer Biblical Studies Classroom’, JIBS 2, no. 1 (2020): 107–26; Samuel Ross, ‘A Transgender Gaze at Genesis 38’, JIBS 1, no. 2 (2020): 25–39; Aysha W. Musa, ‘Jael is Non-binary; Jael is Not a Woman’, JIBS 1, no. 2 (2020): 97–120. Candida Moss and Jeremy Schipper have explored intersections between disability representation and the Bible in Disability Studies and Biblical Literature (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011), including themes of infertility, physical disability, mental illness and postcolonial perspectives. Nyasha Junior provides a history of womanist biblical interpretations and critical issues related to the Bible in An Introduction to Womanist Biblical Interpretation (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2015), and a reception history of Hagar centring on her identity as Black Woman and the impact of reading Hagar this way to African Americans in Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and Bible (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019). Wilda Gafney also works with womanist biblical interpretation, notably so in Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne (Louisville: Westminster John Knox, 2017). This is not an exhaustive list of the work which has been carried out in this area in recent years but is reflective of some of the more notable works which are working to blur traditional biblical interpretation. 14. It must be noted that in recent decades, there has been a significant surge of interest and scholarship addressing this very problem, and that happily, there is now a wealth of material available which focuses exclusively on marginalization, representation and oppressed voices in the Bible.

2. Reading the Bible and/as/in Comic Books

13

bodies too, further excluding those who do not fit the ‘pattern’. Jesus is white, Satan is black and women are frequently nude. Rarely, if ever, are disabled bodies, LGBTQ+ representations or non-binary perspectives included in cultural representations of the Bible. However, if we turn away from classic and traditional cultural expressions of the Bible (fine art, sculpture, classical music, theatre etc.) and instead turn our attention to non-traditional cultural expressions (e.g. comic books, television shows like The Simpsons, street art, popular music and creative writing), the authority and tradition of the Bible is immediately challenged since it is held to a different standard than classical cultural interpretations. Such modes of entertainment are not considered to be authoritative on religious and moral issues, and as such, any relationship between these ‘lowbrow’ forms of culture and the Bible is rarely taken seriously in either academic or religious circles. In her 2009 book Primer on Biblical Methods and in relation to cultural criticism, Corrine Carvalho discusses how those forms of culture, which she calls ‘non-controllable vehicles’,15 serve to ‘undercut the monopolisation of culture by the elite and privileged and to make room for culture that is not usually the subject of elite study’.16 By ‘non-controllable’ vehicles, Carvalho means ‘unofficial’ forms of cultural expression that are not authorized or endorsed by authoritative bodies (such as the Church) and which are produced for non-religious readers (as well as religiously observant readers if they so choose). Carvalho suggests that the study of alternative or non-traditional expressions of culture challenges established practices of biblical interpretation, and opens the text up to broader, more rigorous and often more creative interpretations. For example, Carvalho cites the ongoing omission of Black art and literature from cultural canon as a way of elevating white voices and denigrating Black communities.17 However, cultural criticism of an iconic book like the Bible can begin to rectify such oppressive actions since cultural criticism, like deconstructionism and postmodern readings of religious texts, seek to ‘deconstruct the authority that certain evaluations of culture have had in order to bring in voices often silenced by the authorising process’.18 Similarly, David M. Gunn describes cultural criticism of the Bible as an opportunity to investigate sociological and ideological enquiries about social structures, cultural movements and religion more broadly, meaning the text of the Bible can be read and interpreted outside of the more traditional approaches which rarely reflect marginalized groups.19 Beal also discusses the merit of reading the Bible through a cultural-critical lens, suggesting that cultural criticism is less concerned with discovering meaning 15. Corrine Carvalho, Primer on Biblical Methods (Winona: Anselm Academic, 2009), 72. 16. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 22. 17. Carvalho, Primer on Biblical Methods, 72. 18. Carvalho, Primer on Biblical Methods, 72. 19. David M. Gunn, ‘Cultural Criticism: Viewing the Sacrifice of Jephthah’s Daughter’, in Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies (2nd Edition), ed. Gale. A. Yee (Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2007), 202–36, here 225.

14

The Bible and Comics

in the Bible than it is about understanding how meaning is made ‘from biblical texts in different cultural contexts’.20 Such an approach means the emphasis is on the culture, the community or the society which receives, interprets and re-presents the Bible, rather than on the Bible itself. Because of this, there is scope for those marginalized communities to interact with and present a Bible which is meaningful to them since they are not bound to traditional (e.g. androcentric, heteronormative, white-centric) approaches of finding meaning in the Bible. As an example, Beyoncé announced her pregnancy and the subsequent birth of her twins with a photography shoot in which she invoked iconography associated with the Virgin Mary. Katie Edwards argues that such a move ‘draws on a complex tradition of political resistance to disrupt white supremacist narratives of black motherhood’21 by echoing influential religious imagery which is normally reserved for white women. Beyoncé’s choice to echo the Virgin Mary when presenting her children to the public is a reclamation of a text which has been used to oppress and harm Black communities, and, in the case of Beyoncé, has also been used to extol the virtues of white motherhood as good and whole, a narrative which does not extend to Black women. As well as opening the Bible to more communities and cultures, engaging with the Bible through cultural criticism highlights another problem which has plagued biblical studies in recent decades: that there is no such thing as ‘the Bible’. That is, there is no original, singular text of the Bible.22 ‘The Bible’ exists and has existed in different formats (oral, scroll, codex, books, art, poetry, etc.), with different literary content, in many translations, versions, commentaries and so forth. Beal argues that the further back we go when we consider the history of ‘the book’ of the Bible, the more diverse it becomes, and the less stable the idea of ‘the’ Bible becomes.23 The Bible is not a definitive object but an indefinite one and should be referred to as ‘a’ Bible. If that is the case therefore, all iterations, remediations and re-presentations of ‘the’ Bible may also be referred to as indefinite Bibles since they belong to this history of translating, exegeting and retelling Bibles in different cultural contexts.24 Carvalho’s discussion of non-controllable or ‘unofficial’ vehicles of cultural expression is the key to my approach in this book to reading biblical comic books through a cultural-critical lens. Such an approach also feeds into Gunn’s, Beale’s and Edwards’ positions concerning so-called cultural Bibles which, in turn, raise questions about authority, authenticity and affiliation. If we are to take Carvalho’s assumptions as a starting point two questions immediately spring to mind: first, 20. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 364. 21. Katie Edwards, ‘Black Madonna: Beyoncé Projects Positive Image of “good” Motherhood’, The Conversation, accessed 20 May 2020, https://theconversation​.com​/black​ -madonna​-beyonce​-projects​-positive​-image​-of​-good​-motherhood​-81105. 22. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 367. 23. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 367–8. 24. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 364.

2. Reading the Bible and/as/in Comic Books

15

how do so-called ‘non-controllable vehicles’25 of cultural expression open the text to non-traditional interpretations? And second, are non-traditional interpretations created by the writer/artist/musician, or by the reader/viewer/listener? What is the relationship between product, creator and consumer? For example, if we take comic books as our non-controllable vehicle since biblical comic books are the focus of this book, do they claim new interpretive ground because of the way they are created, the way they are consumed or is it something else? These questions are, of course, linked.

Interpretive Points in Graphical Retellings In ‘Graphically Depicted: Biblical Texts in Comic Form’,26 Alderman and Alderman explore the tension between creator, product and reader. Using Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated as a case study alongside Siku’s Manga Bible (2007)27 and Iva Hoth’s The Picture Bible (1978),28 they draw on selected passages to explore the hypothesis that presenting the Bible in comic form acts ‘as an interpretive layer allowing different theologies to emerge’.29 They observe that the relationship between author, text and reader is foundational in the study of biblical literature, creating three ‘points’ where meaning can be made: the author’s original thoughts when writing, the completed text, and the reader’s understanding of the text. They argue that comic books, however, have five points where meaning is produced, and this is further complicated by the sequential storytelling aspect of comic books:30 1. Author 1 (original source) 2. Text 1 (original text produced by author) 3. Reader 1-cum-Author 2 (the reader of the original text, employing it as a source for his own version) 4. Text 2 (the author-cum-reader’s text) 5. Reader 2 (the reader of text 2). Reader 1-cum-Author 2 is the point where the original text (Bible) and the retelling (comic book) merge and present a new version of a Bible for Reader 2. Text 2 (biblical comic book) is both a retelling of the Bible and a text, and it is there that non-traditional meanings can emerge for the reader, since Text 2 represents two authors and two texts and therefore has multi-layered meanings. Because of this, 25. Carvalho, Primer on Biblical Methods, 72. 26. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 22–36. 27. Siku, The Manga Bible: From Genesis to Revelation (London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2007). 28. Iva Hoth, The Picture Bible (Illinois: David C. Cook, 1978). 29. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 22. 30. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 22.

16

The Bible and Comics

Alderman and Alderman suggest that the creator of a biblical comic book is at one and the same time ‘both interpreter and open to interpretation’31 since they must both interpret the Bible and present their interpretation in a new text-image format. The author of Text 2 is responsible for reinterpreting the original source of the Bible and inputting whichever ideological claim they choose into their own versions: ‘the crux is in the transition of Reader 1 into Author 2, which begins the process of separating us (reader 2) from the original author and text.’32 The separation between Reader 2 and the original text (Bible) is key to the way in which different theologies and ideologies are able to emerge from biblical comic books. It is this separation from Reader 1 into an author of their own version of Text 1 that allows the space for new interpretations to be created. As David Carrier notes, the reader ‘is not, as a passive auditor, told what to put there; he must find that out and put it there himself ’.33 Simultaneously, the separation of Reader 2 from Text 1 (the Bible) distances Reader 2 from the authoritative iconicity of that book, frees up the Bible for new exploration and interrogation, and almost actively encourages Reader 2 to consider biblical narratives from fresh perspectives that are not weighted in traditional interpretation. However, Reader 2 is never fully distanced from the sacred weight of Text 1, since the iconicity and authority of the Bible is difficult to ignore or forget. This model outlining the tension between authorship and readership goes some way to addressing how non-controllable vehicles of cultural expression enable alternative theologies and ideologies to emerge, but it is not the whole picture, nor does it explain how such cultural expressions open the text in any meaningful way other than because the author intended it so. For example, it does not consider the various other social and cultural factors which impact upon both an author and a reader, nor does it regard the various theories of reader-response which exist to justify how readers approach texts. It also does not consider the production process of cultural products, the interlinked, inseparable relationship between Text 1 and Text 2 (Bible and biblical comic book), and the gendered, social, racial and economic disparities between those who have access to creative and cultural expression and those who do not. These issues are important to consider because they make up the bulk of those three last interpretive points identified by Alderman and Alderman. By considering those points alongside the relationship between Text 1 and Reader 2 identified above, we begin to get a much clearer picture of exactly how noncontrollable vehicles of cultural expression are able to meaningfully challenge elitist and privileged interpretations of the Bible if they so choose.34 For example, it is precisely because biblical comic books lack the weight of authority given 31. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 36. 32. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 22. 33. David Carrier, ‘Caricature’, in A Comics Studies Reader, ed. Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester (Mississippi: University of Mississippi Press, 2009), 105–15, here 113. 34. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 22.

2. Reading the Bible and/as/in Comic Books

17

to a ‘traditional’ authorized translation of a Bible that biblical comic books may claim an interpretive space which challenges white, androcentric, conservative versions of the Bible. Put another way, comic book Bibles may create a space for non-traditional interpretations – especially those by marginalized and oppressed communities – since the form of comic books actively challenges existing authoritative structures in biblical interpretation. Furthermore, comic books as a medium also provide a creative space to re-interpret and re-present traditional ideas in innovative ways. In Aaron Freeman and Sharon Rosenzweig’s The Comic Torah, for example, God is a greenskinned, purple-haired queer woman in love with ‘Honey “The Land” Milkand’, a personification of Israel.35 This creative take presents a non-traditional way of reading the relationship between God and Israel, encouraging new perspectives from readers (as well as a few giggles). However, it is also true that though comic book Bibles lack the same level of iconicity as a traditional Bible, they rely on their relationship to Bibles to signal to readers that they are both drawing on and re-presenting sacred stories. The same challenge to authoritative Bibles is rooted in the authority of the Bible existing in the first place.

Biblical Comic Books Turning explicitly to biblical comic books, I argue there are three ways in which biblical comic books can liberate the text from traditional perspectives while still speaking to the authority of the Bible (if even only in mild form). The first is concerned with production, the second is concerned with collaboration and authorial intention and the third is concerned with reader-response. First, the medium of comic books is widely (and erroneously) regarded as cheap, mass-produced, disposable culture. Such a labelling is the opposite of how wider society views ‘the Bible’. Bibles are not seen to be cheaply produced. Of course, currently, they are mass-produced as most books are, but they are often massproduced with all the semiotic trimmings of a treasured heirloom, gilded and bound in leather for example, or packaged as gifts which are to be cherished and passed down generations. Bibles are certainly not disposable but are held on to, revered and adored as physical objects as much as sacred objects. For example, the iconic value of a physical Bible is regarded as much higher than a digital version of a Bible which might exist on the internet, a mobile phone app or even as a PDF version.36 In a similar way comic book Bibles are not valued for their iconicity but are secondary to the text which inspired them. This means the text of a comic book Bible is not subject to the same level of expectation and significance as a 35. See Chapter 4 in this book for more on this strange yet delightful version of biblical stories. 36. Tim Hutchings, ‘E-Reading and the Christian Bible’, Studies in Religion 44 (2015): 423–40.

18

The Bible and Comics

regular Bible might be and so can play around with the text and experiment with alternative readings more freely, while still drawing on the iconicity of the Bible so that the comic book version is recognizable. Second, the production of comic books is a collaborative process, often involving (sometimes multiple) writers, artists (pencillers and colourists), letterers, inkers, editors, reviewers and publishers. This collaborative approach to creating a single story means no single person has full authority over the story. As Beal has noted, the Bible is often attributed to the greatest divine authority in the heavens,37 and is also given authority by various figureheads in church settings (which are themselves sites of religious authority). Biblical comic books are not held to such levels of authority, and again, this liberates the text and allows different ideological and theological agendas to come to the fore. Third, since biblical comic books do not possess the same iconic value as a Bible does, and since it is a freer process of creation and production, comic book Bibles can be, and often are, created by those who have been excluded from conventional Bibles and traditional biblical afterlives in art and literature. Because biblical comic books fly under the radar of acceptable or mainstream cultural expression, they are freer to reinterpret and re-present texts in a manner which does not adhere to the rules of high art, classic literature and reading the Bible as sacred. As such, biblical comic books are often the place you find LGBTQ+, BIPOC, women and nonbinary representations, and it is often an arena where people can finally put themselves back into the words, where they can reclaim a text which may have excluded them in the past. On this point, we might refer to Alderman and Alderman’s point that Reader 1-cum-Author 2 is the point where Reader 2 (us, the reader of the biblical comic book) becomes separated from Text 1 because their dual status as reader and author, or interpreter and open to interpretation, allows for non-traditional perspectives to be aligned with Text 1. Again, it is the point wherein the tension between the authoritative ‘Bible’ and the new retelling is spawned, and as such, it is in that interpretive point where perceived authority can be challenged.

Visual Criticism With this in mind, this book seeks to demonstrate the ways in which biblical texts have been reimagined in and as comic books, arguing that the format and function of comic books means that non-traditional perspectives including positive representations of women and in some cases (though not nearly enough), representations of other marginalized communities and groups which have been excluded from, erased or misrepresented in traditional retellings of the Bible are reclaiming, reframing, challenging and even subverting biblical text.

37. Beal, Rise and Fall of the Bible, 5–6.

2. Reading the Bible and/as/in Comic Books

19

Using a visual-critical38 approach which balances the intention of the author/ creator against reader response, this book uses the women of the Bible as its focus to elucidate the ways in which comic book creators understand and imagine biblical women. This will include examples of women in relation to other women, men and the divine to show how gendered structures of power are either created or disturbed both visually and textually. Furthermore, focusing on biblical women offers the opportunity to interrogate the text from the perspective of those women, taking the emphasis away from biblical men who are arguably over-represented in cultural reproductions of their stories. Taking a visual-critical approach raises many questions relating to how writers draw on the Bible to inform their stories, as well as how the reader receives them. One might consider, for example, how the inclusion of images impacts or affects the text. What do pictures highlight, and what do they obscure? Do certain parts of the text receive more attention in the accompanying image than others, and if so, does this affect how the reader understands biblical stories, themes or characters? How does a reader engage with a text-image narrative of a Bible story? Does the text-image narrative represent the biblical text, or has it been reshaped to fit ideologies which belong to the creator, or which reflect societal zeitgeists? As a graphic commentary of biblical scripture, what is the commentator (i.e. the creator) trying to say? What kind of interpretive spaces do remediations of the Bible in comic book form offer the reader? And ultimately, who has the right to reinterpret sacred texts anyway? Such questions offer potential avenues for researching relationships between the Bible and art, and the Bible and comic books. Most of them have already been identified in the field of the Bible and art by scholars such as Martin O’Kane,39 J. Cheryl Exum and Ela Nutu,40 for example. Similarly, Emma England,41 Caroline Vander Stichele and Hugh Pyper42 are among scholars who have interrogated children’s Bibles with such questions in mind. However, drawing upon Exum’s approach of visual criticism allows for as many of the above questions to be asked and answered, partly because visual criticism allows for both text and image to be interrogated at the same time as a singular cohesive language. Other methods such as a literary approach, a visual-exegetical approach (as developed by Paolo 38. T h e term is taken from: Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, and will be further defined later. 39. Martin O’Kane, Painting the Text: The Artist as Biblical Interpreter (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007). 40. J. Cheryl Exum and Ela Nutu, eds, Between the Text and the Canvas: The Bible and Art in Dialogue (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), 1–2; Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary. 41. Emma England, The Biblical Flood Story as Retold for Children: The Dove, the Rainbow and the Unicorn (London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2017). 42. Caroline Vander Stichele and Hugh Pyper, eds, Text, Image, and Otherness in Children’s Bibles: What Is in the Picture? (Atlanta: SBL, 2012).

20

The Bible and Comics

Berdini)43 or even a semiotic approach based on theories of reading comic books44 do not fully consider the three intersecting points of word, image and the Bible present in biblical comic books. Embedded within the overall framework and approach of visual exegesis, visual criticism differs from an exegetical approach in that the focus is on the ‘narrativity of images – reading them as if, like texts, they have a story to tell – and reading an image’s “story” against the biblical narrator’s story’.45 Where visual exegesis focuses on the role of the creator (e.g. the artist, the novelist, the comic book creator) and how their understanding of a biblical text is reflected in their creative output, visual criticism is concerned with placing the biblical text in conversation with the piece of art (e.g. painting, novel, comic book) which reflects that text. As Exum explains, it is about understanding what a work of art (or in our case, a biblical comic book) can teach the reader/viewer about the biblical text it seeks to represent.46 The social position of the artist/creator is not as important in visual criticism as it is in a visual-exegetical approach. Instead of worrying about whether the artist/creator was influenced by religious or political factors, and instead of seeking the sources which influenced the artist/creator in their representation of a biblical text in art or comic books, visual criticism is concerned with representation which ‘exists in the present and continues to affect and to produce meanings for its viewers (just as the text does for its readers)’.47 How might one go about such a task of placing art and Scripture in dialogue with each other? In her work, Exum argues that for visual criticism to successfully work as an approach, one must pursue ‘connections between image and text to see where they will lead’48 rather than critiquing where the artist/creator succeeded or failed to represent biblical text. Exum includes a list of possible questions a critic may ask of (in her case) biblical art to allow dialogue to emerge between text and art.49 Five of the questions are particularly useful to consider in this work on biblical comic books.50 The first three are concerned with the comic book as a 43. Paolo Berdini, The Religious Art of Jacopo Bassano: Painting as Visual Exegesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997). See also: Vernon K. Robbins, Walter S. Melion and Roy R. Jeal, The Art of Visual Exegesis: Rhetoric, Texts, Images (Atlanta: SBL, 2017). 44. See: Ann Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée: Critical Approaches to French-language Comic Strip (Chicago: Intellect Books, 2007); Thierry Groensteen, The System of Comics, trans. Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen (Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007); McCloud, Understanding Comics. 45. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 7. 46. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 7. 47. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 7. 48. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 10. 49. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 10–11. 50. I have adapted the questions as they appear in Exum’s book so that they apply to biblical comic books.

2. Reading the Bible and/as/in Comic Books

21

vehicle of biblical representation, and the last two are about how such products are received and understood by readers/viewers: 1. Does the comic book creator respond to a perceived gap in the text or to questions unanswered by the text? 2. Does the comic book creator add something to the biblical text? Do they, for example, magnify something that is not very important in the biblical version? By extension, do they obscure something that is important in the biblical version? 3. Does a biblical comic book attempt to represent the biblical story or to reshape it to fit certain interests, or does it reuse its themes to oppose it? 4. How are our assumptions about biblical characters influenced, or even shaped, by our encounters with their text-image counterparts, and how does this affect the way we read their stories? 5. How does our knowledge of a text affect our interpretation of a comic book based on it? These questions are a useful framework for understanding the process of creating and reading biblical comic books, because they allow the text-image narrative to connect with the biblical text without too much interference from the creator’s social positioning. However, the onus is then on the reader to recognize those connections, and as such their own social positions become magnified and are often reflected in their reading of the biblical comic (or, in Exum’s case, the artwork). Reading biblical comic books through a visual-critical framework is in part a response to Beal’s call to move beyond a reception-historical approach of the Bible in culture towards a cultural history of scripture.51 Such a move, Beal argues, would demonstrate that ‘the Bible’ and ‘the biblical’ ‘represent cultural concepts whose relationships with cultural productions of particular material objects, symbolic contents, and embodied interactions are far from self-evident or fixed’.52 Like the cultural products which interact with the Bible, the Bible itself is unfixed in meaning and should not be thought of as an unchanging, constant document; rather, it should be considered a living document capable of a range of interactions with cultural products and societies which use it. Instead of interpreting scripture via culture, Beal suggests interpreting culture via scripture to demonstrate that there is fluidity in meaning of both cultural products of the Bible and the Bible itself.53 It is a shift from the focus of ‘impacts or influences of biblical texts and Bibles to the cultural meanings of them, as well as of the biblical and the Bible, insofar as

51. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 369–72. 52. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 370. 53. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 371.

22

The Bible and Comics

those too are discursive objects whose meaning and value are culturally produced’.54 Moreover, this study is concerned with demonstrating how comic book Bibles are part of the history of biblical interpretation and reception, and that contemporary biblical comic books hold a similar cultural value to ‘the Bible’. Rather than just retelling biblical narratives, biblical comic books are also cultural Bibles, textimage narratives which themselves create and refresh new and old meanings still rooted in scripture. Comic book Bibles are part of a long history of the reception of the Bible in cultural products.

How to Read Biblical Comics: Method (and Some Madness) Like textual Bibles, biblical comic books can be read in many ways: through the lens of postcolonial criticism, gender theories, from the perspective of literary or visual values, and so forth. Though this book utilizes Exum’s approach of visual criticism with which to frame the case studies, it is also perhaps helpful for the reader to understand some comic-specific terms relating to the production and consumption of comic books. What follows is a summary of key terms relating to reading theories of comic books. It is hoped this will explain to the reader the difference between reading text and text-image works and will aid the argument in this book that biblical comic books are both Bibles and biblical retellings. This is not meant as an exhaustive list of comic book terms but almost a glossary-lite for the case studies which follow.

Reading Biblical Comics: A Critical Approach Ann Miller’s Reading Bande Dessinée is an examination of critical approaches to reading French-language comics, but the same tools and techniques described and utilized by Miller can be applied to comics in any language. The work is seminal in its field and draws upon Thierry Groensteen’s definitions and approaches closely,55 as well as building upon semiological studies and comics theories. Miller outlines three key categories of comics resources, which she terms: mise en page, sequential links and tressage.56 Groensteen refers to the same 54. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 371. 55. Groensteen’s work is translated from French to English by Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen, and in places, the translation struggles to convey the original. This is partly the reason I have chosen to use Miller’s work in the first instance, supported by Groensteen, where the translation makes sense. 56. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 83–95. There are other terms and different approaches to these areas of comics studies, but I have chosen to limit the terminology to those terms employed by Miller, Groensteen and McCloud. However, for more discussion on the topic, see for example: Mario Saraceni, The Language of Comics (London: Routledge, 2003);

2. Reading the Bible and/as/in Comic Books

23

categories as: spatio-topical code, restricted arthrology and, like Miller, tressage or braiding/weaving.57 I will use Miller’s terms except in the case of mise en page, which I substitute for Groensteen’s English-language spatio-topical code, although the two are not directly interchangeable. In Miller’s study, she suggests that resources of comics can be approached by considering the articulation of sequential art, or as an art which may involve text and image.58 The former approach is constructive in drawing out how meaning is made within panels, and between panels.59 This approach is especially useful in discussing how text is inserted into image, and while I discuss this, my main objective is of discussing the resources of comics as sequential art, in which the inclusion of text is of equal importance to image. Throughout this chapter, I will mostly be referring to Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated as an example of the methods, format and style I am discussing. A proper introduction to Crumb’s remediation of Genesis is given in the first case study, where it becomes the focus of the analysis. However, for contextual purposes and to help clarify points in this chapter, the reader should note that Crumb’s great claim for Genesis, Illustrated is that it is ‘[t]he first book of the Bible graphically depicted! Nothing left out!’60 His remediation contains all fifty chapters of Genesis which have been informed by a few key sources including Robert Alter’s translation and commentary on Genesis61 along with the King James Version (KJV), the Jewish Publication Society version (JPS) and some other nondescript sources.62 It is from those he produces his remediation in combination with his own leftfield sense of humour. Spatio-topical Code This refers to the arrangement of panels on the page, which may include the size, shape and position of panels, incrustation (panels overlaid with panels), the Benoit Peeters, Case, planche, récit: lire la bande dessinée, trans. Jesse Cohn (Paris: Casterman, 1998). 57. Groensteen, System of Comics, 30. 58. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 82. 59. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 82. 60. Front cover, R. Crumb, Genesis Illustrated. Note: Crumb’s version of Genesis does not contain page numbers or lexical divisions, so none will follow in reference to it. 61. Robert Alter, The Five Books of Moses (New York: W. W. Norton, 2004), 9–298. I use both this version and Alter’s original translation and commentary: Robert Alter, Genesis: A Translation and Commentary (New York: W. W. Norton, 1997), portions of which appear in the 2004 title. 62. Crumb discusses his references for the work in several places including: R. Crumb, ‘Introduction’, in Genesis, Illustrated; and, Frank Browning, ‘Crumb’s “Genesis,” A Sexy Breasts-and-Knuckles Affair’, accessed 2 July 2019, http://www​.npr​.org​/templates​/story​/ story​.php​?storyId​=113842476.

24

The Bible and Comics

space between panels (the ‘gutter’), the page itself as a single unit (multistagemultiframe)63 and the exterior space outlining the panels which Groensteen refers to as the ‘hyperframe’.64 Groensteen describes the ‘hyperframe’ as being to the page what the frame is to the panel: it is the frame which encompasses the panels on any given page.65 It can take many forms, from thick black lines which border the panels within, to no line at all, in which case the hyperframe is made up of the frames of the panels, with intermittent breaks in between the panels. It serves the task of creating consistency across the page, unifying the panels visually. In Genesis, Illustrated, Crumb does not draw a hyperframe; instead, the panels make up the hyperframe. There is a thick band of blank paper around the hyperframe; this empty border contrasts with the heavily detailed imagery within the panels, and I argue that it allows the reader space to imagine and reflect upon the content of the panels, as well as providing physical space for marginalia.66 Within the multistage-multiframe, the size, shape and placements of panels (both on the page and in relation to each other) also encourage the narrative to be read and framed in a certain way. As Miller notes, ‘[T]he relationship between panels on the page is a function of their size, shape, and position.’67 By this, she means that the configuration of panels can visually convey a change in tone, mood, action or a shift in narrative. Will Eisner argues similarly, suggesting that panel shapes and sizes are indicators of emotional function within the narrative and that they encourage the reader to generate their own reaction to the action, ‘and thus heighten emotional involvement in the narrative’.68 Miller identifies incrustation as another important resource of the spatiotopical code. Incrustation, or the superimposition of panels on each other, is not a resource Crumb employs in Genesis, Illustrated, but it is not part of Crumb’s usual drawing style and so it is also not unusual that he does not use it. Incrustation is normally used to highlight details in small panels set against a wider perspective or to indicate an interruption of the visual narrative for the purposes of plot development or as a visual contradiction to something which has occurred in the main panel.69 The lack of incrustation is further evidence of Crumb’s perceived fidelity to the text. He chooses to ensure each panel – and each piece of text – is uninterrupted visually or textually in adherence to the biblical text.

63. Groensteen, System of Comics, 30. 64. Groensteen, System of Comics, 30. 65. Groensteen, System of Comics, 30. 66. Marginalia in Bibles is a well-established tradition. 67. Groensteen, System of Comics, 30. 68. Will Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist (New York: W. W. Norton, 2008), 61. McCloud also discusses emotional reactions to visual elements in chapter five of Understanding Comics. 69. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 83.

2. Reading the Bible and/as/in Comic Books

25

The gutter, or the space between panels, is another important tool in the resource kit of comic creators. There are various ways to utilize this space, including the use of imagery bleeding into the area which can suggest the story has no boundaries and is part of a wider narrative, a complete lack of space between panels, or distinct, blank spaces between panels.70 Both McCloud and Eisner herald these spaces as invaluable, suggesting they are where much of the ‘magic’ of comics takes place.71 By this, they mean that the gutter is the space where the reader collaborates with the creator by bringing their own imagination to the story.72 For example, where one panel has an image of Eve and Adam realizing they were naked, and the next has an image of the two wearing loincloths, the reader inserts their own interpretation between the panels (via the gutter), understanding that Adam and Eve were uncomfortable with their newly realized nakedness and so they made clothes to cover themselves. The finding of materials and construction of clothes was not shown, but the reader’s knowledge of the production and wearing of clothes, however rudimentary, allows them to fill in the gaps of what has happened. In the foreword to Graven Images, Douglas Rushkoff describes this process as the reader taking a ‘leap of faith’ every time they move from one panel to the next, constructing a story out of a sequence of still frames. It is the reader who propels the story forward.73 Admittedly, in a comic based on a widely known narrative such as Genesis, the ability of the reader to input their own knowledge between the panels is easier than asking them to reconcile two images from a story less well known. Moreover, in the case of Adam and Eve clothing themselves, this is a universal action which readers (presumably) know how to carry out by themselves from an early age. However, the importance of the gutter, regardless of the form it is given, is evident in the reading of text-image narratives. The final resource is the pattern of spatio-topical code: the pattern which the panels, gutters and hyperframe make up.74 Similar to the size and shape of panels, the patterns of spatio-topical code can also frame the narrative, encouraging the reader to view the story in certain ways. Benoît Peeters argues that certain compositions of panels based on the following function determine the narrative within a story: Narrative Dominant and Composition Dominant. If the narrative aspect dominates, the result will be either a regular grid of frames (which he terms ‘Conventional Use’75) or a pattern of frame shapes and sizes which reflect the 70. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 86. 71. McCloud, Understanding Comics, 66; Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art, 39–48. 72. Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art, 39–40. 73. Douglas Rushkoff, ‘Foreword: Looking for God in the Gutter’, in Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels, ed. A. David Lewis et al. (New York: Continuum, 2010), x. 74. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 86. 75. Interestingly, Peeters notes that comic artists who follow the conventional pattern of panels have likely had experience working in an environment where they needed to produce short comic strips – for newspapers of magazines – at a quick pace. The conventional

26

The Bible and Comics

demands of the story (which he terms ‘Rhetorical Use’). If the composition of panels dominates the narrative, then Peeters describes the grid as either ‘Decorative Use’ or ‘Productive Use’.76 If ‘Decorative’, this demonstrates an ‘aesthetic preoccupation which has no narrative relevance’.77 If ‘Productive’, the grid pattern helps to create the story.78 A Note on Spatio-temporal Relations in Comics The technique of illustrating the passing of time in comics involves several tools, including the use of space, language and even the size of the panel content. Eisner emphasizes the importance of depicting time in comics,79 and McCloud devotes a chapter to the subject in his Understanding Comics.80 It is an important tool within comic books which otherwise may struggle to depict the passing of time. In this short section, I use the opening pages of Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated and four other sections (not pictured due to copyright restrictions) to discuss how time is portrayed within comic books. For example, in Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated¸ the first page is a full-page illustration, also known as a ‘splash page’. It is of God creating the heavens and the earth out of the formless void. This is the only full-scale image within the book; there are four half-page images throughout the books, but every other page is divided by anything between three and sixteen panels. Don Jolly interprets Crumb’s decision to open Genesis with a splash page as an interpretive choice which invokes the language of comic books to depict the scale of time passing in one panel: Speaking very generally, the more space something takes up on the comic page, the more time it demands we spend on the absorption of the image. Sometimes, this technique can be used to imply that a great length of time is passing for characters in the story. In other instances, this lengthening of moment can be used as a kind of ‘slow motion,’ making even instantaneous events into images upon which the eye lingers, producing emphasis through extended temporality.81 pattern is learnt in this environment and is more likely to affect later work. Peeters, Case, planche récit, 42. 76. Peeters, Case, planche récit, 41. 77. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 86. 78. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 88. There are, of course, criticisms of this model, most notably from Groensteen who, as Miller notes, argues that more important distinctions in grid-patterns are between ‘regularity’, ‘irregularity’, ‘discreetness’ and ‘ostentation’ (Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 88). However, I agree with Peeters’ model over Groensteen’s because the categories identified can overlap comfortably yet still embody certain functions. 79. Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art, 23–38. 80. McCloud, Understanding Comics, 94–117. 81. Don Jolly, ‘Interpretive Treatments of Genesis in Comics: R. Crumb & Dave Sim’, Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 25, no. 3 (2013): 336.

2. Reading the Bible and/as/in Comic Books

27

Jolly explains that by depicting Gen. 1:1-2 in a full-page image, the reader is given the impression of a ‘vast, unprecedented length of time [. . .] the eternity before creation’.82 McCloud also suggests that the shape and size of a panel influences the readers’ perception of time for reasons similar to Jolly, but expands by arguing that ‘the words “short” or “long” can refer either to the first dimension or the fourth’ in the medium of comics, and that ‘in a medium where time and space merge so completely, the distinction often vanishes’.83 Crumb’s depiction of God within this page embodies both Jolly and McCloud’s ideas, not just by the size of the panel on the page but by the content within the panel. In the opening splash page, God’s figure towers over the earthly void which he cradles in his hands. The viewer is unable to see the entire body, yet they see the beginnings of the heavens and the earth. God himself is vast and unmeasurable at the beginning of creation; a symbol of eternity set against a physically limited world. This image of God is contrasted by panels on the third page, which show God standing on the earth he has just created, next to Adam and Eve. He is purposefully taller than the humans; Crumb designed him to be so which signifies to the reader that God is still dominant; however, his size has shrunk from the splash page in which he was large enough to hold the whole world in his hands. Thus, the reader is given to understand that God can, at one moment, be larger than we can imagine, but he can also walk with humans on the earth. Changing God’s size in this way throughout the book, Crumb is not only playing with perceptions of space and time, but he is also reminding the reader that God is not definable as one form or size. The concept of larger panels signifying time passing can also be applied to the four half-splash pages in the book, which include an image of the tree of life (Gen. 2:8-9), Noah, his family, and the animals leaving the ark after the flood (8:1819), the imposing gates to the city of Sodom (19:1) and Jacob’s ladder (28:12). However, the size of the panels is not the foremost indication of time passing; it is instead the content. Eisner explains that while size and shape of panel is important in expressing time, it is also symbols, images and often speech within the panels which make the statement.84 Furthermore, the design of a panel and the act of boxing in specific content helps to establish ‘the position of the reader in relation to the scene and indicates the duration of the event’.85 In other words, the reader must not only consider the shape, size and position of a panel but also read the symbols within the content to understand the idea of time within the graphic novel. The 82. Jolly, ‘Interpretive Treatments of Genesis in Comics’, 336. 83. McCloud, Understanding Comics, 101–2. Comics creator Chris Ware also discusses how to create the illusion of time within panels. See: Gordon McAlpin, ‘A Comics Panel: Chris Ware, Seth and Ivan Brunetti’, Webcomic, Stripped Books, accessed 6 March 2018, http://www​.strippedbooks​.com​/comics​/stripped07​/comics​-00​.html. Eisner discusses the above in Comics and Sequential Art, 24–37. 84. Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art, 24. 85. Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art, 26.

The Bible and Comics

28

reader must also apply his or her own knowledge to the imagery to understand it; for example, if we see an image of a sapling in one panel, and a fully grown tree in the next, we understand that trees take a very long time to grow, especially to such a great size as the tree of life, therefore, we understand that a lot of time must have passed between panels for such a tree to grow. Restricted Arthrology Another tool in the kit of comics is restricted arthrology. Miller’s definition of ‘restricted arthrology’ (used by Groensteen) is ‘sequential links’ – that is, the overarching story is divided into ‘discontinuous units which are aligned sequentially, articulated by syntagmatic links’.86 These sequential links consist of elements such as the use of inter-frame space (spatio-temporal relations, and the use of the ellipsis in visual storytelling, for example) and stylistic variations such as framing, the angle of vision, composition and use of colour. For Miller, coherent progression of the narrative is contingent upon the proper use of these elements, whether that be conserving them or modifying them to aid reception of the story.87 By ‘inter-frame space’, Miller is referring to the way in which spatial and temporal transitions within the story are managed and conveyed through the artistic choices of the creator. Miller identifies the ellipsis as a key tool in the resources of comics, and one which has the job of controlling the rhythm of the narrative, either by inserting gaps into the story to signify a change in time or space within that story or by smoothing over breaks to give an impression of continuity.88 Elsewhere, we can see the alternative use of the ellipsis as a tool to imply that ‘time excised by the inter-frame space is minimal’.89 Stylistic variations within the panels, including framing, angle of vision, composition and even the lack of colour, are some of the most visually apparent and important signifiers when reading comics, and, as Miller notes, ‘work by variation or constancy from panel to panel’.90 Similar to framing in the art of photography, framing panels in comics can convey signals that a scene should be read in a particular way. For example, a panel which reframes a previous panel in the narrative suggests movement of characters; likewise, variation in framing potentially corresponds with an alternative point of view in the story.91 One of the most important signifiers of framing is that, often, it reveals whose viewpoint is controlling the narrative: is it the narrator or the character’s perception? Miller

86. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 88. 87. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 88. 88. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 88–9. 89. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 89. 90. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 91. 91. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 91.

2. Reading the Bible and/as/in Comic Books

29

likens this to ‘ocularisation’ in film theory, where the framing of the image tells the viewer if they are seeing the set through the eyes of the narrator or a character.92 Framing in biblical comic books is an important function for the reader; one which often brings the narrative voice to life in the story, but which also literally gives a voice to the dialogue in the text. Narration and discourse are the two prominent types of text in Genesis; mostly however, the story is told from the point of view of the narrator.93 Even in dream sequences, which one might argue must take place and be told from the character’s perspective, it is the narrator’s voice which relays the story. The angle of vision also plays an important part in framing narratives. As Miller notes, the use of high or low angles can indicate that the scene is viewed from the perspective of a character.94 Alternatively, the use of high or low angles can have a symbolic function, encouraging the reader to view the scene within the panel in particular ways; for example, a high angle looking downwards may present a character as being small: a reflection of her/his social status.95 Composition of panels has a narrative function first and foremost within comics but can also emphasize articulation of the story.96 For example, the use of diagonals within a panel can help to guide the reader’s eye and point towards details in the background which may otherwise seem insignificant, but which have an important place in the narrative. Alternatively, diagonal lines may suggest tension or anxiety carried by a character.97 Likewise, the use of symmetry within a panel may indicate a state of harmony or equilibrium within the story. Tressage The final category noted by Miller, again drawing upon Groensteen, is ‘tressage’ or ‘general arthrology’. Tressage refers to weaving or braiding, reflecting the idea that ‘panels may relate to each other through links which are woven throughout a [comic]’.98 Repetition is key, both in image and in text, as is the idea of call-backs to previous storylines. Groensteen defines tressage as a ‘succession of images linked by a system of formal, iconic or semantic correspondences’,99 and notes that this may extend into spatio-topical codes such as patterns of panels, and restricted arthrology codes such as composition, framing and colour.100  92. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 91–4.  93. For more discussion on this, see Hugh C. White, Narration and Discourse in the Book of Genesis (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991).  94. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 94.  95. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 94.  96. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 94.  97. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 94.  98. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 95.  99. Groensteen, System of Comics, 174. 100. Groensteen, System of Comics, 174.

30

The Bible and Comics

The Function of ‘Text’ in Text-Image Narratives One of the most important traits of comics is the interplay between word and image on the page. Comics consist of both, and it is rare to see a comic without both.101 Having discussed visual coding within comics, I now turn to a discussion concerning how text functions within text-image narratives. Miller identifies five types of text in comics which must be considered to understand the function of text: peritext, narrative voice-over, dialogue, sound-effects and texts which exist within the fictional world.102 Peritext refers to text outside of the narrative, such as that found on covers, flyleaves and contents pages103 and Miller notes that peritext is normally the only element which is typeset in comics. Narrative voice-over, or récitatif in bande dessinée, refers to the pieces of text within the narrative which are not parts of speech, but which narrate the sequence of events in the story. Miller notes that this type of writing is ‘usually separated from the pictorial space by a box which adheres to the top of the frame’, but that it also ‘may appear with no box [. . .] indicating, perhaps, an absence of narrative distance from the events portrayed’.104 Dialogue in comics is normally enclosed within speech bubbles: ‘non-diegetic elements that intrude into the space of the fiction’.105 The use of speech bubbles in comics is a way of directing the reader to a message, normally encased in the pronouncement of the character speaking, and there are several types of speech bubble which indicate the tone and volume of the speech. For example, ‘scream’ balloons tend to have sharp, jagged edges to reflect the intensity of the speech within. In Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated, he uses speech bubbles throughout Genesis to separate dialogue from narrative voice-over, but instead of using different shapes to indicate tone of speech, he uses bold lettering and alters the size of the text within the bubble. In the panel which depicts God calling to Eve and Adam after they have eaten the fruit, God is angry, and this is demonstrated in the large, bold letters of his speech: ‘Where are you?’ God’s anger is an interpretation of the text by Crumb; the text of Genesis 3 does not explicitly say God is angry. Fresnault and Duerelle, as cited by Miller, suggest that variations in size of hand-printed text are used for expressive purposes such as amplification of volume which is the case here.106 God’s anger is further emphasized by the sharp diagonal lines emanating from his body in an aggressive manner, obscuring any surrounding imagery. Though all the letters are bold in this panel, Crumb uses bold letters more 101. T h ere is a category of comics without text, known as ‘wordless comics’ which rely purely on the visual narrative to further the story. However, these are few and far between, and I would argue that they are ‘read’ in an entirely different way to comics which have a more equal share of both words and images. 102. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 97. 103. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 97. 104. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 97. 105. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 97. 106. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 99.

2. Reading the Bible and/as/in Comic Books

31

sparingly elsewhere to emphasize certain parts of the speech, for example, ‘for dust you are, to dust you shall return!’ This shows the reader where the stress falls in the speech and, thus, the tone of the speech. The fourth category of text is sound effects, onomatopoeic devices which tend to occur within the picture space.107 We may think here of the classic ‘THWOP’ ‘POW’ and ‘SMACK’’s of many superhero comic books. Sound effects have come to define comic books in the mainstream and are thus a powerful tool in identifying the type of text someone is reading. The final category is texts which exist within the fictional world, such as newspapers, books or signs. Reading Text and Image Together Miller’s identification of five categories of text, along with her analysis of the visual resources of comics, has provided a framework with which to analyse the case studies in this book, especially in terms of textual decisions and textual framing on the author’s part. Having discussed text and image separately, we must also consider what happens when text and image is combined as in comics and how they are read together. The reading process in comics is complex in that the reader is faced with textual decisions and artistic choices at the same time, both of which normally corroborate with and support each other. The reader must be able to understand coding within both structures to grasp the full meaning of the narrative. Will Eisner explains that reading text-image narratives is different to text-only or image-only stories: The reading process in comics is an extension of text. In text alone the process of reading involves word-to-image conversion. Comics accelerate that by providing the image. When properly executed, it goes beyond conversion and speed and becomes a seamless whole.108

The act of ‘reading’ a comic relies on deciphering a ‘code’ of symbols which exist within both text and image. This code is made up of visual signals such as facial expressions and gestures, landscapes, objects and other signs, as well as the text itself which can also be read as an image. Miller describes this as ‘iconic encoding’, where words and letters retain a symbolic function rather than a literary function. This is also true of the use of punctuation marks such as exclamation marks or interrobangs (which comic creators use frequently).109 Mario Saraceni expands on this, suggesting that words are thought of as symbolic in nature, whereas pictures are considered iconic.110 Saraceni describes a 107. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 98. 108. Will Eisner, Graphic Storytelling and the Visual Narrative (Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1996), 5. 109. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 99. 110. Saraceni, Language of Comics, 15.

32

The Bible and Comics

scale from iconic to symbolic, proposing that words and images lie somewhere in the middle of this scale.111 Words can be both iconic and symbolic, and their size, shape and colour often add other information to their literal meaning.112 With reference to Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated, this is true of his front cover, where he uses a mixture of Blackletter font and Hebrew glyphs to signify to the reader that his remediation is in the same category as biblical texts and exegeses. As words may be considered iconic, images can be considered symbolic; that is, they can stand for something ‘associated to its meaning by virtue of a shared convention’.113 Reading comics is an exercise in interpreting images and words together in a narrative,114 and this act of interpretation relies on the interplay of word and image. David Kunzle suggests this is an important element of comics: There is a distinction [. . .] between imagery which illustrates a text and imagery which is clarified by a text. It is often difficult to determine in a specific instance the exact relationship between image and text and which came first, but it is usually clear which carries the burden of the narrative.115

The interplay of word and image in biblical comics is an important aspect to consider since the relationship directly impacts the reader’s experience and interpretation of the text. Eisner’s understanding of the relationship between text and images is based upon the assessment that text-image stories depend upon ‘a visual experience common to both creator and audience’,116 which McCloud agrees with in principle, but he also recognizes that common experience might be difficult to accomplish because the reader tends to interpret narratives per their own needs.117 It is worth bearing this in mind as we move forward to the case studies.

111. Saraceni, Language of Comics, 15. 112. Saraceni, Language of Comics, 18. 113. Saraceni, Language of Comics, 15. 114. Kunzle has written extensively on the early history of comics and comic strips, and comments on the use of aids in his book. David Kunzle, The Early Comic Strip: Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the European Broadsheet from c.1450 to 1825 (History of the Comic Strip – Vol. 1) (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973). 115. Kunzle, The Early Comic Strip, 2. 116. Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art, 1. 117. McCloud, Understanding Comics, 194–5.

  C ASE S TUDIES

34

Chapter 3 ‘WORD-FOR-WORD’ BIBLE COMICS AND SARAH CHALLENGING AUTHORITY

In the beginning, God created the heavens and the earth.1 Or, ‘When God began to create heaven and earth.’2 Or even, ‘In the beginning, when God created the sky and the land.’3 Those famous first words of the book of Genesis, and thus the opening of the Hebrew Bible are not as fixed as many might think, not least because in this case they are of course an English translation of the Hebrew. English translations of biblical texts are, as Robert Alter suggests, inherently problematic for many reasons. The English language itself is continually evolving, developing, even occasionally dropping words in and out of use over periods of time according to what is fashionable. Where once Wycliffe’s Bible (1382–95) suggested that ‘In the beginning God made of nought heaven and earth’, the Geneva Bible (1599) declared that ‘God Created the heaven and the earth’. A few years later the authoritative King James Version (KJV, 1611) suggested that ‘In the beginning God created the heaven and the earth’. The KJV project carried enough weight to uphold its position as an authority on Bible translation for a few centuries, but more contemporary translations in recent decades have taken it upon themselves to challenge that authority and rework those famous words of Genesis 1. Consider, for example, the Good News Translation (GNT), which reads, ‘In the beginning, when God created the universe’. But what does it matter if words in biblical translations change? From the examples above, we still get the same idea that once there was nothing, and then there was something we might call earth or land, and something else we might call the sky or heaven, or perhaps multiple heavens. Those things were created by something, or someone, called God. Of the above examples, none refutes this and all support it, and it seems there is not much at stake in this one translation in the Bible. However, this is only one verse from one chapter of one book of the Bible. Word choice in translation work does in fact matter very much and can make the difference between somebody being recognized as a slave or a handmaid 1. NRSV. 2. Crumb, Genesis, Illustrated. 3. Timothy C. McNinch, Illustrated Genesis in Hebrew (Wilmore: Glossahouse, 2018), 1.

36

The Bible and Comics

(e.g. Hagar in Genesis 16:1),4 or somebody else being labelled a necromancer, a medium or just a regular woman (e.g. 1 Samuel 28:7). Word choice also matters when it comes to reinterpreting and reimagining the Bible in the arts. Depending on how the artist/creator interprets or understands biblical text, representations of biblical characters and stories can be very different. For example, Powell Smith’s representation of Genesis 3 in The Brick Bible shows Eve as the transgressor giving Adam the fruit (an apple) to eat ‘And she took from the fruit and ate it. She gave some to her husband who was with her and he ate it’.5 In Freeman and Rosenzweig’s Comic Torah, no such distinction is made; instead, we see a divine figure tell YHWH ‘those PEOPLE you made ATE from the TREE of KNOWLEDGE’ to which YHWH replies: ‘I’ll be right back.’6 The choice of words impacts each story. In Powell Smith’s narrative, Eve is the one to eat the fruit and offer the fruit meaning she is culpable; in Freeman and Rosenzweig’s offering, the text offers no clue as to who is to blame, instead just noting the event after it had occurred. Fidelity to the text is also relevant for comic book creators of so-called ‘wordfor-word’ Bible comics too, who seek to re-present every single word of the biblical story. But whose words are they re-presenting? Which version of the Bible are the creators adapting? What exactly do they mean by ‘word-for-word’? Do those Bible comic creators understand the weight behind some of the textual decisions, never mind the illustrative choices they must make? What do they understand the ‘authoritative’ version of the Bible to be, and how much thought is given to scripture in its ‘original’ language of Hebrew, if any? The concept of word-for-word comic book adaptations of the Bible is an interesting notion that presents many problems, yet for some the idea of fidelity towards the sacred text is one which they find hard to resist. It may be that such a move towards including every single word of biblical text is a way of ensuring one cannot be accused of picking and choosing, of highlighting and erasing certain stories. For others, they may see redacting or editing the text as a form of ‘messing around with a venerable text’7 and would rather allow the text to ‘stand in its own convoluted vagueness’8 allowing the images to carry the weight of interpretation. Currently, there are two publications which explicitly claim to be word-forword retellings of biblical material. The first is Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated, and the second is a digital-and-print series of comic books called The Word for Word Bible 4. Hagar’s status in Genesis 16 has been recast multiple times, from handmaid (KJV) to slavegirl (Alter’s translation and commentary of Genesis), to slave woman (GNT), maid (GNV), servant (ESV) or slave, without reference to her gender/age (NIV). 5. Brendan Powell Smith, The Brick Bible: A New Spin on the Old Testament (New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2011), 17–18. 6. Aaron Freeman and Sharon Rosenzweig, The Comic Torah: Reimagining the Very Good Book (Teaneck: Ben Yehuda Press, 2010), 2. 7. Crumb, ‘Introduction’, in Genesis, Illustrated. 8. Crumb, ‘Introduction’, in Genesis, Illustrated.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

37

Comic by Simon Amadeus Pillario.9 Pillario’s project is ongoing, and since 2013, five volumes have been published which are ‘faithful’ retellings of Ruth, Judges, Joshua, Esther and Mark with more expected to be published in the coming years. Since Pillario has not produced a word-for-word version of Genesis, we cannot use their work in this chapter. Therefore, I turn to a third comic Bible which, while not explicitly claiming to be word-for-word, does in fact contain every word of Genesis. It is: Illustrated Genesis in Hebrew by Timothy C. McNinch.10 In this chapter, I present a visual-critical reading of Gen. 16:1-6 to demonstrate how Crumb and McNinch have used visual and textual tools to re-present Sarai and Hagar from contemporary perspectives while navigating the tension between new readings and perceived fidelity to the biblical text. In particular, I examine how Sarai and Hagar are presented in terms of their role as mothers, wives, their socioeconomic positions within Abram’s family unit, and their function as characters which propel the story of the patriarch forward while leaving them stationary. This is achieved by approaching the comic Bibles through a cultural-critical lens and a biblical-feminist approach. Such an approach demonstrates the ways in which cultural retellings can challenge dominant patriarchal agendas by utilizing form and function associated with, in this case, biblical comics. Furthermore, by focusing on the ‘narrativity of images’11 and placing illustrations in conversation with the text they represent, the reader is better positioned to understand how textimage narratives both relate to and oppose ‘original’ biblical stories simultaneously reflecting the ancient words of the Bible and contemporary cultural concerns, as well as nodding towards Beal’s concept of cultural Bibles.12 Because of this, they open texts which are sometimes difficult and often troubling to new audiences, exposing those audiences to the Bible as well as exposing the Bible to contemporary perspectives through those audiences. For example, the study of Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated demonstrates the ways in which image can subvert or reframe the ‘original’ text, creating space for new interpretations. Similarly, the digital format of Pillario’s word-for-word comic Bible demonstrates the ways in which Bibles can be produced outside of the authority of religious traditions (though regrettably we cannot use it in this case study; however, I discuss digital Bibles in Chapter 5 in relation to The Brick Testament). McNinch’s inclusion of biblical Hebrew language juxtaposed against image challenges the textual tradition of the Bible and emphasizes the importance of visual aids to understanding text, especially if the reader does not have the ability to read biblical Hebrew. In different ways then, these ‘word-for-word’ biblical comics challenge presuppositions and established ideas relating to the Bible. To examine this in more detail, I turn to the story of Hagar and Sarai in Gen. 16:1-6 from R. Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated. I explore the ways in which Crumb uses the form of comics to  9. Pillario, ‘The Word for Word Bible Comic’. 10. McNinch, Illustrated Genesis. 11. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 4. 12. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’.

38

The Bible and Comics

forefront women in his narrative, and challenge the notion that Genesis, and more broadly the Bible, is an androcentric text reflective of a patriarchal strategy which casts women as secondary characters who exist solely to further the stories of their male counterparts. This reading, as we shall see, is rooted in Crumb’s ‘pro-feminist’ ideology and is not without problem, often leading to women being pitted against each other in an effort to maintain some form of hierarchy. Male characters are therefore often presented as unproblematic, passive actors in this great narrative.

A Proper Introduction to The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb, by R. Crumb Published in 2009, The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb claims to be ‘[t]he first book of the Bible graphically depicted! Nothing left out!’13 Containing all fifty chapters of Genesis, Crumb used Robert Alter’s translation and commentary on Genesis to inform his work,14 along with the King James Version (KJV), the Jewish Publication Society version (JPS) and some other nondescript sources;15 from those, he produced his own interpretation together with annotations to explain his interpretive decisions.16 The project took four years to complete, and once published, it won the Harvey Award for Best Artist and was also nominated for the coveted Eisner Award in three different categories.17 Genesis, Illustrated spent sixteen weeks at number one on the New York Times bestsellers’ list for Graphic Novels.18 The decision to illustrate Genesis came from a history of ‘playing around with Adam and Eve’, from a satirical, playful angle.19 Not satisfied with the results of those drawings, Crumb experimented with the idea of drawing Adam and Eve in a ‘straightforward’ way and this interest eventually led to the idea of adapting the entire book of Genesis into a comic book in a ‘straightforward’ way. For Crumb, ‘comic books have many possibilities. They can illuminate a text: break it down into panels, illustrate everything, and suddenly it brings to light things that people 13. Front cover, Crumb, Genesis, Illustrated. Note: Crumb’s version of Genesis does not contain page numbers of lexical divisions, so none will follow in reference to it. 14. Alter, The Five Books of Moses, 9–298. I use both this version and Alter’s original translation and commentary: Alter, Genesis, portions of which appear in the 2004 title. 15. Crumb discusses his references for the work in several places, including: Crumb, ‘Introduction’, in Genesis, Illustrated; and, Browning, ‘Crumb’s “Genesis,” A Sexy Breastsand-Knuckles Affair’. 16. Crumb, ‘Commentary’, in Genesis, Illustrated. 17. ‘The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb’, W. W. Norton. 18. ‘New York Time Bestsellers’, New York Times. 19. For example, see: ‘Adam and Eve: Our First Parents’, from a 2003 sketchbook, reproduced in R. Crumb and Peter Poplaski, The R. Crumb Handbook (London: MQ Publications, 2005), 46–7.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

39

might pass over in a written text. Adding pictures is a whole other dimension.’20 The text of the Bible was vivid enough already, and it seemed a logical step forward to illustrate it into a comic book. Such an adaptation would potentially help to make sense of a difficult text. Hand-drawn and heavily cross-hatched in black-and-white ink, Genesis, Illustrated uses a nine-panel format for the most part, deviating from this where the story requires it to do so (e.g. the genealogical lists in Gen. 5:1-32). Though Crumb’s approach was to incorporate every word of the biblical text from Genesis, he did occasionally add clarification where he thought necessary. However, he ‘refrained from indulging too often in such “creativity”, and instead let [the text] stand in its own convoluted vagueness rather than monkey around with such a venerable text’.21 Crumb’s retelling of Genesis is concluded with an eight-page commentary which includes references to various sources he accessed, as well as elucidating his own thoughts and interpretations of the Bible. It is also perhaps worth noting that Crumb contends that the book of Genesis is a book of fairy tales and myths.22 In several interviews given around the time of publication of Genesis, Illustrated, he repeatedly states that he does not believe the Bible is the word of God but acknowledges that it holds a ‘special’ place in the history of humanity. He describes how Genesis appeals to him as it showcases the history of stories which have been retold over thousands of years, and continuously studied to reveal some sort of truth within the words.23 He describes the expressions within the text as ‘old, strange and tribal’, with a skewed morality which might have suited communities thousands of years ago, but which has no place today.24

Pro-feminism R. Crumb has often been accused of producing sexist or misogynistic work throughout his career. His depictions of large, curvaceous woman are described as unflattering and unrealistic, and he is known for producing images of gratuitous sex scenes, many of which involve smaller, inferior men being dominated by

20. ‘Genesis: R. Crumb illustrates the Bible’, NPR, accessed 3 November 2019, http:// www​.npr​.org​/2009​/11​/02​/120022241​/genesis​-r​-crumb​-illustrates​-the​-bible. 21. Crumb, ‘Introduction’, in Genesis, Illustrated. 22. Jean-Pierre Mercier, ‘Revelations to Angoulême 2010: Robert Crumb on Genesis’, accessed 21 June 2019, http://www​.paulgravett​.com​/articles​/article​/revelations​_at​_ angouleme​_2010. 23. Eric Spitznagel, ‘Robert Crumb Thinks God Might Actually Be Crazy’, accessed 20 June 2019, http://www​.ericspitznagel​.com​/awkward​-question​-time​/robert​-crumb/. 24. Mercier, ‘Robert Crumb on Genesis’.

40

The Bible and Comics

strong females. Crumb describes these works as ‘all fantasy’.25 Many accuse him of being anti-women,26 and Crumb has addressed those claims: When I started doing it in ’68 or ’69, the people who had loved my work before that, some of them were shocked and alienated by it – especially the women, of course. I lost all the women. I’m not antifeminist. I like strong, independent women, like the matriarchs of Genesis – they ordered the men around. The sexfantasy thing was a whole other side of myself, and when that started coming out, I could no longer be America’s best-loved hippie cartoonist.27

In the same interview, he describes women as ‘powerful and predatory’. In an interview with NPR, he explains that his depictions of sex have always been personal and fetishistic and were only ever created for himself.28 The conflict between depicting strong, independent women for his own sexual gratification is one of the main areas of concern for feminists reading his work because it draws upon the problematic issue of the male gaze, and of Crumb depicting women as subservient objects. However, it is a conflict Crumb is aware of, as he has previously described himself as ‘pro-feminist’ but with sexual fantasies which do not corroborate this, and do not ingratiate him with feminist activists.29 Crumb does not clearly unpack what he means by ‘pro-feminist’. He appears to support the broad idea of feminism but does not identify as a feminist and while he sympathizes with many feminist causes (e.g. challenging unequal status between men and women; regarding masculinity as oppressive to women), he is not actively involved with campaigns to further the feminist agenda.30 Generally, it is normally men who identify as pro-feminist. They argue that feminism is a movement created for and by women. For some men, identifying as feminist would be to take power from, or colonize a women’s movement which is something they 25. Andrew D. Arnold, ‘R. Crumb Speaks’, TIME, accessed 19 June 2019, http://content​ .time​.com​/time​/arts​/article​/0​,8599​,1055105​-1​,00​.html. 26. For example, Crumb cancelled a scheduled attendance at a comics/film festival in Australia in August 2011 after newspaper reports emerged in which Crumb was accused of being ‘sick and deranged’ by several groups, including sexual assault crisis groups. For a fuller picture and an interview by Crumb on the incident, see: Gary Groth, ‘Robert Crumb – Live Online: The Interview That Didn’t Happen’, accessed 28 June 2019, http://www​.tcj​ .com​/crumb​-and​-groh​-live​-online/. 27. Ted Widmer, ‘R. Crumb, The Art of Comics No. 1’, The Paris Review, accessed 21 June, 2019, http://www​.theparisreview​.org​/interviews​/6017​/the​-art​-of​-comics​-no​-1​-r​-crumb. 28. ‘R. Crumb illustrates the Bible’, NPR. 29. Todd Hignite, In the Studio: Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006), 22. 30. See: Michael Flood, ‘Pro-feminist Men and Pro-feminist Men’s Politics’, XY Online, accessed 14 April 2019, http://xyonline​.net​/content​/frequently​-asked​-questions​-about​-pro​ -feminist​-men​-and​-pro​-feminist​-mens​-politics.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

41

wish to avoid.31 Broadly speaking however, pro-feminism as a movement is seen to be anti-sexist and anti-patriarchal, and this is a point on which Crumb agrees and has tried to incorporate into his version of Genesis. Another major influence in Crumb’s research for Genesis, Illustrated was a work by Savina J. Teubal called Sarah the Priestess: The First Matriarch of Genesis.32 Teubal hypothesizes that the matriarch Sarah was descended from a line of, and assumed the position of, high priestess. She was borne of a matriarchal society, elements of which were reflected in her story in Genesis.33 Teubal reads Sarah as being of equal status to Abraham because of this position. Moreover, she contends that it is the narrative of the matriarchs rather than the patriarchs which propel the story: In the story of Abraham the narratives begin with an account concerning Sarah and Pharaoh and continue with this women’s trials in securing progeny. Finally, a whole chapter is dedicated to her place of burial. Of the forty-eight years of Abraham’s life after Sarah’s death there is no detail whatever. In other words, it is Sarah’s role that furthers the story.34

Teubal’s overarching thesis is that the matriarchal narratives in Genesis have been eroded and overwritten over the last 2,000–3,000 years by editors, redactors and scribes writing in a patriarchal society. She suggests that the story of Sarah and her role as a high-priestess and wife of Abraham would have been well known at one time, imparted orally in a society which was no stranger to matrilineal power structures. However, when they came to be written down (potentially in the late sixth century BCE) they were written in a society more familiar with patriarchal rule, and at a time when matriarchal society was being overtaken and diminished by men.35 The ancient texts were then subject to millennia of redaction, editing, rewriting and retelling, which shaped them more and more into the mould of male-dominated cultures, eventually erasing any evidence of matriarchal power. Teubal concludes with the following statement: The narratives of the Sarah tradition represent a non-patriarchal system struggling for survival in isolation in a foreign land. Nevertheless, women of strength emerge from the pages of Genesis, women who are respected by men. Their function in life, though different from that of men, is regarded as

31. Flood, ‘Pro-feminist Men’. This is problematic since there is no single form of feminism but many feminisms which reflect liberal, radical, Black, queer, postmodern and other ideological approaches. 32. Savina J. Teubal, Sarah the Priestess: The First Matriarch of Genesis (Ohio: Swallow Press, 1984). 33. Teubal, Sarah the Priestess, xv. 34. Teubal, Sarah the Priestess, xv. 35. Teubal, Sarah the Priestess, 136–7.

42

The Bible and Comics equally important to society. Women’s participation in society as described in the narratives presupposes a system in which women were able to maintain an elevated professional position into which were incorporated the roles of mother and educator. Just as significantly, these women were in control of their own bodies and their own spiritual heritage.36

Crumb suggests that Teubal has unveiled a hidden truth to Genesis, that society at that time was female-led rather than patriarchal, and that ‘it needed a serious female scholar to root this ancient buried history out of the tangle of later redactions, distortions, corruptions, biased translations’.37 Applying a pro-feminist ideology to his work, then, is only in keeping with Teubal’s theories and a return to what Crumb perceives as the way the text was meant to be read.

‘Perhaps My House Shall Be Built Up through Her’: Genesis 16:1-6 in R. Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated Genesis 16 begins with a reminder that Sarai is barren and ‘had borne [Abram] no children’.38 At this point in the biblical story, Abram has already received several promises from God that he will have countless descendants who will be of his bloodline, and that he and they will have their own land (Gen. 12:2; 12:7; 13:15-16; 15:1-6; 15:18). Sarai offers her slavegirl, Hagar, to Abram in hopes that Hagar will become pregnant, thus giving Abram a child.39 Abram listens to Sarai, and Sarai ‘gave [Hagar] to her husband as a wife’ (16:1-3). Hagar conceives and ‘looked with contempt on her mistress’ which prompts Sarai, after an angry discussion with Abram, to deal harshly with Hagar, who runs away (16:4-6). An angel finds Hagar in the wilderness and advises her to return to Sarai, and submit to her, adding that ‘I will so greatly multiply your offspring that they cannot be counted for multitude’ (16:7-10). In this encounter, Hagar also learns she will give birth to a son who will be called Ishmael, which may be translated as ‘God will hear’. Hagar returns to Abram and gives birth to Ishmael when Abram is eighty-six years old (16:11-16). The story of Hagar and Sarai in Gen. 16:1-6 has received a lot of scholarly attention in terms of biblical studies, feminism and gender studies, power relations, fertility and bodies in the Bible. It is probably one of the most widely commented upon stories of the patriarchal/matriarchal narratives.40 From one perspective, 36. Teubal, Sarah the Priestess, 139–40. 37. Teubal, Sarah the Priestess, 139–40. 38. Gen. 16:1 in Crumb, Genesis, Illustrated, no page number. 39. Because Hagar belongs to Sarai as property, any child Hagar bears belongs to Sarai. The arrangement was common in Ancient Near Eastern societies and was one way to ensure the continuation of a name or bloodline. See: Alter, Genesis, 67. 40. For example, see: Nina Rulon-Miller, ‘Hagar: A Woman with an Attitude’, in The World of Genesis: Persons, Places, Perspectives ed. Philip R. Davies et al. (Sheffield: Sheffield

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

43

Gen. 16:1-16 is a story of budding motherhood, of love and of desperation. From another, it is a story of rape, enslavement, enforced pregnancy and severe mistreatment of a minority woman and her son. Its many complexities are evident in the vast range of literature which has tackled the relationship between Abram, Sarai and Hagar and unsurprisingly visualizing such a story is itself mired in ideological approaches to the text. Exum notes that historically and even in the present day, biblical scholarship has often struggled to interpret and contextualize the story of Sarai and Hagar meaningfully and with force.41 Where scholarship has struggled and/or failed, artists have proved ‘the most influential readers of this text’42 because visual approaches mean the story is removed from theological and ideological lenses and the stark realities of the text are laid bare for the reader to see.43 This is also true of comic book versions of the story, but to an even greater degree since comic books are a sequential form of storytelling and do not present a single snapshot of the scene. In Crumb’s visualization, the emphasis is almost solely on Sarai and Hagar as the primary characters of the narrative. Abram plays a minor and passive role, and this is reflective of Crumb’s adherence to Teubal’s theory that the matriarchs of Genesis are the ones who propel the stories forwards. In this case study, I draw the reader’s attention to the ways in which Crumb has forefronted the women in the narrative by careful composition, use of panels and juxtaposition of text with image. I then discuss his version of Gen. 16:1-6 in relation to feminist biblical scholarship of the story with a view to answering the questions outlined in the introduction to this book. This will provide the reader with a visual-critical reading of Crumb’s Genesis and will go some way to understanding how biblical comic books can interrogate, challenge and re-present biblical narratives from non-traditional perspectives and elevate the voices of women in the text.

Crumb’s Visualization The beginning of Genesis 16 is on the bottom row of the right-hand page which is significant since it means the rest of that page, and the whole of the left-hand page, consists of the narrative from Genesis 15, so this story makes up the perifield for Academic Press, 1998); J. Cheryl Exum, Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives, 2nd edn (London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2016); Athalya BrennerIdan, The Israelite Woman: Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Narrative (London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2015); Hemchand Gossai, Power and Marginality in the Abraham Narrative, 2nd edn (Eugene: Pickwick, 2010); Phyllis Trible, Texts of Terror: literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives (Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984); Junior, Reimagining Hagar; Gafney, Womanist Midrash. 41. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 49–50. 42. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 50. 43. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 50.

44

The Bible and Comics

the reader (Figure 3.1).44 In other words, because of the format of comic books, Genesis 15 visually contextualizes the beginning of Genesis 16 since it is in the peripheral view of the reader. Genesis 15 contains the story of the covenant of the pieces between Abram and God,45 wherein God repeats his promise that Abram will have countless descendants (15:4-5) and land to support them (15:18-21). In the last panel of Genesis 15 which directly precedes the beginning of Genesis 16, God looks down on Abram naming the scope of the land he will give to Abram’s descendants. This scene is juxtaposed against the opening of Genesis 16 which is a close-up of an old, stern-faced and childless Sarai. The narrator’s voice in the hyperframe informs the reader of Sarai’s childless state: she has ‘borne him no children’. The problem of Abram’s promise of countless descendants is visually set against Sarai’s inability to provide such descendants, and this point is only exacerbated by the composition of those panels. On the left-hand page (not shown), in the panel which sits directly opposite the beginning of Gen. 16:1-6, the reader sees a strange image of Abram lying asleep on the ground surrounded by ghostly faces (Gen. 15:12). In Crumb’s words, this was his attempt ‘to capture his vision of all this future suffering that is supposed to take place with his people. In the background are all the suffering faces of his people. I made them dark and murky because it’s a vision of the future’.46 This blurry vision of the future – of Abram’s descendants – contrasts with the panel declaring Sarai childlessness on the opposite page. Crumb’s composition of panels in this way – the deliberate juxtaposition of the promise of countless descendants against the infertile Sarai – increases suspense and subverts the expectation Sarai will be the one to fulfil God’s promises to Abram. This is further enhanced by a contrast between verbal promise and physical reality of childlessness displayed between those three panels. Crumb is driving home the contradictory situation facing Abram and Hagar. In the first panel of Genesis 16 (Figure 3.1), Hagar kneels on the ground making bread behind the older, stern-faced Sarai. The visual contrast between the pair is striking: Sarai is old, serious and seems physically powerful with a conniving expression and shifting eyes. Her head is covered, and her figure is indiscernible under the swathes of material wrapped around her body. In contrast, Hagar is

44. As a reminder, the perifield, or périchamp, is a term introduced by Peeters which describes how each panel is read with other panels in visual periphery. The premise is that panels are not read alone, but along with neighbouring panels, and those neighbouring panels often impact how we read each panel as part of the larger story. Cited in Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 83. 45. T h e covenant of pieces, which occurs in Gen. 15:1-15, is an event where God appeared to Abram and made a covenant with him, announcing that Abram and his descendants would inherit land. It is the first of the covenants between God and Abram. 46. Stephen E. Tabachnick, The Quest for Jewish Belief and Identity in the Graphic Novel (Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2014), 17.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

Figure 3.1  ‘Gen. 15:13-16:2’, R. Crumb, The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb.

45

46

The Bible and Comics

young with uncovered short black hair47 and simple robes which cling to her typical Crumbian-style curvy figure, including rounded hips and stomach. The simple and somewhat dishevelled garments are a visual reminder of her subservient status to Sarai, but they also emphasize the difference between Hagar and Sarai in terms of status and looks, and, as the reader comes to find out, childbearing abilities. The difference in status is further signalled using the word ‘handmaid’ to describe Hagar. Choosing to call Hagar ‘handmaid’ is a loaded decision. It seems likely that Crumb has taken the word from the KJV since Alter translates the Hebrew ‫ׁשפְ חָ ה‬ as ‘slavegirl’, and the JPS translates it as ‘maidservant’. This is a curious decision given that throughout his retelling of Genesis to this point, Crumb has mostly relied on Alter’s translation. Alter explains why he has chosen to translate ‫ׁשפְ חָ ה‬ as ‘slavegirl’ and not ‘handmaid’, including the fact that it ‘imposes a misleading sense of European gentility on the sociology of the story’.48 Given Alter’s influence on most of Crumb’s retelling, Crumb’s decision to label Hagar a ‘handmaid’ rather than ‘slavegirl’ seems deliberate. Sadly, it is a whitewashing of the text which misses the point that Hagar was owned by Sarai and was not employed or treated as a person with any social status whatsoever. Furthermore, the KJV’s use of ‘handmaid’ reflects societal norms during the sixteenth to seventeenth centuries and is thus anachronistic in a contemporary setting. Crumb does not acknowledge the difficulty of translating the word in his commentary. Perhaps it is the case that Crumb was less comfortable with the implication that Hagar was a slave and more comfortable portraying her as an employed servant to Sarai. This may also suggest why, later in Gen. 16:4, he portrays the scene of Abram and Hagar having sex as potentially consensual rather than treating it as rape, which it arguably is.49 Certainly, Crumb suggests in his commentary that after she falls pregnant, Hagar sees her mistress in a diminished light which made Sarai afraid that Hagar may usurp her position as matriarch of the family and he comes to this conclusion by arguing that this is the reason that Sarai harasses Hagar, forcing her to flee.50 From the perspective of a modern reader without a background in biblical Hebrew, Crumb’s decision to use ‘handmaid’ affects the reception of the text. In modern terms the difference between the description of Hagar as ‘handmaid’ compared to ‘slavegirl’ is, as Alter points out, the difference between a person being in paid employment of their own volition, as opposed to somebody who is forced

47. T h e shorter hair is a mark of Hagar’s Egyptian heritage and thus a mark of her enslavement. 48. Alter, Genesis, 67. 49. Crumb may also be familiar with Margaret Atwood’s The Handmaid’s Tale and may have chosen the word ‘handmaid’ because his modern readers already associate it with this story. 50. Crumb, commentary to chapter 16, Genesis, Illustrated. Similarly, this is argued by Teubal in Ancient Sisterhood: The Lost Traditions of Hagar & Sarah (Ohio: Swallow Press, 1997), 49–54.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

47

to work without wages, rights or freedom.51 Culturally speaking, modern readers without foreknowledge of the biblical term may assume from Crumb’s version of Genesis that Hagar enjoys greater freedoms and privileges than if she were described as a slave. Therefore, when Sarai gives Hagar to Abram ‘as a wife’ (16:3), Crumb’s reader might assume that either Hagar is of a higher status and is given to Abram as at least a concubine, but perhaps there is even an assumption that she will enjoy the same or similar status to Sarai ‘as a wife’ which gives credence to the fear that she is will be in a position to usurp Sarai once she provides Abram with an heir.52 Neither of these is true, but Crumb emphasizes his choice of ‘handmaid’ and Hagar’s borrowed status by highlighting Sarai’s declaration that ‘perhaps my house shall be built up through her!’ Emphasis on the word ‘her’ implies that Crumb believes that Sarai – albeit as a last resort – is comfortable with her house being built up through her handmaid. Missing from this narrative is a discussion on the rape of Hagar, who, whether Crumb understood her to be a slavegirl or a concubine, is forced to have sex with Abram in her role as servant to Sarai. As noted in the JPS, among other sources, this is a ‘normal’ situation in ancient Near Eastern laws, citing the laws of Lipit-Ishtar, Old Assyrian marriage contracts and the Hammurabi code as evidence for this.53 In particular, the Hammurabi law code states that in the case of a wife who is also a priestess, she is barred from having children and therefore must rely on servants to provide her husband with children until such a time that her priestess duties are over.54 This is what Crumb’s word choice and visual illustrations are depicting and is likely why he chose to call Hagar a ‘handmaid’ since it reflects ideas put forth by Teubal. Also of note is Crumb’s adoption of ‘wife’ in Gen. 16:3 to describe Hagar, as opposed to the JPS’s ‘concubine’, which, the commentary argues, designates the lowly status of secondary wife to Hagar, recognizing her position as unequal to Sarai despite sharing a husband. Alter refutes this, stating the Hebrew is: ‫אׁשַ ה‬,ִ the same word

51. Alter, Genesis, 67. 52. In her 1990 book, Ancient Sisterhood, Teubal argues that Hagar was neither slave nor concubine because she was not under instruction from Abram, which would be normal, but she was commanded by Sarai. Further, the fact that the text suggests Hagar only had one sexual encounter with Abram which was enough to make her pregnant, Teubal argues that it is likely a marriage ceremony (of sorts) took place to sanctify that one sexual encounter, which would have only happened with the permission of Sarai. This is because Hagar was ‫ ׁשפְ חָ ה‬to Sarai, and not answerable to Abram, and also explains why Sarai controlled Hagar’s destiny, which Abram was unable to argue against. See: Teubal, Ancient Sisterhood, 53–4. There is no evidence to suggest Crumb has engaged with this book, nor does his visual imagery reflect Teubal’s argument from this book. 53. Nahum M. Sarna, ed., The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis (Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1994), 119. See also: Teubal, Sarah the Priestess, 68. 54. Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary, 68.

48

The Bible and Comics

used to describe Sarai, and not ‫פִ ֶלגֶׁש‬, which can be translated as concubine,55 which might explain Crumb’s decision to designate Hagar as wife. Bearing in mind these language choices, we must now return to the visual elements of the story to better understand how such nuances are displayed in image, if at all. Crumb maintains a narrative dominant panel pattern, designing the pattern of frame shapes and sizes to reflect the emotional content of the chapter.56 The first panel of Sarai’s close-up creates a diagonal within the image from Sarai’s eyes towards Hagar in the background. The composition in this panel indicated Hagar’s subservient status to Sarai, and this is repeated in the second panel, where Hagar stands at a distance behind Sarai, appearing smaller than the dominant matriarch and her husband. In both panels, the diagonal from Sarai to Hagar foreshadows the latter’s involvement in producing an heir for Abram. The responsibility for childbearing is passed from Sarai to Hagar, and the order is coming from Sarai to Hagar. The smaller size of Hagar is a visual acknowledgement of her subservience. In the first panel Hagar appears to be kneading bread in a large bowl, a visual recall to the reader’s introduction to Sarai in Gen. 11:29-30, where Sarai holds a bowl of bread. The fact that Sarai once held the bowl and was responsible for the nourishment of her husband (cf. Gen. 11:29-30 in Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated) but it is now in the hands of Hagar visually symbolizes Hagar providing nourishment for Abram in the form of producing children and fulfilling his need for descendants. This is an example of sequential links between panels, or tressage as described by Miller and Groensteen in the previous chapter. According to George Ferguson, depiction of bread ‘has always been a symbol of the means of sustaining life [. . .] In the Old Testament bread was the symbol of God’s providence care and nurture of his people’.57 Gossai writes that ‘bread represents the universal satiety for hunger’;58 thus, the depiction of bread could also refer to God fulfilling his prophecy with Abram, providing him the means to procreate and begin his lineage. Bread is also symbolic of gestation in modern terms because it must rise and bake and grow until it is ready, hence the term ‘bun in the oven’ to indicate somebody is pregnant. Panels 3 and 4 of Genesis 16 cover the ‘union’ of Hagar and Abram (Figure 3.2). The pairing of these panels, which are situated in the top row of the left-hand page, signals that this ‘marriage’ should be understood as ritualistic and physical. For example, in panel 3 Sarai stands over the joining of Abram and Hagar’s hands recalling modern marriage ceremonies of officiants standing over the joining of hands of two newlyweds. Sarai sanctions the union between Abram and Hagar with the authority of a religious figure. In panel 4, Abram and Hagar are pictured

55. Alter, Genesis, 68. 56. Peeters, Case, planche, récit, 41. 57. George Ferguson, Signs & Symbols in Christian Art (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961), 172. 58. Gossai, Power and Marginality, 16.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

Figure 3.2  ‘Gen. 16:3-6’, R. Crumb, The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb.

49

50

The Bible and Comics

in a sexual embrace, consummating their marriage.59 In the background, there is a large, rounded vase which is often symbolically associated with wombs (a vessel to be filled) and by extension pregnancy or fertility in general.60 In both panels Hagar is submissive, indicated by her smaller stature, her dropped gaze and Abram’s physical dominance in the consummation scene. This changes in panel 5. The reader must use their own knowledge in the space of the gutter between panels, to assume that time has passed between the scene of consummation in panel 4, and the scene in panel 5. Hagar is obviously pregnant, and quite a way along, judging by her swollen stomach. This time, Sarai is placed in the background and Hagar is presented as physically dominant both in size and in body language. Crumb has purposefully drawn Sarai smaller, but she sits in the doorway of a tent which enhances the illusion. Sarai watches Hagar walk past, proudly holding her pregnant stomach. This panel is captioned with Gen. 16:4: ‘and when she saw that she had conceived, her mistress seemed diminished in her eyes’. Tellingly, an empty food basket hangs above Sarai’s head, symbolizing her inability to nourish a family. Crumb depicts Sarai’s indignation by drawing a white aura around her body which is against a dark background, emphasizing the contrast. It gives the impression of Sarai’s anger pulsing from her body. This is exaggerated in panel 6 in a confrontational scene between Sarai and Abram where her aura takes the form of spikes which point alarmingly towards her husband. In panel 7, the background is totally black, void of any other detail, reflecting Sarai’s mood and tone as she exclaims, ‘Let the Lord Judge between you and me!’ In response, Abram’s eyes are tightly closed in an almost infantile manner. If he cannot see Sarai, perhaps she will go away, and he won’t have to listen to her. This is a clever reference to the recurring theme of seeing/hearing in Genesis 16. As Alter notes, Abram ‘heeds’ Sarai (16:2), Sarai ‘sees’ her status is diminished in Hagar’s

59. As I have already noted, Hagar is a servant in some capacity to Sarai, whether as a slave with little to no rights, or as a concubine or ‘second wife’ to Abram, who potentially has some rights. Either way, it can be understood from the text that Hagar is married to Abram against her will, even though her voice is not presented in the text, and that the scene of ‘consummation’ between the pair is also against Hagar’s will, and should be viewed as rape (see: Susanne Scholz, Introducing the Women’s Hebrew Bible: Feminism, Gender Justice and the Study of the Old Testament (London: T&T Clark/Bloomsbury, 2017); Trible, Texts of Terror, 9–36; and J. Cheryl Exum, ‘Who’s Afraid of the Endangered Ancestress’, in Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader, ed. Alice Bach (New York: Routledge, 1999), 141–58, for more on the topic of Hagar and rape). This is not something that is obvious in Crumb’s text, although in fairness, his rendering does not deny that either. However, based on his exegesis of the text, it is fair to surmise Crumb has never read the scene of Hagar and Abram as rape, and as such, his version does not portray that. 60. T h is is true across religious traditions, including Buddhism, Chinese traditions and Christianity. An empty vase or vessel is often associated with an empty womb, as both have the potential to be filled. Rounded vases or vessels are often associated with pregnancy or fertility in general owing to their shape and contents.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

51

eyes (16:4), Hagar’s son will be called Ishmael, meaning ‘God has heard’ (16:11), Hagar calls the name of the Lord ‘El-roi’, meaning ‘God who sees me’ (16:13) and names the place of her epiphany ‘Beer-lahai-roi’, meaning ‘Well of the Living One Who Sees Me’ (16:14).61 Crumb likes to play with these puns in his visualizations, noting the themes and incorporating them into character traits. This is something that Crumb is uniquely placed to do in a text-image remediation which would not be so easy to achieve in a text-only or image-only adaptation of the text. Sarai’s final appearance in this chapter closes the page, and it contrasts with the opening sequence of the ‘marriage’ which opens the page. Sarai blessing/officiating the marriage has turned into Sarai harassing Hagar and forcing her to flee from both the union and her home. The harassment takes the form of Sarai pointing angrily at Hagar, who has started to hurriedly move away clutching her possessions to her body. The deliberate design of the multistage-multiframe neatly showcases the emotional aspects of the narrative, moving the characters from a place of giving/security, to physical touch/intimacy, to distress (from Sarai) and contempt (apparently, from Hagar),62 to anger (Sarai), frustration (Abram) and ending with Sarai ‘harassing’ Hagar and banishing her.63 Hagar’s life has been upended across the panels on this single page, from marriage to isolation.64 Crumb has successfully utilized the resources of comics to showcase the reversal of Hagar’s situation and neatly encompass the reversal of decisions by Sarai. Read with the accompanying text, Crumb’s visual depiction of Sarai and Hagar also demonstrates how the pair mirror or shadow each other. Athalya BrennerIdan suggests that mirroring in female pairs is a common way to present conflict in 61. Alter, Genesis, 67–71. 62. Some might consider jealousy to be a prevalent emotion in the panel of 16:4, although the text does not explicitly suggest Sarai is jealous, nor does Crumb enforce the idea. 63. Alter does not comment on the use of ‘harassed’; the JPS translates the text to ‘treated her harshly’, noting, ‘the laws of Ur-Nammu prescribe that the insolent concubineslave have “her mouth scoured with one quart of salt,” while Hammurabi prescribed that she be reduced to slave status and again bear the slave mark. The Hebrew verb used here, implies that Sarai subjected Hagar to physical and psychological abuse. It carried with it the nuance of critical judgment of her actions.’ Sarna, The JPS Torah Commentary, 120. Genesis’s Hebrew lexicon indicates the verb should be translated as ‘to oppress, to depress, to afflict’ in the Piel form which is used in Gen. 16:6. Crumb uses ‘harassed’, and his accompanying image shows Sarai shouting and wagging her finger at a fleeing Hagar but none of the more serious punishments described earlier. Abram is not in the scene, which further abdicates him from any responsibility of the situation. 64. Admittedly, marriage and security are not by Hagar’s choice but by her mistress’s orders, which is important to remember. However, the contrast between being a member of the household and having the security of a roof over her head against the banishment and isolation is the point. It is impossible to tell which situation Hagar would have preferred, though from Crumb’s rendering, he suggests the first situation.

52

The Bible and Comics

the Hebrew Bible, ‘in the sense that [Sarai] has certain properties which the other lacks but tries to obtain for herself [. . .] if combined into one person, each pair would form a complete and balanced personality’.65 From a literary perspective, this is a neat narrative device which signals to the reader that each matriarch must have a ‘partner’ in order to fulfil their characters, separating the patriarchs from the matriarchs because the men do not require someone else to make them ‘whole’. From a visual perspective, Crumb codes the visual representation of Sarai and Hagar in the same way, signalling by use of identity markers, who has power and who does not. Such a representation reminds the reader that if blended together, these two women offer Abram everything he might require between them: dominance/submission, old/young, infertility/fertility, power/powerlessness, wife/secondary wife and, finally, subject/object of the text.66

Responding to Crumb’s Retelling of Gen. 16:1-6 The narrative of Sarai’s quest for motherhood in Gen. 16:1-6 is told with Sarai at the forefront of the dialogue, action and power relations between herself and Abram. When Sarai commands an act, Abram’s supposed reluctance forces him to seek advice from God rather than confront his wife. God always supports Sarai’s requests, suggesting she has God’s favour in this scenario, and is more powerful than her husband when it comes to divine relationships (at least in this instance). Crumb highlights Abram’s inferiority to Sarai by ensuring she dominates the scene both physically and verbally. For example, she physically takes up most of the panel when she first suggests the use of Hagar to give Abram a child (Gen. 16:2), even dominating the ‘marriage’ scene acting as a divider between Abram and Hagar (Gen. 16:3) as an officiant. Sarai rages at Abram, emanating pointed rays of anger towards him to reflect her anger at Hagar’s slight towards her (Gen. 16:4), and she is so powerful that her anger turns the panel black in Gen. 16:5. The significance of this representation of Sarai, Abram and Hagar is that it represents a non-traditional reading of the texts of Genesis and is reflective of Crumb’s interpretation of the text, as well as the sources which he used to shape his text. Most significantly, his remediation reflects the influence of Teubal, especially in terms of presenting Sarai as a dominant character, and Abram as a passive, weak character. The visual aspect of Crumb’s remediation is critical here, since it challenges the traditional interpretation of Abram as patriarch, the father of nations, because he is graphically undermined by his wife. Another challenge to traditional interpretations of Genesis is the fact that Hagar is also portrayed 65. Brenner-Idan, The Israelite Woman, 92. See also: Trible, Texts of Terror, 10; and Phyllis Silverman Kramer, ‘Biblical Women That Come in Pairs: The Use of Female Pairs as a Literary Device in the Hebrew Bible’, in Genesis: A Feminist Companion to the Bible, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 218–32. 66. See also: Trible, Texts of Terror, 10.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

53

in a more significant light in Crumb’s work than normal, especially in terms of giving a face and a prominent visual role to a slave who is supposed to occupy and represent the margins of society. While she is still somewhat marginalized within the visual representation of her story, Crumb attempts to depict Hagar as a woman who has a happy ending despite the wrongs done to her by visually connecting her to Sarai later in the story at the end of Gen. 21:20-21, where she presides over Ishmael’s marriage. The visual links, or use of tressage, suggest that as everything turned out well for Sarai, it also turned out well for Hagar. Though a word-for-word comic, this case study demonstrates that there can be no such thing as a ‘straightforward illustration job’ of the Bible as Crumb has suggested.67 Instead, the incorporation of images offers the chance for comic book creators to be more playful and creative with their interpretations of the text. Just because they can include every word of a Bible, there is no such restriction on the images which they choose to draw alongside that text. This offers an opportunity to open the biblical stories to new and different perspectives which might not ‘accurately’ reflect the text, but which offer an interpretation outwith patriarchal approaches. The idea of Sarai as a powerful leader is achieved both by the accompanying images and by Crumb’s division of the text. Crumb has shaped the narrative he wants to produce by deciding what text accompanies which image; he is not bound by lectionary divisions. This is a key point in the interpretation of biblical text into comics. Crumb has the artistic freedom to choose how the text is displayed, where it appears in relation to the panels, and this affects how the story is received by the reader. For example, in Gen. 16:1-6, after Hagar has conceived and looked with contempt upon Sarai, Sarai confronts Abram, blaming him for Hagar’s alleged insolence. The text of Gen. 16:5 is split between panels 6 and 7; panel 7 contains only the interjection ‘Let the Lord judge between you and me!’ from Sarai to Abram. Dividing the text across two panels in this way controls the pacing of the story and the tone of the speech, especially when combined with the image of Sarai angrily exclaiming at a wincing Abram. It is this control of textual decisions as well as the use of punctuation marks such as interrobangs combined with Crumb’s images which reveals Crumb’s understanding of Genesis. It is Crumb’s understanding of the tools of comic books which then exposes his interpretation to the reader. Crumb is both interpreter and open to interpretation.68 Crumb’s portrayal of the relationship between Sarai and Hagar and the status of each woman is influenced by his reading of Teubal and his perception of profeminism. As such, he has filled gaps or inconsistencies in the narrative with pictorial choices which indicate how he thinks the text should be read. Thus, the text is still ‘word-for-word’, but the images act as a visual commentary. For example, in his retelling of Gen. 16:3, the reader sees Sarai acting as an officiant at the union of Hagar and Abram. Such an angle is not reflective of the biblical text, 67. Crumb, ‘Introduction’, in Genesis, Illustrated. 68. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 36.

54

The Bible and Comics

and it suggests two things: first, that Sarai was an authoritative figure who assumes the role of decision-maker, matchmaker and celebrant.69 She is not a passive figure, secondary to Abram. Second, that for Crumb to understand the power dynamics at play here, he needed to frame this union as legitimate, sanctioned by Sarai (and perhaps the law?). Doing so removes the difficult yet more accurate representation of Hagar as a slavegirl. This is backed up by his description of Hagar as handmaid as discussed earlier. Moreover, positioning Sarai as the lead in this story means Abram assumes a secondary role, and this is visually supported in Crumb’s retelling. Abram is virtually silent and does not move the narrative forward in any way. Hagar, on the other hand, is the subject of the story and she enjoys some modicum of autonomy and confidence. The composition of panels across the pages – especially in the depictions of Sarai and Hagar’s unequal and unhappy relationship – renders a picture of power struggles (evidenced, for example, in the size and demeanour of Sarai against a smaller, vulnerable Hagar of the first panel, against a proud and confident Hagar walking in front of a smaller, diminished Sarai in the background of panel 5), and emotional content which is absent from a straightforward reading of the text. As Trible put it, ‘a reordering of the relationship’ takes place70 which removes the hierarchical blinkers from Hagar’s perspective.71 On the point of emotionality, what Crumb adds to the text with his retelling is emotional content. For example, where the text is void of emotional description, Crumb has interpreted the passages perhaps from his own perspective on how he would feel in a similar situation. Abram’s passivity corroborates with Crumb’s preference for drawing weak, small men being dominated by larger, confident women. His depiction of Sarai also correlates with this, especially in panels 6 and 7, where Sarai is portrayed angrily shouting at Abram, dominating the panel. Finally, his depiction of Hagar is quite beautifully rendered, capturing the impossible situation in which she finds herself, encouraging the reader to feel sympathy towards her. Those emotions are lacking in the text; Crumb has visualized the human response adding new layers of interpretation to the text. Thus, Crumb’s knowledge of the text is combined with his personal experience of being a living, breathing person and reflected upon this story of love, loss, despair, hurt and hope. Overall, this study of Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated demonstrates the ways in which image can subvert or reframe the ‘original’ text, creating space for new 69. Teubal, Sarah the Priestess, 37. Here, Teubal also claims that the matriarchs were not barren, but ‘initially childless’ as they all go on to successfully produce children later in their lives (God’s involvement is not noted). This, she argues, is because the priestess tradition they belonged to reportedly forbade priestesses to have children until at least their duties were done. 70. Trible, Texts of Terror, 12. 71. Phyllis Trible, ‘Genesis 22: The Sacrifice of Sarah’, in Women in the Hebrew Bible, ed. Alice Bach (New York: Routledge, 1999), 281.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

55

interpretations which forefront the women in the story, but which also add content to the text, demonstrating power struggles, messy relationships and emotional responses.

Illustrated Genesis in Hebrew, Timothy C. McNinch and Keith Neely Published in 2016, McNinch’s Illustrated Genesis was created as a visual-learning aid for those reading the Bible in ancient Hebrew. The primary aim behind the book is to ‘help students of biblical Hebrew to immediately distinguish narrative from the discourse, and to pick up on visual cues of action, tension, and emotion’.72 The author tells a story in his introduction of watching his daughter learn to read and being confused by the lack of pictures in literature intended for older audiences, which encouraged McNinch to assess anew the relationship between text and image as intrinsic to understanding narratives. Thus, he set out to create a series of illustrated books of the Bible which would incorporate both text and image to illuminate biblical stories and characters. The result is an educational tool meant to help students read Hebrew by reading the accompanying images. McNinch hopes that the illustrated version of Genesis will ‘ignite your imagination and turn the world of these words into an expansive, technicolour landscape in your mind’s eye’.73 This call to ‘turn the world of these words’ into visual imagery in your imagination is very much the magic of comic books, a magic which is embedded in the reading process. The reading process in comics is complex since the reader is faced with textual decisions and artistic choices at the same time. Both strands normally corroborate with and support each other to produce a holistic interpretation of the story. But importantly, the reader must be able to understand coding within both structures to grasp the full meaning of the story. Comics creator and theorist Will Eisner explains that reading text-image narratives is different to text-only or image-only stories: The reading process in comics is an extension of text. In text alone the process of reading involves word-to-image conversion. Comics accelerate that by providing the image. When properly executed, it goes beyond conversion and speed and becomes a seamless whole.74

The act of ‘reading’ a comic relies on deciphering a ‘code’ of symbols which exist within both text and image. This code is made up of visual signals such as facial expressions and gestures, landscapes, objects and other signs, as well as the

72. McNinch, Illustrated Genesis, viii. 73. McNinch, Illustrated Genesis, viii. 74. Eisner, Graphic Storytelling, 5.

56

The Bible and Comics

text itself which is also a form of image.75 Ann Miller describes this as ‘iconic encoding’, where words and letters retain a symbolic function rather than a literary function. This is also true of the use of punctuation marks such as exclamation marks or interrobangs.76 Mario Saraceni expands on this, suggesting that words are thought of as symbolic in nature, whereas pictures are considered iconic.77 Saraceni describes a scale from iconic to symbolic, proposing that words and images lie somewhere in the middle of this scale.78 Words can be both iconic and symbolic, and their size, shape and colour often add other information to their literal meaning.79 In McNinch’s Illustrated Genesis, he prefaces his retelling by drawing the reader’s attention to the power comic books have of transforming words into a rich, visual language which combines text, picture and imagination. Drawing on those theories suggested by Saraceni and Miller, McNinch’s version of Genesis adds an extra element by incorporating every word of the Hebrew version of the book, alongside the English translation and the accompanying images. Moreover, the comic book is written and drawn to be read from right-to-left, as one would read the Hebrew text. Such a move creates an intense reading experience in which the reader must decode three intersecting sets of language codes to interpret the narrative. Added to this difficulty is, as McNinch notes, the issue of translation from Hebrew to English which is not straightforward since there is often no direct translation into English for certain Hebrew words.80 Drawing from the text of the Westminster Leningrad Codex,81 McNinch has stripped his Hebrew of cantillation marks but kept vowel points to simplify and declutter the pages of his version. He has also tried to preserve the sentence structure and word order of Hebrew into his English translation, a move which often suppresses the English in a stilted and sometimes confused way. This triad of language styles – Hebrew, English and visual – is either a hindrance or a help depending on the reader’s familiarity with the Hebrew language (assuming that the book is aimed at English-speakers who wish to learn biblical Hebrew). However, as we will see, the inclusion of Hebrew lettering adds a sense of authenticity and originality to McNinch’s retelling, as was absent in Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated. Interestingly and perhaps important to note, McNinch describes the inclusion of the English as a secondary translation, incorporated only to help with translating the Hebrew. The primary translation for McNinch is the visual illustration: ‘You ought to try to glean the meaning of the text from those 75. Saraceni, The Language of Comics. 76. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 99. 77. Saraceni, Language of Comics, 15. 78. Saraceni, Language of Comics, 15. 79. Saraceni, Language of Comics, 18. 80. McNinch, Illustrated Genesis, ix. 81. J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research, ‘Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex [UXLC 1.0] Tanach’, accessed 23 May 2020, http://tanach​.us​/Tanach​.xml.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

57

images first, before looking to the translation for help.’82 The images, then, carry an enormous weight when it comes to both correctly translating the Hebrew version and interpreting the story. From brief comments in his introduction and on the publisher’s website, McNinch appears to be approaching the text of Genesis as a holistic, singleauthored text. At least, there is no indication of the same tussles with the text experienced by Crumb who openly acknowledged the multiple authors, editors, translations and commentaries which exist in competition with each other. This may be because McNinch’s primary goal is to further the study of Hebrew language and not to engage in the types of scholarly debate which have surrounded the Bible for centuries. However, that does not mean his illustrated Genesis is not loaded with meaning which upholds or reinforces certain tropes, such as those we have seen in Crumb’s version. In this case study, then, it is important to understand how the images interact with both the Hebrew and the English translations, especially to analyse whether the images add something to those translations, miss something out, respond to a perceived gap or potentially impose an ideological agenda upon the texts.

Genesis 16:1-6 in McNinch’s Illustrated Genesis Genesis 16 opens the page (see Figure 3.3), reading right-to-left as in Hebrew. The narrator’s voice (represented by the tan-coloured bubble) is inset into a wide panel which shows Sarai speaking to Abram inside a tent, gesturing to Hagar who stands outside clutching a vase. Abram holds a basket. There is no perifield to the beginning of the story. The text represents Gen. 16:1-2, but the scene shows the moment Sarai offers Hagar to Abram as a solution to their problem of infertility. McNinch has translated ‫ ֲﬠ ָצ ַר ִני‬as ‘restrained me’ from bearing children,83 a translation used in the KJV and which is much more physical compared to Crumb’s ‘the Lord has kept me from bearing children’.84 Visually, the tent acts as a physical divider between the master and mistress and their slave, forefronting Sarai as the protagonist of the story since she controls the liminal space at the door of the tent and is the first to speak. Hagar is quite literally on the outside of the family. Each character is colour-coded; Abram in green, Sarai in earthy brown colours and, surprisingly, Hagar in a vivid purple which sharply contrasts with the sandy yellow hues of the landscape around her. As Miller notes, the use of colour is a conscious choice which is used to indicate characters, moods, location or symbolic connections with religious, political or social constructs.85 Symbolically, purple is a colour associated with royalty, power, passion, suffering or love of truth in

82. 83. 84. 85.

McNinch, Illustrated Genesis, ix. McNinch, Illustrated Genesis, 32. Crumb, Gen. 16:2, Genesis, Illustrated. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 95.

58

The Bible and Comics

Figure 3.3  ‘Gen. 16:1-8’, T. McNinch, Illustrated Genesis in Hebrew.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

59

Christian traditions.86 In Jewish traditions, purple was also associated with royalty and upper-class members of society (e.g. 1 Macc. 10:20; 11:58; Judg. 8:26) A bluevariation known as Tyrian purple was used widely by the ancient Phoenicians and the Roman empire because it was rich in colour which did not fade or weather. To choose a colour widely associated with wealth and privilege, and to dress a slavegirl like Hagar in such a hue, is either a choice loaded in meaning or completely arbitrary. If completely arbitrary, one would expect the colour to appear elsewhere throughout McNinch’s Genesis and to an extent it does, though never in quite a bold and assuming hue as it does on Hagar. Characters like Lot and his daughters wear purple tones, as do Isaac and Leah. Isaac dies on a purple bed, as does Joseph. The only figure who wears the same shade of purple as Hagar is Pharaoh in Gen. 12:15 and 40:20. Perhaps one could surmise that both Pharaoh and Hagar are of Egyptian descent, and so the colour is used to denote heritage; this does not account for the difference in status of each individual. Why this colour is chosen for Hagar, then, may be more to do with the need to ‘other’ her in the story by contrasting her clothing against her owners, Abram and Sarai; since they wear natural earthy colours of green and brown, the vibrant purple stands out. Blyth describes this trope of highlighting the otherness of the foreign woman in particular as being painted ‘with vibrant hues of alien eroticism which remains a powerful identity marker of the fatal woman’.87 Like Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated, McNinch’s text-image retelling of this story is narrative-dominant and the pattern of panels is conventional; that is, the narrative dominates and determines the composition of the panels on the page in a regular grid format.88 In some ways, it means the story is rather stagnant and formulaic and it often lacks the emotional and physical drama which could be emphasized by varying panel patterns. However, since McNinch views this as a learning aid, perhaps the aim was not to consider emotional perspective but to focus on the text, and in that respect the rigidity of a narrative-dominant framework reflects the formulaic approach of reading biblical Hebrew. The second panel represents Gen. 16:3, where Sarai offers Hagar to Abram. Hagar is now in the tent, having been brought in from the outside to the personal and private space of Sarai and Abram. Sarai rests a hand on Hagar’s shoulder, guiding her body towards Abram, who clutches his heart and looks either shocked or surprised. Hagar looks to Sarai, which implies Sarai is in charge of this situation and Abram is not complicit or, at the least, is passive. It is worth noting at this point that the difference in physical appearance between Hagar and Sarai is not as pronounced as it is in Crumb’s version, but there are similarities. Sarai’s head is covered with a scarf, and the small glimpse of hair on show is greying. Her body is

86. Diane Apostolos-Cappadonna, A Guide to Christian Art (London: Bloomsbury/ T&T Clark, 2020), 220. 87. Caroline Blyth, Reimagining Delilah’s Afterlives as Femme Fatale: The Lost Seduction (London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2017), 76–7. 88. Peeters, Case, planche récit, 41.

60

The Bible and Comics

wrapped in robes, hiding her figure from view. Hagar, on the other hand, has freeslowing brown hair, and she wears, as noted, the purple robe cinched at the waist to highlight her figure. There is a sense that these two women are different to each other, but not in the same sense that they are opposite or ‘mirroring’ each other in the same way Crumb’s portrayals suggest (in line with Brenner, for example).89 Because of this, the tension between the two women is not as conspicuous in McNinch’s retelling and the scene omits the significance of the moment. There is no scene of intercourse between Hagar and Abram; instead, the reader must use the gutter space to collaborate with McNinch by bringing their own imagination to the narrative so that they can understand what has taken place between Abram and Hagar. The reader propels the story forward in this regard.90 This time it is harder to understand what has passed between Abram and Hagar since in the third panel of the sequence there is no indication that Hagar is pregnant (Gen. 16:4). She has no physical signs of being pregnant, instead appearing with a basket in her hands looking backwards at Sarai, whose diminished figure stands far behind her. The basket in her hands is the only visual clue that something has taken place between herself, and Abram since it calls back to the opening panel of the story where the basket was in Abram’s hands. The transfer of the basket from Abram to Hagar suggests the transfer of a material possession between the pair and could signify her being pregnant with his child. This is supported by the diminished stature of Sarai in the background who is holding an unidentifiable object and is turned away from Hagar’s gaze. Throughout McNinch’s narrative so far, he has chosen to identify Hagar as a ‘servant’. This, combined with her richly hued clothes, invokes ideas of status and agency upon Hagar which, as discussed in the previous case study, are not representative of Hagar’s likely position in the family. Instead, the choice of ‘servant’ suggests Hagar is perhaps a willing participant in this transaction, or at least that she has been consulted in some capacity. This, combined with the tame imagery, does not actively raise the issue of consent and so silence is (wrongly) assumed as assent. Such a reading only serves to propagate a misogynistic and oppressive interpretation of Genesis and does not consider other matters such as Hagar’s ethnicity (in McNinch’s version Hagar’s ethnicity is drawn attention to in the text where she is described repeatedly as Egyptian, but not in her visual representation). Because of this, the power dynamic between Hagar and Abram (Gen. 16:3) and Hagar and Sarai (Gen. 16:2; 16:4-6) is not clearly defined, and the reader could be forgiven for thinking Hagar is actively involved in this storyline rather than recognizing the objectification and abuse of her body. Gen. 16:5-6 is the conclusion of the first part of this story. Hagar is perceived to have slighted Sarai in some form: ‘her mistress became diminished in her eyes’91 (Gen. 16:4) and for this slight – which is visually absent from McNinch’s retelling 89. Brenner-Idan, The Israelite Woman, 92. 90. Rushkoff, ‘Looking for God in the Gutter’, x. 91. McNinch, Illustrated Genesis, 32.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

61

– Sarai goes to Abram to complain. Abram’s response is much less emotional than we have seen in Crumb’s retelling as he almost shrugs his shoulders and tells Sarai to do ‘what’s best in your eyes’. Abram is disconnected from the overall emotion and trajectory of the story acting as a secondary character in the background. Such a reading absolves him of any responsibility in the affair, placing accountability on Sarai. In this visualization, Sarai holds the power and abuses her station as primary wife of Abram to try and solve the situation of infertility. In panel 6 of McNinch’s visualization, the power of Sarai is wielded in the stick she brandishes at a cowering Hagar, as if chasing off a wild animal. This moment of violence is disturbing since it is not preceded by a demonstrable show of emotion from any of the characters. McNinch’s accompanying words suggest that ‘Sarai oppressed her, and she fled from her face’. The artistic decision to show Sarai threatening to hit Hagar with a weapon is an attempt to reconcile a difficult story about pain, hurt and abuse with what will ultimately be a positive outcome. It appears that for McNinch, Sarai must actively hurt Hagar to cause her to flee. A severe telling-off is not enough, and it is difficult to show other forms of punishment such as withholding rights, liberties or sustenance in a visual format. The only answer can be violence and the motion of driving Hagar into the wild like an animal. Hagar is not yet showing any physical signs of pregnancy, but she is holding an empty vessel which could represent Sarai’s empty womb though this is tenuous.

Responding to McNinch’s Retelling of Gen. 16:1-6 Sarai is the active protagonist in this retelling who, in collaboration with the reader, moves the story forward. McNinch effectively sidelines Abram in his retelling as he stands either to the side (Gen. 16:1-2; 16:5) or in the background (Gen. 16:3). Sarai dominates most of the panels she is in, but interestingly, it is the bright hue of Hagar’s clothing which draws the reader’s attention and thus firmly roots Hagar in the centre of the story. The significance of this representation of Sarai, Abram and Hagar is that it is meant to act as a visual-learning aid for the biblical Hebrew language. McNinch aimed to not only help students of the biblical Hebrew to read the text, but to ‘pick up on visual cues of action, tension, and emotion’.92 The accompanying images do suggest a hierarchy of power in the story, but lack emotionality, tension and drama. For example, in panel 3 when Hagar is presented to Abram (Gen. 16:3), Sarai’s hand on Hagar’s shoulder is almost friendly, as if guiding Hagar gently towards her master. For his part, Abram looks surprised at the proceedings. However, this should be a moment of high drama when Hagar is presented to Abram ‘as a wife’ (Gen. 16:3), sexually assaulted and instantly pregnant. Moreover, this is the moment when Sarai’s hopes and wishes are fulfilled, and her house may indeed be 92. McNinch, Illustrated Genesis, viii.

62

The Bible and Comics

built up by Hagar. None of this is incorporated into McNinch’s retelling. As such, the images do not act as cues to emotional responses or tension in the narrative. Where Crumb’s retelling can be considered a non-traditional reading of Genesis which challenges the interpretation of Abram as patriarch, the father of nations, McNinch’s version fails to challenge gender roles, power dynamics or representation of minorities (namely Hagar the Egyptian slave). Instead, it upholds traditional interpretations of the text which are based in patriarchal and often misogynistic values. The blame for the outcome is linked to Sarai because she is visually dominant in the six panels. Hagar is unproblematic and perhaps even complicit in her abuse because of her secondary role to Sarai and the strange elevation of her status through visual choices like clothing. Abram is passive, almost camouflaged into the background in his earth-coloured clothes. Therefore, when the story goes wrong the blame lies with Sarai and Abram – and even God – is absolved of any responsibility. As noted, there can be no such thing as a straightforward retelling of Genesis in a comic book,93 nor does McNinch suggest in any of the accompanying literature that he is attempting such a version. However, McNinch has also failed to take the opportunity of playing with the text through the illustrations and has produced a version of Genesis which is ambiguous in its execution but errs on the side of traditional interpretation. Unlike Crumb, though, there is no attempt to reinvent the text to reflect an ideological concern and that is perhaps why McNinch’s version is less creative. The purpose of the book is to help students of the Hebrew language with translation, and it does achieve that aim simply by including the Hebrew alongside an English translation. The images are not necessary in this respect. Overall, this study of McNinch’s Illustrated Genesis almost achieves the opposite to Crumb; where Crumb shows how biblical comic books can subvert and reframe the biblical texts and add emotionality to the content, McNinch shows the importance of knowing the text in its ‘original’ language. It is the juxtaposition of the Hebrew language with an English translation which is crucial to reading and deciphering the images, rather than the images aiding interpretation of the text. However, McNinch’s retelling does demonstrate the potential that text and image can both reinforce and inform the other and, as such, using both text and image together can be a valuable tool for the reader. Ultimately, then, the attempt to create a ‘word-for-word’ Bible comic challenges the textual tradition of interpretation of the Bible since it demonstrates the limits of textual interpretation.

Word-for-Word Comics The idea of a word-for-word retelling of a book of the Bible is, as noted, problematic. For example, in the introduction to his version of Genesis, Crumb’s claim that he

93. Crumb, ‘Introduction’, in Genesis, Illustrated.

3. ‘Word-for-Word’ Bible Comics and Sarah

63

produces every word of the ‘original’ text94 is followed by an account of several sources upon which he bases his text, including the KJV and Robert Alter’s commentary and translation of Genesis. The two statements clearly contradict each other. However, they may be read as a comment or reflection upon how Crumb views biblical scripture. The juxtaposition of the term ‘original text’ with a list of several texts is not a mistake: Crumb is drawing the reader’s attention to the ‘convoluted vagueness’ of the Bible’s history in terms of its own sources, writers, dates and reception. He does not believe that there is a single, authoritative, original source, but that the Bible – and in this case Genesis – is an amalgamation of ancient tribal stories, myths, history and politics. Crumb affirms this in his introduction to Genesis, where he writes: ‘I believe it is the words of men [. . .] its power derived from its having been a collective endeavour that evolved and condensed over many generations before reaching its final, fixed form.’95 By acknowledging the complex and layered history of Genesis in the introduction, Crumb suggests that his version of Genesis is another layer to that rich history; it is not itself an authoritative version of Genesis since there is no such thing. Nor should it be considered Holy Scripture, to be used in a liturgical or ecumenical sense. For Crumb, his comic Bible is both a challenge to the tradition of reading scripture as well as a nod to the long history of cultural representations of the Bible. The same can be said of McNinch, through the implied function of his illustrated Bible as an educational learning aid and that it can also be read as a commentary on Genesis because of the format of the retelling. Focusing on Sarai and Hagar in Gen. 16:1-6 has demonstrated that even when Bible comics are presented as ‘word-for-word’, as being loyal and truthful of the ‘original’ Hebrew, including images immediately challenges and even disrupts dominant ideas of biblical characters. In Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated, Sarai is the driving force behind God’s promise of descendants to Abram. She is presented as a woman of elevated status (i.e. a high priestess) who orders a powerless Abram to follow her directions to ensure his success.96 Crumb’s reflections of Teubal’s thesis are evident throughout his retelling of the matriarchal narratives, and as such visually position the women of the stories in conflict against the text. Similarly, his visual treatment of Hagar disputes a literary reading of the text by suggesting she enjoys limited agency, power and even has a happy ending. McNinch, on the other hand, relies on the relationship between Hebrew and English to draw attention to areas of conflict in the story, and these are vaguely underpinned by the accompanying images, though not to the same extent as Crumb. The stories are based equally in text and in image, and as such act as cultural Bibles as well as visual commentaries. The dual identity of the Bible and biblical commentary is grounded in the dual identity of the biblical comic book creator as 94. Crumb, ‘Introduction’, in Genesis, Illustrated. 95. Crumb, ‘Introduction’, in Genesis, Illustrated. 96. Crumb, commentary to chapter 16, Genesis, Illustrated.

64

The Bible and Comics

both interpreter and open to interpretation.97 Reading these comic books through a visual-critical lens not only highlights the compatibility between the Bible and comic books but also reveals and celebrates the differences; the areas of conflict and tension which arise from a partnership between the Bible and comic books. Such a relationship may either clarify or obscure biblical stories depending on the position of the reader as interpreter, which further challenges the stability (and authority) of the text, especially in ‘word-for-word’ retellings. The result is a unique version of Genesis which is a faithful retelling of the text, but which relies on image to dispute or draw attention to difficult stories. These retellings are for a modern readership but situated in the historical tradition of illustrating Bibles. It is this dual nature of word-for-word biblical comic books which allows them to reinvigorate ancient text, challenge traditional-ideological interpretations and re-present biblical in fresh, contemporary ways which re-engage with marginalized or excluded communities.

97. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 22.

Chapter 4 MANGA BIBLES AND POTIPHAR’S WIFE DRAMATIZING EMOTIONS

Manga Bibles are an increasingly popular medium of retelling biblical narratives. Traditionally, ‘manga’ refers to a specific style and/or format of comics created either in Japan or in the Japanese language, and they play an important role in the Japanese publishing industry in terms of finance and cultural impact.1 Though they have their origins in Japan, there has more recently been a move towards the creation of manga in Western countries, including in particular the United States, the United Kingdom, France, Germany and Spain known as Original English Language manga (OEL). These are comics created by English-speaking creators that replicate or at least borrow from traditional Japanese manga.2 Such manga are sometimes referred to as ‘global’ manga,3 and they share a visual language with Japanese manga though there are notable differences. Of the similarities, these may include that the colour palette is limited to greyscale, that images are high contrast, abstracted and often minimal, and that character representations include an overexaggeration of physical features.4 Cohn expands on this last point describing people being drawn with large, rounded eyes, big hair, small mouths and pointed chins and cheekbones as a staple of manga style,5 and McCloud argues that such representation abstracts the character to such an extent that it invites the reader to mask themselves in the character which, in turn, allows the reader to enter

1. Jun Nakazawa, ‘Manga Literacy and Manga Comprehension in Japanese Children’, in The Visual Narrative Reader, ed. Neil Cohn (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 158–9. 2. Neil Cohn, ‘Linguistic Relativity and Conceptual Permeability in Visual Narratives: New Distinctions in the Relationship between Language(s) and Thought’, in The Visual Narrative Reader, ed. Neil Cohn (London: Bloomsbury, 2016), 315–40, here 328. 3. Zoltan Kacsuk, ‘Re-Examining the “What is Manga” Problematic: The Tension and Interrelationship between the “Style” Versus “Made in Japan” Positions’, Arts 7, no. 26 (2018): 1–18, 3. 4. Kacsuk, ‘Re-Examining the “What Is Manga” Problematic’, 5–11. 5. Neil Cohn, The Visual Language of Comics: Introduction to the Structure and Cognition of Sequential Images (London: Bloomsbury, 2013), 154–5.

66

The Bible and Comics

safely into the world of the comic book.6 Manga creators are specialists in this type of character abstraction inviting reader identification, as well as highlighting the otherness of characters in some respects.7 Of the differences between OEL and Japanese manga, are stylistic and content-driven elements such as Japanese manga are read from right-to-left and tend to incorporate more use of onomatopoeic sound effects,8 higher-level of abstraction of backgrounds in particular9 and generally that global manga have shorter series or stand-alone story–arcs, whereas Japanese manga serialize stories over – in some cases – many years.10 Importantly, like comic books, manga are text-image narratives which rely on similar creative relationships between word and picture to illuminate stories and as such have their own style of visual language through which they tell their stories. Manga are not a genre of comic books; rather, they are a style which originates outside of the dominant ‘American’ style of comics found in the West which include superhero comics or longform graphic narratives (i.e. biographical comics). Like comic books, manga creators have also recognized the economic and cultural gains of retelling the Bible in graphic format, and there exist several examples of manga Bibles. Some are made in Japan (e.g. Manga Bible, a fivevolume series which was created by a group of people from within the manga industry and illustrated by Japanese manga artists),11 some were originally made in Japan and then translated into English by English-speaking publishers (e.g. The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition),12 and some are created by Englishspeaking creators for an English-speaking audience though they share visual characteristics with Japanese manga Bibles. In the latter category, probably the most popular or at least, well-known global manga Bible is by Ajibayo ‘Siku’ Akinsiku (concept and art) and Akin Akinsiku (scriptwriter), published in 2007 and titled The Manga Bible: From Genesis to Revelation.13 It is attributed on the front cover to Siku, which may be a reference to both creators’ shared name. Siku’s Manga Bible is hailed as ‘the first ever English manga of the most important

 6. McCloud, Understanding Comics, 42–3.  7. McCloud, Understanding Comics, 44.  8. Robert S. Petersen, ‘The Acoustics of Manga’, in A Comics Studies Reader, ed. Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester (Jackson: University Press Mississippi, 2009), 163–71, here 163, 170.  9. Cohn, Visual Language of Comics, 166. 10. Zanne Domoney-Lyttle, ‘Manga Bible’, in Encyclopaedia of the Bible and its Reception, ed. Christine Helmer, Steven L. McKenzie, Thomas Romer, Jens Schroter, Barry Dov Walfish, and Eric J. Ziolkowski (Berlin: De-Gruyter, 2019); Randy Duncan and Matthew J. Smith, The Power of Comics: History, Form & Culture (New York: Continuum, 2009), 294. 11. Hidenori Kumai and Kozumi Shinozawa, Manga Bible (series) (Tokyo: Japan Bible Society, 2006–2011). 12.  The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition (New York: One Peace Books, 2012). 13. Hereafter shortened to Manga Bible.

4. Manga Bibles and Potiphar’s Wife

67

book of all time’,14 and is an abridged retelling of The New International Version of the Bible, telling abridged versions of selected stories from the whole of the Bible, rather than just retelling the whole of any one book as Crumb did with his Genesis, Illustrated for example. This chapter explores Siku’s Manga Bible: From Genesis to Revelation (created from a Western perspective, probably for a Western audience) and the Japanesemade, previously serialized The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition (published by One Peace Books) translated ‘from the original Japanese’15 to present a visualcritical reading of Gen. 39:1-20 and the story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife. I demonstrate how the creators behind these works have used visual and textual tools to re-present this tale of temptation, seduction and punishment from a contemporary perspective which is rooted in the visual aesthetics of manga, but which also deploys traditional biblical interpretations to highlight Joseph as a virtuous hero figure contrasted against the ‘negative’ temptress that is Potiphar’s wife.16 In particular, I pay attention to the framing and visual characterization of Potiphar’s wife as ‘other’ in the text, a move which demonizes her as overtly sexual and masculine in contrast to Joseph’s effeminacy. The result is a perpetuation of the seductress trope which presents Potiphar’s wife in one dimension without the nuances her character should be afforded. More importantly, however, it demonstrates the position of the author as integral to upholding potentially harmful tropes which paint women – and foreign women in particular – as objects who are dangerous especially and exclusively to men.17 Failure to challenge such patterns results in fragmented readings of text which continue to subordinate women. Furthermore, the format and style of manga as a medium for this story means the focus is action-packed epic tales where high-emotion and physical movement drive the narrative. Such a format rarely allows for nuance or subtlety to come to the fore which only exacerbates the contrast of characters in manga versions of Genesis 38. Of the choice to portray biblical narratives through a manga-style format, Neela Banerjee associates the medium with the message:18 since manga is associated with action and intensity, there is a need to cut much of the story/stories out: genealogical lists, descriptive scenes, poetry and other such subtleties do not warrant representation in a story which is driven by action. Such a move means the Manga Bible presents a lopsided view of biblical stories which, as we will see, erases characters, simplifies stories and erodes emotional content. Appealing to 14. Siku, Manga Bible, excerpt from back cover. 15.  The Bible, excerpt from back cover. 16. Brenner-Idan, The Israelite Woman, 111. 17. Mieke Bal, Loving Yusuf: Conceptual Travels from Present to Past (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 2008), 2. 18. Neela Banerjee, ‘The Bible as Graphic Novel, with a Samurai Stranger called Christ’, New York Times, accessed 24 June 2020, https://www​.nytimes​.com​/2008​/02​/10​/us​/10manga​ .html.

68

The Bible and Comics

McLuhan’s philosophy that the medium is the message as Banerjee does exemplifies the idea that manga Bibles are Bibles whose message is not the literary content but the ‘social effect, what it does to us personally and collectively’.19 Arguably this is Siku’s aim: to present a manga version of the Bible which is itself considered a Bible and which is itself aligned with Beal’s suggestion that there is no such thing as ‘the’ Bible, but a multitude of cultural Bibles.20 Therefore, even though manga Bibles edit and redact biblical stories, they still act as an authoritative access point to those not familiar with the sacred text. As always, I am not overly concerned with authorial intention and the role of the creator behind the comic books, but rather how the text-image narratives illuminate or occlude the biblical text which inspires them. With this in mind, I offer a brief overview of each manga to contextualize the format and style overall, but again emphasize that the focus is on the creation, context and reception of the manga Bible rather than on the intention behind the product.

The Manga Bible: From Genesis to Revelation, by Siku Siku’s Manga Bible summarizes key biblical narratives from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament in a 200-plus-page biblical comic book, including the creation narrative, the flood narrative and part of the patriarchal narratives in Genesis, and stories which focus on Moses, David, Jonah and Ruth. The gospel narratives of Jesus constitute most of the book. It was created for a younger audience (namely teenagers and young adults aged between fifteen and twentyfive) and is confessional in its approach and perspective. Like Crumb in his Genesis, Illustrated, Siku includes a section at the back of his book which provides a commentary of key scenes, some preliminary drawings of characters, storyboarding and a short essay concerning his faith and belief.21 Unlike Crumb, Siku’s version of the Bible is not a word-for-word retelling; rather, he depicts the more popular of the biblical narratives (i.e. the Creation, Noah’s Ark, Moses etc.) and leaves out more difficult stories (i.e. the majority of the book of Judges [except Samson], and most prophetic and wisdom literature). His depictions are often accompanied by ‘Want to Know More?’ links in the books, which direct readers to biblical passages reflected in his text-image narrative. Manga Bible is drawn in a classic manga style of black-and-white, pen-and-ink format, and it makes use of splash-pages, multiple-sized panels and a gutter which is often infilled with other scenes. Such a move means the story within the panels 19. Timothy Beal, ‘Children’s Bibles Hot and Cold’, in Text, Image, and Otherness in Children’s Bibles: What Is in the Picture?, ed. Hugh S. Pyper and Caroline Vander Stichele (Atlanta: SBL, 2012), 313–19. 20. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 364. 21. Domoney-Lyttle, ‘Manga Bible’.

4. Manga Bibles and Potiphar’s Wife

69

is often informed by the perifield, given that there is no explicit visual division between panels. The pace and mode of the storytelling are also affected by this, since Siku has drawn his biblical retelling with a variety of differently sized, shaped and positioned panels, a move which indicates a range of emotional functions within the narrative. Will Eisner argues that utilizing a variety of panel shapes, sizes and positions encourages the reader to generate their own reaction to the action, ‘and thus heighten emotional involvement in the narrative’22 through the reader-text-image relationship. As noted, Manga Bible contains a commentary section at the back of the book which further elaborates on the interpretation of scripture into image. Like Crumb, Siku wants to explain his interpretive decisions, but the commentary is limited in content, expanding only on the story of the Exodus,23 Jesus in the desert,24 and the characters Jonah25 and Rehoboam.26 Since the Manga Bible is intended for young Christian audiences as well as the ‘unchurched’,27 the commentary is one of the tools meant to provide a deeper understanding of the biblical text. Though the expanded discussion on key scenes and figures is limited, there is another section titled ‘Hello Humanity, This Is Your Story’, in which the creators discuss their understanding of the Bible in relation to God’s relationship with humans.28 Here, Siku (as the piece attributes) discusses the Bible as a story of both God and of human beings, that it can be read as etiological explanation for childbirth pains as well as of bigger fears and hopes.29 Siku talks of the more challenging tales in the Bible (e.g. David’s ‘ruinous sexual adventures’30 and Job’s undeserved human suffering).31 The section ends with an appeal to the reader to recognize that this, the Bible, is a story they know because ‘you’ve heard it told to you before because God buried it there, a long time ago’.32 This short section reveals the confessional approach to this manga retelling of the Bible and situates the reader in a world where we are asked to suspend disbelief and understand the historical and religious aspect of the biblical stories as ‘true’.

22. Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art, 61. McCloud also discusses emotional reactions to visual elements in chapter five of Understanding Comics. 23. Siku, Manga Bible, 201–2. 24. Siku, Manga Bible, 203–4. 25. Siku, Manga Bible, 205–6. 26. Siku, Manga Bible, 207–8. 27. T h is is a term used by Siku to describe non-religious people who may read his biblical retelling. Banerjee, ‘The Bible as Graphic Novel’. 28. Siku, Manga Bible, 215–17. 29. Siku, Manga Bible, 215. 30. Siku, Manga Bible, 215. 31. Siku, Manga Bible, 217. 32. Siku, Manga Bible, 217.

70

The Bible and Comics

A ‘Different Kind of Favour’: Gen. 39:1-20 in Siku’s Manga Bible Genesis 39:1-20 is somewhat an anomaly in the patriarchal narratives of Genesis. Traditionally presented as a classic tale which demonstrates the virtuous and heroic behaviour of the Hebrew Joseph in contrast with the wicked foreign temptress who accuses Joseph of sexual assault rather than admit her wrongdoing, the story has surprisingly received less attention in biblical scholarship than one might expect. Most frequently, scholarly focus is on why the chapter is preceded by the disruptive narrative of Judah and Tamar (Gen. 38) and how the two might illuminate each other,33 or it is on the characterization of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife as hero and villain respectively.34 However, Genesis 38 is a troubling story which inverts heteronormative gender codes,35 and of which the wrong questions are most frequently asked about the text: How did Joseph manage to resist the temptation of his master’s wife? Why did Potiphar’s wife lie about Joseph’s refusal of her advances? And, finally, what does the story tell us about nationality, ethnicity and God? Such questions only serve to deepen an ideological reading steeped in androcentrism which has pervaded cultural retellings of the narrative. Manga Bibles are not an exception to this. The text itself is – as usual – sparse in detail, but this has not prevented the afterlife of the story being imagined and re-imagined time again in art, literature and beyond. The story of Joseph and Potiphar’s wife is told in its entirety across five panels (Figure 4.1). The page begins with a transaction between a group of Ishmaelites and Potiphar for the purchase of Joseph (Gen. 37:36). Potiphar is a large, bloated 33. Bekins, for example, argues that Joseph is presented as an official ‘counterbalance’ for Tamar, as well as for the other tricksters of the Jacob narratives. Presenting Joseph in parallel to the tricksters of previous narratives emphasizes his goodness against their villainy. On a different path but with a similar argument, Robert Alter argues that though Genesis 38 and 39 may not be read together, one acts as an interlude to the other, thus still maintaining an important literary relationship where the reader may read themes from Genesis 38 into 39. Robert Alter, The Art of Biblical Narrative (New York: Basic Books, 1981), 3–22. 34. Shalom Goldman’s wide-ranging study on Joseph as hero and Potiphar’s Wife as villain throughout various folkloric traditions touches upon this aspect strongly. Shalom Goldman, The Wiles of Women/The Wiles of Men: Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife in Ancient Near Eastern, Jewish, and Islamic Folklore (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995). Frymer-Kensky also characterizes Potiphar’s wife as a seductress who abuses her position to Joseph’s detriment, the hero. Tikva Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of their Stories (New York: Schocken, 2002), 72, while Sarna characterizes Joseph as a hero for resisting sexual temptation. Nahum M. Sarna, Understanding Genesis: Heritage of Biblical Israel (Stuttgart: Schocken, 1966), 215–16. 35. For an excellent analysis of gender diversity in Genesis, see: Jo HendersonMerrygold, ‘Gender Diversity in the Ancestral Narratives: Encountering Sarah & Esau through a Hermeneutics of Cispicion’ (PhD thesis, University of Sheffield, 2022).

4. Manga Bibles and Potiphar’s Wife

Figure 4.1  ‘Gen. 39’, Siku, Manga Bible.

71

72

The Bible and Comics

figure sitting on a regal chair, his wife by his side with one hand on the chair and the other on her hip. Genesis 38 is not included in the narrative. The second panel on the page instead jumps ahead to Gen. 39:1-6, which is redacted to one sentence: ‘while in the service of Potiphar, God blessed Joseph with favour among the rich and powerful.’36 In these first two panels, Joseph’s back is to the viewer, and his stance is mirrored across the two panels, except in the first one, he is in chains and bare-chested, but in the second, the chains are removed and he is clothed. This visually demonstrates his rise in Potiphar’s household. In contrast, Potiphar’s wife is clothed in the first panel, and in the second, she appears to be naked, lying seductively at the front of the panel with one hand resting on her hip. A lack of detail means it is unclear if she is unclothed, so this is left to the reader’s imagination. Panel 3 is a close-up of her face. Her eyes are heavily lined with make-up, and she is presented as young and there are jewels in her hair which signify her wealth and perhaps status. The caption to this panel references the previous: ‘But Potiphar’s wife wanted to “bless” Joseph with a different kind of “favour”.’ What that favour is, in case the reader is in any doubt, is made clear as she speaks: ‘Hi Josie darling. Has anyone ever told you that you’d look great in . . . well, nothing?’ The casual speech, the pet-naming of Joseph to ‘Josie’ and the blunt, though almost laughable, pick-up line uttered by Potiphar’s wife only emphasize the visual imagery of her as seductress, as temptress of Joseph, who until this point has not spoken a word or shown his face to the viewer. The renaming of Joseph as the feminine ‘Josie’ is particularly demonstrative of how Siku wants the reader to understand this story since this shows not only Potiphar’s wife’s position of power over Joseph, but it is a move to feminize him, further stripping him of power since his name belongs to the patriarchal line of Abraham. Calling him ‘Josie’ is a reminder that his lineage is not important in this foreign land, and that like women, he has few rights. This is particularly pertinent if we read Joseph’s storyarc from Genesis 37–50 as a foundational story for the ‘house of Joseph’, which signifies the northern territory of Israel.37 Potiphar’s wife threatens this legacy. If Joseph is feminized, one might expect from a binary perspective that Potiphar’s wife occupies the more masculine role. To an extent this may be true. For example, one might consider her blunt, forceful speech, the physical action of ripping Joseph’s coat, her lies to cover up her actions and finally, her attempt to gaslight Joseph by accusing him of harming her as inherently masculine traits. However, the visuality of the panels in Siku’s version is a constant nod towards classic, feminine beauty. The hourglass figure, the heavily made-up face, the dress and the jewels are not overtly masculine in their coding. As McKay notes, our reaction to Potiphar’s wife in relation to Joseph ‘depends on what age and beauty 36. Siku, Manga Bible, 32. 37. Irmtraud Fischer, ‘On the Significance of the “Women Texts” in the Ancestral Narratives’, in The Bible and Women: An Encyclopaedia of Exegesis and Cultural History – Torah, ed. Irmtraud Fischer, Mercedes Navarro Puerto and Andrea Taschl-Erber (Atlanta: SBL, 2011), 251–94, here 290.

4. Manga Bibles and Potiphar’s Wife

73

we imagine for her’.38 Siku imagines her as someone young enough and beautiful enough that the (male) reader could also imagine themselves lusting after her. Invoking desire in the reader is crucial since only then can we recognize what Joseph is turning down (when he does later in the narrative) and why: because this is a dangerous woman who has the potential to ruin Joseph and his claims to the patriarchal, Abrahamic covenant. The visual traits associated with Potiphar’s wife are ways of ensuring that the voyeuristic gaze of the reader is upon Potiphar’s wife rather than Joseph.39 It is her beauty, her body and her face which are the object of close-up images while Joseph is in the background or absent. Our gaze is directed at Potiphar’s wife, not at Joseph, and such a representation removes the idea of Potiphar’s wife as voyeur since the artist has turned the voyeuristic gaze upon her.40 Moreover, the visual coding invokes stereotypical iconography associated with Egyptian women (think, for example, of Elizabeth Taylor’s take on Cleopatra in the 1963 film of the same name), which reminds the reader that not only is this a dangerous woman but this is a dangerous foreign woman, an enemy of Hebrew patriarchy. In these first three panels, Potiphar’s wife is presented as an object of the reader’s gaze, young, beautiful and tempting. In the fourth and fifth panel, this changes as she becomes monstrous in her attack on Joseph. She grabs Joseph and tears his coat from him as he looks anywhere but at her. In fact, in the entire depiction of this narrative, Joseph has not looked at Potiphar’s wife even once, signalling his virtuous character who will not be overcome by the woman. This is significant since it means once again that the viewer is the voyeur directing our gaze at Potiphar’s wife and her assault on Joseph. For male viewers, argues Exum, this means they can ‘simultaneously enjoy looking at [Potiphar’s wife’s] body’ while also taking ‘the moral high ground Joseph’s refusal represents’.41 This moral high ground is reflected in Joseph’s polite refusal: ‘Sorry ma’am . . . I think I look better with my clothes on . . . just like you’ (referencing Gen. 39:12).42 It is a controlled and virtuous response which further exacerbates the difference between the villainous woman and the noble man. However, notably absent is Joseph’s earlier appeal to God as a reason he will not sleep with Potiphar’s wife (Gen. 39:8-9): But he refused and said to his master’s wife, ‘Look, with me here, my master has no concern about anything in the house, and he has put everything that he has in my hand. He is not greater in this house than I am, nor has he kept anything back from me except yourself, because you are his wife. How then could I do this great wickedness, and sin against God?’

38. Heather McKay, ‘Confronting Redundancy as Middle Manager and Wife: The Feisty Woman of Genesis 39 [1]’, Semeia 87 (1999): 215–31, here 218. 39. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 144. 40. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 144. 41. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 145. 42. Siku, Manga Bible, 32.

74

The Bible and Comics

This is a strange choice since Siku’s Manga Bible is published by a Christian publishing house, for young Christians as well as the ‘unchurched’.43 An emphasis on Joseph’s appeal to his God would position this story as one a model of virtuous behaviour and obedience to God. Without it, however, the reader is left to assume that Joseph is so noble that he need not even appeal to God as a reason to control his behaviour; he is good enough that he can resist on his own grounds. This moment is also transitional in the story since it is the crux of the narrative and the point where the feminized Joseph of the narrative discards his passive, effeminate role and assumes the active, masculine part of self-control and moral behaviour. Rachel Adelman describes how Joseph’s reaction to Potiphar’s wife in this scene is crucial to reclaiming his status as protagonist and hero of the story, as well as restoration of social order and hegemonic, androcentric constructs: Rather than seeing this narrative expansion in contemporary terms as ‘blaming the victim’, a more nuanced reading points to the gender ambiguity of Joseph’s identity. [. . .] As the feminine object of unwanted sexual attention and the masculine ‘Jewish’ hero [gibor], Joseph must prove himself by resisting the attentions of his master’s wife, that is, by fighting off ‘the bear’. It is Joseph’s beauty, amplified by his own vanity in the rabbinic tradition, that makes him visible, feminine, vulnerable and therefore, a magnet for Mrs Potiphar’s attentions, which must be counteracted by extreme (masculine) self-restraint, when he proves himself a ‘true’ hero.44

Joseph must be seen as a ‘champion’ of sexual temperance, a model of morality.45 Such a characterization reinstates his masculinity, which in turn reinstates his position as patriarch to the covenantal promises. In Siku’s rendition this is key, and so the visual coding and the word choice reflect hegemonic gender codes throughout the story, reinforcing it at key points. In the fifth and final panel of the saga of Potiphar’s wife, it is the characterization of Potiphar which emphasizes Joseph as the true masculine hero of the narrative. Potiphar is drawn as a fat man standing in front of his beautiful wife, who whispers into his ears. The fatness of Potiphar is ‘an indicator that he is a humorous or incompetent character’.46 Furthermore, fatness is associated with softness, rounded bellies and voluptuous

43. Banerjee, ‘The Bible as Graphic Novel’. 44. Rachel Adelman, The Female Ruse: Women’s Deception & Divine Sanction in the Hebrew Bible (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2017), 209–10. 45. Alan T. Levenson, Joseph: Portraits through the Ages (Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2016), 79–80. 46. James Aitken discusses fatness in relation to the figure of Eglon, but this quote likewise works with Siku’s characterization of Potiphar in this scene. James Aitken, ‘Fat Eglon’, in Studies on the Texts and Versions of the Hebrew Bible in Honour of Robert Gordon, ed. Geoffrey Khan and Diana Lipton (Leiden: Brill, 2011), 142.

4. Manga Bibles and Potiphar’s Wife

75

bodies; in other words, fatness is often considered a feminine trait.47 The decision to depict Potiphar as fat is intentional since it emphasizes Joseph’s masculinity – the strong shoulders, sculpted abdomen and chiselled jaw contrast with the amorphous blob which is Potiphar. Moreover, it ‘others’ Potiphar and his wife against Joseph, who has so far been read as the hero with whom the (male) reader is meant to identify. The enemy is clearly marked, and Joseph is visually coded as the classic hero in Siku’s Manga Bible. This last panel is accompanied by harsh word choice: ‘Angry at being rejected, she cried rape. Potiphar believed his wife and was so angry that he had Joseph thrown in jail’48 (referencing Gen. 39:13-19). The accusation is without ambiguity, and the punishment is evident. Joseph is shown being restrained by two men. The space between the pairing of Potiphar and his wife, and Joseph and the two jailors is wide and empty. The reader assumes the position of watching over Joseph’s shoulder since we are meant to assume his perspective. This also means Potiphar and his wife appear slightly smaller and in the background of the panel, forefronting Joseph in the narrative. This reverses the beginning of the narrative which forefronted Potiphar’s wife as seductress. The indication here is that her portion of the story is finished, and Joseph assumes her position at the front of the story. It also signifies the role played by Potiphar’s wife in elevating Joseph to a position where he might become even more successful. She is an agent of transformation,49 a necessary, though disparaged, character whose actions turn Joseph from a passive, feminine boy into an active, masculine hero.50 While Joseph’s narrative progresses, Potiphar’s wife disappears having neither lost nor gained status, but remembered as a villain who tried to bring down the house of Abraham.51

Responding to Siku’s Retelling of Gen. 39:1-20 The story of Potiphar’s wife and Joseph is visually and textually coded to signal that the former is a villainous seductress, and the latter is a noble hero for refusing her advances. Potiphar’s wife draws the gaze of the reader rather than Joseph who physically avoids looking at her which marks her as both the object of the story and the danger to be averted. In addition, Potiphar is cast as a fat and perhaps even lazy (given that he is always seated) figure which emphasizes the classic masculinity of Joseph. Such a representation of both Potiphar and his wife not 47. With thanks to Asta Kinch for numerous illuminating and important discussions on fatness and the Bible. 48. Siku, Manga Bible, 32. 49. Judith McKinlay, ‘Potiphar’s Wife in Conversation’, Feminist Theology 10 (1995): 69–80, here 75. 50. Peter Bekins, ‘Tamar and Joseph in Genesis 38 and 39’, JSOT 10, no. 4 (2016): 375– 87, here 389–90. 51. McKay, ‘Confronting Redundancy’, 229.

76

The Bible and Comics

only contrasts with the chiselled, virtuous and heroic Joseph, but visually ‘others’ them in the text because they do not bear similarity to the hero (and previous heroes such as Abraham and Jacob) of the story. Othering is key since it signals to the reader which side they should be on, and the abstraction of those characters exacerbates this reading. In this instance, however, the othering of Potiphar and his wife is neither markedly different nor particularly special in terms of its fidelity to the text and representation of the characters. In other words, Siku’s version does not offer a nontraditional interpretation of the biblical narrative; instead, it upholds what most biblical scholars have read into the text for years. Humphreys labelled Potiphar’s wife a woman of deceit,52 Wildavsky highlights her deceptive and seductive nature as the reasons for Joseph’s temptations, thus absolving him of complicity,53 and White casts her as an evil seductress whose behaviour is only made all the more contemptible by Joseph’s ‘unshakeable integrity’.54 Sarna, astonishingly, invokes the reader to recognize the ‘moral excellence’ of Joseph in refusing Potiphar’s wife, especially since ‘sexual promiscuity was a perennial feature of all slave societies’.55 Even from within feminist biblical readers, Potiphar’s wife is often maligned. Brenner-Idan calls her a negative temptress (as opposed to the positive temptresses such as Tamar, or Lot’s Daughters),56 Fischer notes she is the ‘antihero’ of the story,57 and Scholz describes her as a stock character, the ‘classic foreign woman who can be counted on for obeying no law of rule, nothing other than her own sexual rapacity’.58 Even those scholars who attempt to explain the behaviour of Potiphar’s wife offer very little expansion to her character. Instead, they use Joseph or even Tamar (Genesis 38) as counters to her character, so that she cannot exist as a fully formed literary character without being read alongside other figures.59 The human-ness of Potiphar’s wife is so undervalued in this text that she does not become monstrous but is a monster in the first instance and this is reflected in the abstraction of her character’s physical features.60 First, a foreign woman who 52. W. Lee Humphreys, Joseph and his Family: A Literary Study (Colombia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988), 135. 53. Aaron Wildavsky, ‘Survival Must Not Be Gained through Sin: The Moral of the Joseph Stories Prefigured through Judah and Tamar’, JSOT 62 (1994): 37–48, here 47. 54. White, Narration and Discourse, 255. 55. Sarna, Understanding Genesis, 216. 56. Brenner-Idan, The Israelite Woman, 111–12. 57. Fischer, ‘On the Significance of the “Women Texts”’, 291. 58. Scholz, Introducing the Women’s Hebrew Bible, 53. 59. For example: Bekins, ‘Tamar and Joseph’, 378; Frymer-Kensky, Reading the Women of the Bible, 160; Adelman, The Female Ruse, 208–9; Susan Tower Hollis, ‘The Woman in Ancient Examples of the Potiphar’s Wife Motif K2111’, in Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, ed. Peggy L. Day (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006), 28–42, here 34. 60. Samantha Langsdale and Elizabeth Rae Coody (eds.) explores the verbal and visual coding of women as monsters/monstrous in comic books, with a particular emphasis on

4. Manga Bibles and Potiphar’s Wife

77

pursues a sexual relationship with a young man for reasons of pleasure rather than pregnancy is a troubling concept in a narrative that is concerned mostly with patriarchal descendancy and the foundation of Israel. What would happen, for example, if Potiphar’s wife, a married woman, were to become pregnant with his child, a child who would inherit the covenantal promises made to Abraham? Second, her actions also threaten the masculinity of Joseph, as well as his agency, autonomy and future. She is monstrous because she does not conform to typical gender coding which traditionally subordinates women in action and voice, and therefore Siku’s representation of her is excessive in the way he visually codes her as a temptress. Since Joseph is the classic hero, Potiphar’s wife must be portrayed as the antithesis of him, the monster to be overcome by the champion. The reader must be under no illusion as to who we must root for in this story. Though not a particularly unusual retelling of Genesis 39 since Manga Bible conforms to traditional gender-coded ideas of character and content, this case study demonstrates how manga as a visual-textual medium, with its use of pithy dialogue, and visual markers including high contrast of light and shade, emphasis on high-action and drama, overstating features, exaggerates elements of characters and plot points to the point of excess. The light-and-shade of the page reflects the light-and-shade of the characters in the story. There is no grey space in the characterization of Potiphar, his wife and Joseph; no place to allow a nuanced reading or recognize subtle traits, just as there is no grey space on the page. The visual exaggeration of features and movement is mirrored by the exaggeration of the story which allows no room for subtlety or nuance because of the limited dialogue and narrative. In short, there are restrictions in the way Siku’s version of Genesis 39 is read, since the manga version leaves little space for varied interpretations. However, the minimization of Genesis 39 in Manga Bible, and especially the deletion of large portions of the biblical narrative, exposes not only the creator’s discomfort with the story (since Siku has condensed a troubling and difficult story into just five panels and 100 words), but also alerts the reader to the troubling nature of the story. The reader may be left with more questions than answers after reading this version, encouraging them to explore the story on their own terms if they want to. Siku prompts this with the inclusion of a ‘Want to know more’ box linking to Gen. 37:1-36 and 39:1-41:40 on the bottom of the right-hand page.61

how the intersections of gender, sex, race and disability are often utilized to exacerbate monstrous women. The results of such studies demonstrate how men are often seen as the normative and women are seen as abnormal against the backdrop of patriarchal settings. This is even more starkly represented when bodies which do not adhere to gender binaries are represented in comic books. In the case here, Potiphar’s wife is represented as a monstrosity against Joseph’s almost angelic persona; her humanness is eroded to illuminate his humanity more fully. See: Samantha Langsdale and Elizabeth Rae Coody (eds), Monstrous Women in Comics (Mississippi: University Press of Mississippi, 2020). 61. Siku, Manga Bible, 33.

78

The Bible and Comics

Downplaying the story as a mere plot point meant to propel Joseph to the height of his story-arc may open the text to broader scrutiny and deeper criticism.

The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition Siku’s manga version of the Bible is, as discussed, a Westernized style of manga. The second case study in this chapter – while produced in the United States – conforms more to traditional Japanese manga, including that it is read right-toleft, was made by a team of contributors, and draws upon hallmarks of manga art styling including the black-white-and-grey colour palette, exaggerated features and high drama. My version of The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition (hereafter shortened to Japanese Bible) was published in 2012 by One Peace Books, founded in 2006 to ‘translate and publish Japanese entertainment and literature for a North American audience’.62 The company hopes to act as a ‘bridge between cultures’ (i.e. North American and Japanese) publishing English translations of Japanese works, and introducing Western works into Japan and more broadly, Asia.63 The original version was published by Variety Art Works in 2010 in two separate volumes: The Old Testament and the New Testament as part of a Manga de Dokuha (Reading through Manga) series which aims to ‘publish accessible manga editions of classic world literature, including novels, philosophical and religious works, and political treatises in the hopes that more people will be willing to read them’.64 Significantly, Variety Art Works version was originally intended for a Japanese Christian audience, written originally in Japanese and translated to English by Glenn Anderson for the One Peace Books version.65 One reviewer suggests it should be read as an accessible introduction to both the Bible since it covers all of the ‘big’ stories (Creation, Noah’s ark, Abraham’s life, the Exodus and the Gospel narratives) as well as Christianity since it is directed at a Christian audience.66 Perhaps on this last point, they mean newcomers to the Christian faith. This manga version of the Bible is much longer than Siku’s version (it is unnumbered, but about twice the volume of Siku’s 200-page version) and does not contain a commentary, helpful tips to direct the reader to more readings, or any front or end matter. The main clue that the Japanese Bible is to be read as a confessional manga Bible is on the first page and then woven intermittently throughout its pages. The opening splash page reads: ‘This is the chronicle of God

62. One Peace Books, accessed 27 April 2019, https://onepeacebooks​.com. 63. One Peace Books. 64. Ash Brown, ‘The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition’, Experiments in Manga, accessed 27 April 2019, http://experimentsinmanga​.mangabookshelf​.com​/2012​/06​/the​ -bible​-a​-japanese​-manga​-rendition/. 65. Brown, Experiments in Manga. 66. Brown, Experiments in Manga.

4. Manga Bibles and Potiphar’s Wife

79

as he leads the people of Israel through many trials.’67 Ass a reminder, plash pages are part of the language of comic books often meant to depict intense moments of drama, or to invoke notions of the scale of time passing in one panel: Speaking very generally, the more space something takes up on the comic page, the more time it demands we spend on the absorption of the image. Sometimes, this technique can be used to imply that a great length of time is passing for characters in the story. In other instances, this lengthening of moment can be used as a kind of ‘slow motion,’ making even instantaneous events into images upon which the eye lingers, producing emphasis through extended temporality.68

Opening this manga Bible with a splash page emphasizes the scale of time involved and forefronts the action about to unfold. The page shows three as-yet-unknown strangers – one with a staff, one with a sword and one shouting – set against the tower of Babel, the bow of an ark and a lightning-strewn sky. The composition across two pages set against those opening words of the ‘chronicle of God’69 signals a ‘vast, unprecedented length of time [. . .] the eternity before creation’70 and introduces some of the stories which are forthcoming. More than that, the use of the splash page signals the unfolding story will be androcentric, a visual code to the reader that forefronts the narratives of men across the ages and pages to come. The Japanese Bible – like Siku and Crumb’s version – does not make use of lectionary divisions despite being for a Christian audience. The creative team therefore controls the pace and flow of the narrative and can connect disparate passages with each other by eliminating troublesome stories which can otherwise disrupt the story (e.g. the deletion of Genesis 38 which interrupts the Joseph story). This presents a story which seems much more cohesive and less gap-ridden than Bibles are, all of which leads up to the climactic narrative of Jesus’s gospel story which is the aim of the Japanese Bible: to point all stories to Jesus as the endpoint. I bring this up here since it must be noted from the outset the ways in which the creators of this Bible expect or at least hope the reader to approach this Bible, and this affects the interpretation of Genesis 39 and Potiphar’s wife as well. I turn now to that story which takes place over three pages (Figure 4.2).

Blaming and Shaming: Genesis 39 in The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition The first thing to note about this manga Bible is that it was likely created by a team of unknown writers and artists. Author and images are by Variety Art Works, and 67.  The Bible: A Japanese Rendition, n.p. 68. Jolly, ‘Interpretive Treatments of Genesis’, 336. 69.  The Bible: A Japanese Rendition, n.p. 70. Jolly, ‘Interpretive Treatments of Genesis’, 336.

80

The Bible and Comics

Figure 4.2  ‘Gen. 39 (p. 1)’, from Japanese Bible.

it is evident that there is more than one hand involved as the art style changes throughout the book. The artwork we find in Genesis 39 is somewhat lacking in terms of drama, characterization and style. Using a greyscale colour palette, the physical features of the characters are cartoonish rather than abstracted, meaning their features are more obvious and readable than in Siku’s version, but in turn, this does not allow as much space for reader identification through masking.71 Genesis 39 begins in the third panel of a page (panels 1 and 2 are not shown in Figure 4.2, which begins at panel 3) which has so far situated Joseph in Egypt as a prisoner and positioned him as one who accepts his state because the Lord is with him.72 Joseph verbalizes a short statement to this effect: ‘The reason I am able to live without my freedom is because the Lord is with me.’73 This acceptance is a

71. McCloud, Understanding Comics, 43; Kacsuk, ‘Re-Examining the “What is Manga” Problematic’, 6. 72. T h ere are no page numbers in this manga Bible. Instead, I will refer to the panel number in reference to Figure 4.2. 73.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.2, panel 2 (not shown).

4. Manga Bibles and Potiphar’s Wife

81

signal to the reader that Joseph’s character is marked as something special, and that we need not feel too sorry for him in his plight. It also marks a moment of dramatic irony since the next panel is the approach of Potiphar’s wife, a woman who poses a threat to the freedom Joseph speaks of.74 The composition of the panel shows Joseph backed into a corner as Potiphar’s wife approaches him, calling his name. He replies politely, and the next panel shows a close-up of Potiphar’s wife’s face as she says, ‘Come by my room later. [next panel] Okay?’.75 It is a command, not a request. The next panel in the suspense position76 on the page is a close-up of Joseph’s face angled away from the viewer. He replies, ‘Yes ma’am.’77 Let us concentrate on these two panels as a pair for a moment. Potiphar’s wife looks directly at the readers, breaking the ‘fourth wall’. Much like in Siku’s version, she wears heavy make-up and jewels in her hair and around her neck. Her dark hair frames her face but we see nothing of her body, and part of her face is covered by the speech bubble. The direct gaze to the reader positions the reader as Joseph. Moreover, it means our gaze as the reader is directed back at her in a moment of eye contact. Thus, Potiphar’s wife is simultaneously voyeur as well as the voyeur’s object. Her eye is exaggerated, a comic feature in manga, but with that exaggeration comes expressiveness and emotion which one could argue is almost emphasized by the partial obscuration of her face, a move which adds mystery to her seductive allure. We cannot see the whole picture. Nakazawa draws attention to the idea that the large eyes of manga characters has ‘ethological attractiveness for human as a “Kindeschenschema: baby schema” meaning we view these characters as cute or sweet’.78 Potiphar’s wife is then voyeur and object of voyeurism, seductress yet childlike. She is steadfast in her desire for Joseph as demonstrated by her command, yet she is confusing as a figure for the reader to understand. Are we supposed to like her? Is she meant to be beautiful? Where are the clues she is dangerous? On this last question, Joseph’s response is our first clue. Rather than look out at the reader, he turns his head in a display of uncertainty or hesitance. His face is lightly flushed, and his brows are furrowed in a worried expression. His mouth is parted. Nothing about this image screams confidence; indeed, it is the opposite feeling of Potiphar’s wife’s headshot. His eyes too are childlike, and his messy dark hair emphasizes his childlike nature. His response is preceded by an ellipsis which is a key tool in the creation of comic books according to Miller. Ellipses can control the rhythm of the narrative, either by inserting gaps into the story to signify a change in time or space, or just to give visual and verbal pause to a narrative so the 74.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.2, panel 3 (here, panel 1). 75.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.2, panel 4 (here, panel 2). 76. T h e suspense position refers to the last panel on the page before it must be turned (in this case, the left-hand page). Action which takes place in this panel is suspenseful since the reader cannot see the next page and have no perifield to inform their reading. The reader cannot know what will happen until the page is turned. 77.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.2, panel 5 (here, panel 3). 78. Nakazawa, ‘Manga Literacy and Manga Comprehension’, 159.

82

The Bible and Comics

reader too can breathe and pause with the characters.79 Here, the ellipses allow the reader to pause for a moment so we can identify with Joseph’s hesitance or perhaps so we can wonder what we would do if we were in the same position. It allows for a moment to recognize what is being asked of Joseph, and, though he may wish to say no, he is indeed powerless to do so. He eventually answers, ‘Yes, ma’am’. Reading these two panels as a pair provides insights into both characters. One is beautiful, confident and in control; the other is scared, hesitant and unable to resist. One is in power; the other is powerless. One is confrontational; the other turns away. They are portraits which exemplify the characteristics of their subjects. That they are also the last two panels on this page and that Joseph’s portrait occupies a position of suspense since the reader cannot know what will happen until the page is turned is not a mistake. This is act 1 in the narrative of Genesis 39. Act 2 (Figure 4.3) opens with a shot of the sky, part of a building, and a disembodied voice apologizing: ‘I’m sorry, But I just can’t!’.80 In the next panel, Joseph stands in front of Potiphar’s wife, who has her back to the reader. His face is turned downwards in an expression of remorse or perhaps sadness; without seeing the reaction of Potiphar’s wife it is difficult to read. She holds onto his robe which is open, exposing his torso. Her speech is short and pointed like the speech bubbles which encase the words, as she begs to know why Joseph will not sleep with her.81 Miller notes that these sorts of bubbles are known as ‘scream’ balloons and their shape reflects the intensity of the speech within, as is the case in Japanese Bible.82 They are meant to signal and invoke an emotional response, a move often emphasized by emboldening or increasing the size of lettering as occurs in the next panel (panel 3). This panel is ‘classic’ manga style, following the visual rules of speed lines, intense emotional content and juxtaposition between loud verbal speech and quiet response.83 A scream balloon at the right-hand side of the page continues the speech of Potiphar’s wife who reminds Joseph of his station as a slave and that he is bound to follow orders ‘like the rest of them’. Here, the lettering is bold and enlarged to suggest Potiphar’s wife is shouting. Joseph’s anguished face is laid over speed lines in the background as he replies that he will not wrong his master, and he will not betray his God. Speed lines are often used in manga to depict a moment of action or heightened emotion since they simultaneously abstract the background and give the impression of movement. The use of speed lines in this panel suggests Joseph’s emotional state as chaotic or fraught, as if finally exploding with the words he has wanted to use from the beginning of the proposition. Joseph’s reason for not sleeping with Potiphar’s wife is twofold, as it is in the biblical story (Gen. 39:8-9): the first relates to his master, ‘My master has not given 79. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 88–9. 80.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.3, panel 1. 81.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.3, panel 2. 82. Miller, Reading Bande Dessinée, 97. 83.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.3, panel 3.

4. Manga Bibles and Potiphar’s Wife

Figure 4.3  ‘Gen. 39 (p. 2)’, from Japanese Bible.

83

84

The Bible and Comics

you to me’ (emphasis mine), and the second relates to God, ‘I cannot betray my Lord with such sin!’84 (emphasis mine). These are reasons based in an androcentric structure wherein women, regardless of status or position, belong to and are owned by men, regardless of status or position. Potiphar is at the apex of this hierarchy, but Joseph comes next; Potiphar’s wife is at the bottom since she has not been given to Joseph by his/their master. This subtle detail positions Potiphar’s wife – and all women – below male slaves in a move which seeks to forefront patriarchal concerns. The second reason of refusing to betray God simultaneously positions God as the ultimate authority of the narrative and Joseph as a righteous hero who rejects possession of a woman in favour of his God. Together, this twofold reason establishes a hierarchical order of God, man, woman and we are to understand that man includes all men, including male slaves. Women are powerless. Powerless Potiphar’s wife has indeed been unable to exert any authority over the situation thus far since she has been unable to force a slave to sleep with her. Missing from this narrative are the repeated attempts to sleep with Joseph (Gen. 39:10); instead, this narrative suggests she tried once and was unsuccessful. Her attempt to take back some control is to accuse Joseph wrongly of sexual assault. The lower third of this page (Figure 4.3, panels 4–7) is a quick succession of four panels. In the first of this sequence, Potiphar’s wife is near-speechless as she clutches Joseph’s robe in her bed. Joseph is pictured fleeing out the top left corner of the panel, figuratively and literally running from the scene.85 In the second she bites her lip, worried in a scene which calls back to the previous page and her invitation to Joseph.86 In the third is a close-up of her hand gripping the robe. Two speech bubbles intrude onto the scene: in the first, she speaks (to whom it is unclear since Joseph has fled), ‘How dare you . . . make me feel this shame!’ and in the second there is just an ellipsis, pausing the story for a moment.87 In the fourth panel of this sequence, her anger bursts forth in yet another scream balloon as she exclaims, ‘You fool!’ to nobody in particular.88 The quick succession of these four panels moves the story from confusion, to worry, to shame and, finally, to anger. It is the point where Potiphar’s wife realizes the mistake she has made, and that she must take action to protect herself. Joseph’s absence from these scenes exonerates him from any responsibility in the eyes of the reader while ensuring Potiphar’s wife is seen as the villain since we are privy to her private thought process. Positioning, scale and composition of these panels suggest rapid action in the story since each panel conveys a mere snapshot of action. As Groensteen notes, ‘[T]he relationship between panels on the page is a function of their size, shape and position’,89 meaning the configuration of panels can visually convey a change

84.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.3, panel 3. 85.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.3, panel 4. 86.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.3, panel 5. 87.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.3, panel 6 88.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.3, panel 7. 89. Groensteen, System of Comics, 30.

4. Manga Bibles and Potiphar’s Wife

85

Figure 4.4  ‘Gen. 39 (p. 3)’, from Japanese Bible.

in tone, mood, action or even a shift in narrative. Will Eisner argues similarly, suggesting that panel shapes and sizes are indicators of emotional function within the narrative and that they encourage the reader to generate their own reaction to the action, ‘and thus heighten emotional involvement in the narrative’.90 In the Japanese Bible, the use of narrow panels in quick succession means the reader also ‘reads’ the panels quickly, thus controlling the pace of the story. This adds an intensity to the story, and an element of suspense and heightened emotion. The final panel of the story of Potiphar’s wife is on the next page (Figure 4.4, panel 1). She sits holding Joseph’s robe to her body perhaps as a way of hiding her shame. A figure – presumably Potiphar – is drawn at the side of the panel, though he is mostly obscured by a scream balloon asking, ‘What’s wrong?’, suggesting he has been alerted to something dramatic rather than asking a perfunctory question. By obscuring most of Potiphar from view of the reader, this eliminates him from the narrative and instead emphasizes the role of his wife as both the main character and the ultimate wrongdoer (in contrast with Joseph). Potiphar’s wife replies: ‘It’s Joseph. He attacked me! I have his clothes as proof.’91 Referencing Gen. 39:16-18, this accusation is more explicit than its biblical counterpart in which she does not call Joseph by name (instead calling him ‘the Hebrew servant’). It also directly accuses Joseph of assault, whereas in the biblical version he is first accused of going in to lie with Potiphar’s wife (Gen. 39:12) and then accused of ‘insulting’ 90. Eisner, Comics and Sequential Art, 61. McCloud also discusses emotional reactions to visual elements in chapter five of Understanding Comics. 91.  Japanese Bible, no page. Fig. 4.4, panel 1.

86

The Bible and Comics

her (Gen. 39:17). The biblical version is ambiguous, though most agree that the changing of stories depending on audience (i.e. first she tells the other members of her household, and then she tells her husband) reveals her lie,92 whereas the Japanese Bible version is clear that she is accusing Joseph of assault. The narrator’s voice links this panel with the next which shows Joseph in jail (cf. Gen. 39:20). Again, Potiphar is removed from the story, and the reader does not see him directly punishing Joseph, only the consequence of his punishment. This is a story about Potiphar’s wife and Joseph, and any other characters potentially confuse the dichotomy of villain and hero in Gen. 39.

Responding to the Japanese Bible’s Retelling of Gen. 39:1-20 Like Siku’s version of Genesis 39 in Manga Bible, this version from the Japanese Bible visually codes Potiphar’s wife as seductress. Her wide-eyed gaze invites both the reader and Joseph into her room transposing the role of voyeur onto the reader. In contrast, Joseph’s character is much more developed in this rendition than in Siku’s Manga Bible. While he is portrayed as heroic, he is also presented to the reader as the image of innocence and virtue. He is virtuous because he rejects Potiphar’s wife, but he is cast as innocent because of the way his face is always turned downwards, averting his eyes from the gaze of Potiphar’s wife. Because of this, he is even more innocent than the reader who assimilates the position of voyeur on the scene as well as becoming complicit in the narrative since they allow the story to continue by the act of reading and looking at the image, and by physically handling and turning pages enabling Potiphar’s wife’s assault on Joseph.93 Where Siku drew upon the trope of Potiphar’s wife as monstrous (foreign) woman with little room for nuanced character development, the creators of the Japanese Bible allow for much more portrayal of emotional content. For example, the full gaze of her as she invites Joseph (and the reader) into her room is subverted on the next page when Joseph rejects her. In this image (panel 4 in Figure 4.2) her brow is furrowed and she bites her lip, worried. Her confident assumption that her ownership over Joseph means he must obey her has been challenged by his reminder that as a man, he does not have to answer to her, but rather, to Potiphar. And so must she, as her concerned expression suggests. This version of Potiphar’s wife is much more human and much less monster than in Siku’s version, and much less attention is paid to her foreignness as reason for her conduct. Joseph is portrayed with much more passion and generally, a broader emotional range than in Siku’s version. This may be because the story is given much more space in this version, spread over three pages and twelve panels rather than one page 92. For example, see Bekins, ‘Tamar and Joseph’, 389; Levenson, Joseph, 78. 93. Zanne Domoney-Lyttle, ‘Graphic Assault: Reading Sexual Assault and Rape Narratives in Biblical Comics’, The Bible & Critical Theory 15, no. 2 (2019): 61.

4. Manga Bibles and Potiphar’s Wife

87

and five panels; however, even with the longer length of storytelling, the Japanese Bible version still only represents the main points of the story-arc. Again, the minimization of Genesis 39 to its main points is an expression of discomfort with the text in general; however, there is an attempt here to draw out the characters and the story which does add a more-defined range of emotional content. Still Japanese Bible is not radical in its depiction of Genesis 39 since this manga Bible is aimed at a devotional reading of the text and so must serve the patriarchal narrative over that of women in the text.

Manga Bibles Manga as graphic narratives hold a different position in the world of comic books, in part due to their deep connection with Japanese history, culture and tradition which sets them apart from American and European comic books, and in part because their style, tone and narrative tools are often markedly different from those Western comic books. Using Genesis 39 as a case study to demonstrate how manga Bibles present scriptural stories is apt since it is a classic narrative of hero versus villain, of a foreign woman who threatens the legacy of the patriarchal family from Israel, and because it is action-packed and not so reliant on the narrator’s voice to propel the story forward. Such hallmarks of storytelling lend themselves well to manga since often it too is a format which relies on contradictory characters (i.e. the juxtaposition of women and men or of villain and hero) and on action-packed sequences. Thus, manga Bibles are perhaps better situated to present moments of emotion, tension and drama in visual format rather than word-for-word biblical comics since they rely more so on the narrativity of text rather than image. Such a move, however, means the reader is more engaged in the process of deciphering and comprehending the visual and textual cues of the story. Recalling Alderman and Alderman’s framework of creator-text-reader as primary mode of meaning-making in graphic narratives,94 manga Bibles do allow for different theologies and ideological claims to emerge in the fissures of the story, but they also rely much more on the reader’s ability to make meaning from those gaps than do word-for-word biblical comics. This is neither a positive nor a negative thing; it is merely a note that readers who engage with manga Bibles will do so in a much different way than those who read word-for-word Bible comics since the images carry more of the narrative in manga versions. This is exacerbated by the fact that manga Bibles are also much freer to pick and choose which stories they include in their corpus meaning they can control how the story is understood much better than word-for-word versions which must include all material. In the introduction to this book, I argued that there are three main ways in which biblical comic books can liberate the text from traditional analysis while still 94. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 22.

88

The Bible and Comics

acknowledging the authority of the Bible. The first is concerned with production of biblical comic books and is related to the iconicity of the Bible as a product which, in its design, is meant to invoke ideas of authority and power. By operating outwith the parameter of ‘the Bible’ as an icon, biblical comic books may invoke those stories but are not subject to the same level of expectation or significance as a textual Bible may be. However, manga Bibles occupy a slightly different space to other biblical comic books which is reflected in their position and status in both the world of comic books and in their audience. In short, manga are much more popular, respected and valued in their home nation of Japan and far beyond. Unlike comic books, they are intrinsic to the fabric of Japan and in some cases are much more centred in the cultural history of storytelling than in Western cases.95 This extends outside of Japan too, to global audiences who cherish and consume manga. As such, manga may carry more authority in their retellings of biblical stories than some Western comics. This links too with the intended audience of manga Bibles which is almost always Christian-based, meaning that manga Bibles are meant to be read as sacred scripture, itself a powerful idea. A visual-critical reading of both Siku’s Manga Bible and The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition demonstrates that while there is some fidelity to the text, omissions (such as erasing the repeated attempts by Potiphar’s wife to seduce Joseph) become much more obvious since less space is given to details and more emphasis is put on action. This opens these manga versions of the Bible to questioning by the reader and allows them greater control over how they read the story from their own social position. Similarly, an emphasis on action over narrative propels the story forward at a much faster rate. This either highlights the sparsity of the story to the reader or is an attempt to gloss over more troublesome texts. Most likely because of the position of the publishers (and, presumably, the creators) as Christian, it is an attempt to gloss over texts that may prove problematic for a Christian readership. However, this removes responsibility of the creator to retell the story and places it on the reader to make sense of the narrative. The result is a multi-layered story which allows a myriad of theologies to emerge (and none) depending on the position of the reader rather than the creator. This also depends on the reader having knowledge of the text of Genesis 39, something which cannot be taken for granted.

95. Petersen, ‘Acoustics of Manga’, 163.

Chapter 5 PLAYFUL COMIC BOOK BIBLES AND REBEKAH BREAKING BOUNDARIES

What do Rebekah (matriarch in Genesis) a green-skinned queer deity, and Lego bricks have in common? This may sound like the beginning of an awful joke, but rest assured it is not. The answer is that they all somewhat breach an established pattern in their respective fields. Rebekah is somewhat an anomaly in the patriarchal narratives of Genesis 12–50. Unlike Sarai before her, and Rachel after her, Rebekah’s plight of being unable to conceive is rectified somewhat instantaneously after Isaac prays and offers a burnt sacrifice to God (Gen. 25:21). Thus, she does not have to suffer a long and difficult path to conceiving and giving birth to a healthy child, and significantly she does not have to resort to using a slavegirl like Sarai and Rachel. Furthermore, Rebekah is the only woman to seek out God to inquire about her pain in pregnancy (Gen. 25:22);1 surprisingly, God responds, and so she is also the only matriarch to converse with God and receive a prophetic telling of the future (Gen. 25:23). Thus, Rebekah breaches the usual pattern of the role and function of women – and especially mothers – in the book of Genesis.2 The Comic Torah breaks established character patterns too, for example, by depicting God (who is given their name YHWH in the text) as a green-skinned, purple-haired, queer woman. Traditionally, when God is depicted in art such images usually adhere to the tall, stern, male variety, for example, in Michelangelo’s famous scenes rendered on the Sistine Chapel (c.1511), or William Blake’s Ancient of Days (1794). Here, however, creators Rosenzweig (artist) and Freeman (writer) take a 1. Both Fischer, in ‘On the Significance of “Women Texts”’ (277) and Sarna in Understanding Genesis (182), discuss the possibility that Rebekah was associated with a local cult which may suggest she spoke with an oracle or priest rather than God directly. The Hebrew is ‫ יְ הֹ וָה‬which suggests it is God she speaks with rather than an oracle or a priest. Sarna, Understanding Genesis. 2. Sharon Pace Jeansonne outlines further unusual activities undertaken by Rebekah which emphasize that her character is an anomaly in the pattern of women and mostly mothers in Genesis. Sharon Pace Jeansonne, The Women of Genesis: From Sarah to Potiphar’s Wife (Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990), 69.

90

The Bible and Comics

playful and creative approach of representing God by ignoring staid limitations of what God should look like and creating a vision of what God could look like if imaginations were allowed to run free (as well as the fact they have chosen to depict God at all – something many comic book creators avoid whether religious or not). Gone is the Charlton Heston-esque bearded patriarch-of-all-patriarchs. Nowhere to be seen are the stereotypical long flowing robes, the sandals and the stern face. Instead, the reader sees dresses, a nurse’s uniform, and even a space suit, along with other humorous and quirky adaptations to the text which we will explore later. The Comic Torah has refused and ultimately challenged an androcentric, patriarchal reading of God, calling it an ‘artistic choice’, and it is not only God who receives this treatment as we will see.3 Elsewhere throughout their colourful rendition of the Torah, they have broken traditional white-centric adaptations of the Bible – most of the cast are black, brown, pink or green. Molech is even cast as a blue bull. Honey ‘The Land’ Milkand (a manifestation of Israel) resembles a Kardashian sister, and Jacob looks like he has been modelled on Vincent Price. These are not traditional Western representations of biblical figures, and the book is more powerful because of that. Thus, The Comic Torah has breached established patterns in Western representations of biblical stories. And what of Lego? I of course refer to the use of those colourful, plastic bricks in Brendan Powell Smith’s The Brick Bible. The Brick Bible is a retelling of biblical stories made entirely from Lego blocks and is available in both book format and a website. Smith’s project began in 2001 and now consists of over 4,500 images covering stories from both the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament. So, what makes The Brick Bible different from other text-image versions of the Bible? First, the style and format of the book marks it as different from comic books which are usually hand- or digitally drawn. Smith sets up the scenes with Lego before photographing them, and then overlaying the photographs with dialogue and narrator boxes which reference the biblical text. Thus, the content is limited by what one can do with Lego bricks, as well as what photographs can capture without extensive manipulation. Second and perhaps more significant for the purpose of this study is that the project began life as a web-design project and is still freely accessible online today.4 The digital format of Smith’s project demonstrates ways in which visual Bibles are produced outside of the authority of religious-textual traditions in modes which both recall and oppose the ‘original stories’ within, say, a physical Bible.5 3. Freeman and Rosenzweig, The Comic Torah, Intro (page unnumbered). 4. Brendan Powell Smith, ‘The Brick Bible’, accessed 26 June 2019, http://www​ .thebrickbible​.com/. 5. Bradford A. Anderson notes that digital texts such as Bibles which are accessed online must ‘attempt to account for the social and cultural values inherent in physical books, so the digital texts themselves are also acquiring social and cultural values’. However, Anderson downplays the suggestion that digital versions of the Bible also have the opportunity to change the narrative and thus the adjoining cultural or social value must also change to

5. Playful Comic Book Bibles and Rebekah

91

Smith has created their own version of the Bible and self-published it online without interference from, for example, publishers, editors or other authority figures. In fact, it was only when the project was published in book format that problems arose with religious groups demonstrating against its content. In fact, membership-only retailer Sam’s Club reportedly removed The Brick Bible from its shelves after receiving complaints from consumers that the book was ‘violent’ and ‘vulgar’ since it depicted scenes of rape, incest, murder and was deemed inappropriate for young people.6 Therefore, we may broadly assume that the print version holds a different kind of authority than the web version of Smith’s work. Thus, the decision to publish it freely online is itself a challenge to the textual authority of biblical stories as it removes barriers (e.g. financial) to accessing such stories. Thus, The Brick Bible breaks established patterns in its format, its medium and its production of biblical stories in text-image form. So, what do Rebekah, The Comic Torah and The Brick Bible have in common? Each features a light-humoured and creative sense of imagination which often flouts the rules of established patterns previously founded by traditional or functional modes of reading and producing narratives. They are all playful, and they are all inventive; furthermore, they all have elements of humour and are not afraid to disrupt established patterns by engaging with readers through humour and play, something which we have not seen so far in these case studies. In that respect, I term the biblical comics used in this case study loosely as ‘playful Bibles’. It is with these elements of playfulness, creativity and humour in mind that I approach the case studies in this chapter which take as their focus the patterndisrupting character of Rebekah. Our case studies are The Comic Torah and The Brick Bible, and our approach is to read representations of Rebekah in these comic Bibles through the lens of play to understand how each respective creator utilizes play and humour to present the reader with moments of stories which challenge be reflective of the narratological difference. Digital Bibles need not adhere to those same values we attribute to physical Bibles, and that is a potential liberation of values in the online text. We see this in Smith’s version. Bradford A. Anderson, ‘Sacred Texts in a Digital Age: Materiality, Digital Culture, and the Functional Dimensions of Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam’, in From Scrolls to Scrolling: Sacred Texts, Materiality, and Dynamic Media Cultures, ed. Bradford A. Anderson (Boston: de Gruyter, 2020), 281–302, here 289. Conversely, Joshua L. Mann argues decidedly that digital Bibles do not open canon to new interpretations which challenge institutional authority; at least there appears to be no evidence of this as of 2020. However, Mann’s focus is on digital Bibles, not digital text-image Bibles such as Smith’s Brick Testament. Joshua L. Mann, ‘Paratexts and the Hermeneutics of Digital Bibles’, in From Scrolls to Scrolling: Sacred Texts, Materiality, and Dynamic Media Cultures, ed. Bradford A. Anderson (Boston: de Gruyter, 2020), 247–61. 6. See for example: Myles Collier, ‘Sams Club: The Brick Bible Banned after Complaints of Overly-Sexual Lego Men’, Christian Post, 25 November 2011, accessed 4 June 2022, https://www​.christianpost​.com​/news​/sams​-club​-the​-brick​-bible​-banned​-after​-complaints​ -of​-overly​-sexual​-lego​-men​.html.

92

The Bible and Comics

traditional readings of the text. Why focus on playfulness? As noted by Helene Høyrup, connecting reading, culture, aesthetics and play is intrinsic to problemsolving, embracing transformation and creating culture on a broad scale.7 Thus, playfully and imaginatively toying with biblical texts which may prove troublesome or at least difficult to understand in their textual forms is a way of negotiating and contextualizing their content in non-prescriptive ways. Similarly, Wagner argues that playfulness is an experimentational, innovative approach to responding to inflexible (and hierarchical) structures; thus, modes of biblical reception such as film, video games and comic books can be seen as playing with biblical texts which otherwise can be unyielding in their literary form.8 Interactivity is also key with play, something which Welton notes ‘affords a level of engagement which may prove fruitful for generating further retellings and interpretations of biblical stories’.9 So, by presenting biblical texts in playful formats, by, for example, using a children’s toy as in Smith’s Brick Bible or by utilizing bright, colourful and quirky cartoons in Freeman and Rosenzweig’s The Comic Torah, biblical stories may be better (or at least flexibly) contextualized, interpreted and opened to readers.10 Thus, meaning may be made through interactive play with the Bible rather than looking for meaning in the words. This potentially opens the text back up to groups who may have considered themselves to be excluded from partaking in biblical representation and interpretation, as well as appealing to audiences who hitherto were not interested in the Bible for ideological reasons.11 This case study is a visual-critical reading of Gen. 25:21-26, which in a few short verses covers Rebekah’s infertility, Isaac’s entreaty to God to open her womb, Rebekah’s pregnancy, her visit to God inquiring of her pain, God’s response to her that she is carrying twins, and the birth of those twins. There is a lot of action in a very short amount of time, yet the biblical narrative is sparse in detail, leaving gaping holes in the story that comic book creators can exploit and fill in creative and playful ways. As such, and in a similar manner to what we have seen in the previous case studies, the respective creators are able to input their own ideological  7. Høyrup, ‘Towards a Connective Ethnography’, 93.  8. Rachel Wagner, ‘The Play Is the Thing: Interactivity from Bible Fights to Passions of the Christ’, in Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games with God, ed. Craig Detweiler (Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010), 54.  9. Rebekah Welton, ‘Isaac Rebounds: A Video Game Retelling of the Aqedah’, JSOT 44, no. 3 (2020): 293–314, here 314. 10. It should be noted that though I have chosen The Comic Torah and The Brick Bible specifically for this chapter, there are other comic book Bibles which may fall into this category, depending on how the reader understands or recognizes playful qualities. However, for the reasons outlined above, I argue that The Comic Torah and The Brick Bible utilize playfulness in specific context which marks them as explicitly playful – one via its cartoonish abstraction and humour, and one via its medium of using toys – and therefore these are the focus of this chapter. 11. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 364.

5. Playful Comic Book Bibles and Rebekah

93

readings or interpretations of the text into their text-image narratives, spinning the text into new directions, or at least presenting the text through an alternative lens. Again, by focusing on the narrativity of the images in line with the biblical story highlights the gaps in the story as well as the playful way the creators have tried to fill or explain those gaps. It also demonstrates the multiple ways in which biblical stories can be both represented and read and, importantly, how the reader’s social positioning influences their approach to reading the text. Ultimately, this case study demonstrates the ways in which biblical comics challenge established ideas relating to the Bible. However, unlike word-for-word comic Bibles, there is no need to be faithful to the text if the main points of the story are still recognizable enough to trigger familiarity with the story; rather subverting the text through playful means is the primary mode of garnering reader engagement. Furthermore, unlike manga Bibles, the comics in this case study do not reply on stereotypical tropes or traditional notions of gender to highlight the hero and the villain of the story; instead, they play with the boundaries of good and bad, blurring such distinctions and often humanizing the text in ways which manga Bibles and word-for-word Bibles do not or cannot. Clearly, this is also based in the ideological position of the creator (i.e. both manga Bible case studies were created from and by Christian perspectives and therefore one expects to read Christian themes into the text-images), but since that is not the overriding concern of a visual-critical approach, I instead explore the ways in which playful encounters with the Bible impact Rebekah’s character and narrative and allow for non-traditional biblical criticisms to forefront themselves in these text-image narratives.

The Comic Torah, by Aaron Freeman and Sharon Rosenzweig Freeman and Rosenzweig’s The Comic Torah is a bright, colourful and humorous take on the fifty-four parashot of the Torah used in Jewish liturgy. Its creators are themselves Jewish and this comic book apparently depicts not only the parashot but is a representation of the arguments had by the creators over the content as they spent time discussing, debating and arguing over stories in the Torah: ‘The Comic Torah depicts all fifty-four Torah portions and presents a snapshot of the arguments we had this year. Next year, different arguments!’12 Introducing the book in this way personalizes the content to an extent since it is a representation of subjective readings, but it also alludes to the history of theological debates which have been ongoing for centuries in Judaism and Christianity, including, for example, the decision to depict God, and what God should look like if God is represented. For their part, Freeman and Rosenzweig claim to have approached

12. Freeman and Rosenzweig, Comic Torah, front matter (no page).

94

The Bible and Comics

the text respectfully: ‘We say respect is giving the best we have, the best thinking, drawing, metaphor making.’13 The urge to create Comic Torah may have come from Deut. 31:19: ‘Now therefore write this song and teach it to the Israelites; put it in their mouths, in order that this song may be a witness for me against the Israelites.’ Abba ben Joseph bar Hama or Rava interpreted this commandment that every Jewish man is to write himself a Torah scroll, as did Maimonides many centuries later, perhaps as a way of keeping the text in circulation for communities to engage with. Freeman and Rosenzweig took this commandment and decided to see ‘what would happen if a comedian and an artist, like us, attempted it’.14 It was an attempt to fit into a Jewish community which receives biblical text traditionally and often as a fixed, static object. Playing with the stories was not an act of irreverence, but an attempt to ‘bring the book back to disaffected Jews, like me [Rosenzweig], who have trouble fitting into the received Jewish world’.15 The result is often creative, engaging, humorous and immersive which does not so much challenge the ancient text of the Bible, but almost rewrites it in an energetic, yet respectful, manner as we will see when we turn to the character of Rebekah in Gen. 25:21-26.

Why Am I Alive? Gen. 25:21-26 in The Comic Torah Genesis 25:21-26 is the story of Rebekah’s infertility, Isaac’s intercessional prayer, her subsequent pregnancy and the birth of her twins Jacob and Esau. It is a key narrative in the patriarchal stories of Genesis since it introduces Isaac’s successor but also draws upon the trope of ultimogeniture which is repeated throughout Genesis (e.g. Cain and Abel, Ishmael and Isaac, Esau and Jacob, Perez and Zerah, Joseph and his brothers). It has often been read as a story which both adds to and supports the concept of patrilineal descent in Genesis, where rights and inheritances (including the covenantal promises made to Abraham in Genesis 12, 15, 17 and 18) were traced through the patriline,16 a move which often resulted 13. Marcia Z. Nelson, ‘Comedian and Artist Produce “A Love Story with Blood”: The Comic Torah’, Publisher’s Weekly, accessed 24 August 2019, https://www​.publishersweekly​ .com​/pw​/by​-topic​/industry​-news​/religion​/article​/45298​-comedian​-and​-artist​-produce​-a​ -love​-story​-with​-blood​-the​-comic​-torah​.html. 14. Rebecca Honig Friedman, ‘In the “Comic Torah”, God Looks a Lot Like Sharon Rosenzweig’, The Sisterhood, accessed 21 August 2019, https://forward​.com​/sisterhood​ /113192​/in​-the​-comic​-torah​-god​-looks​-a​-lot​-like​-sharon​-ros/. 15. Friedman, ‘In the “Comic Torah”’. 16. For more on the ways in which gendered roles impacted the reading of law, social situations and other rights, see: S. Ackerman, ‘Women in Ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible’, Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Religion, accessed 1 August 2020, https://oxfordre​ .com​/religion​/view​/10​.1093​/acrefore​/9780199340378​.001​.0001​/acrefore​-9780199340378​-e​ -45.

5. Playful Comic Book Bibles and Rebekah

95

in mothers being erased or forgotten from the texts.17 In which case, Rebekah’s story, from an androcentric perspective, is yet another story in a line of narratives wherein the main objective is to emphasize the life and purpose of her male counterpart.18 However, this does not prevent creators Freeman and Rosenzweig from toying with the figure of Rebekah in their retelling of her story in a move which simultaneously conveys the biblical narrative but which sets Rebekah apart from her traditional rendering of an infertile matriarch reliant on her husband for mediating with God on her behalf. Before turning to the story of Rebekah’s infertility and successful pregnancy, it is perhaps worthwhile briefly contextualizing her character by examining the ways in which Freeman and Rosenzweig have treated her character thus far. Rebekah is introduced to the reader at the end of Gen. 18:1-22:24 (Vayeira, here titled ‘The Really Big Ask’), which mirrors her introduction in the biblical text (Gen. 22:23). In The Comic Torah’s version, a messenger of God (accompanied by Moses as a nod to his alleged authorship of the Torah) tells Abraham that there is ‘great news from Ur – you have a grandniece, Rebecca!’19 Isaac peers through a crack in a curtain, behind a sign which reads ‘No Dads Alowd’ – likely a nod to the traumatic event of the binding of Isaac which has just unfolded (Gen. 22:1-19). The next panel is of a baby Rebecca pinning together a clean diaper onto herself, having apparently cleaned herself (a dirty diaper lies next to her). Above baby Rebecca’s head, a thought bubble reads, ‘Isaac will doubtless require similar attention.’20 The implication from this short sequence is that Rebecca has her own agency as well as a level of maturity and understanding which includes the knowledge that Isaac will figure in her life in some way. The reader should know that Isaac has been portrayed as an adult who acts like a baby. Throughout Genesis 22, he has been crawling on all fours, wearing a diaper and speaking in babyish language (e.g. in reference to Gen. 22:7, Isaac’s question reads: ‘Daddy have fire, wood – but where lamb for sacrifice?’ to which Abraham humorously replies, ‘YHWH wants ewe’).21 On the other hand, Rebecca 17. For more on the erasure of mothers in the reception of Genesis, see: Zanne Domoney-Lyttle, ‘Abraham in the Hebrew Bible’, in Abraham in Jewish and Early Christian Literature, ed. Sean A. Adams and Zanne Domoney-Lyttle (London: T&T Clark, 2019), 9–27. 18. Exum argues that the matriarchs are bound to always play a secondary role to the patriarchs since they exist in a patriarchal setting and are written by patriarchally skewed scribes and redactors (Exum, Fragmented Women, 70–5). Furthermore, Exum cautions readers not to read the inclusion of matriarchs in stories as evidence of their importance to the text: ‘[r]ather, the matriarchs step forward in the service of an androcentric agenda, and one they have served their purpose, they disappear until such time, if any, they might again prove useful’. Exum, Fragmented Women, 71. 19. Freeman and Rosenzweig, Comic Torah, 9 (not pictured). 20. Freeman and Rosenzweig, Comic Torah, 9 (not pictured). 21. Freeman and Rosenzweig, Comic Torah, 8 (panel 4, not pictured).

96

The Bible and Comics

is drawn as a baby, but with the language and comprehension of an adult. Such a depiction of both characters serves as a model for their forthcoming relationship in The Comic Torah, into parenthood and beyond. It is a humorous introduction to Rebekah’s character which carries overtones from the biblical texts too; for example, the focus on Rebekah rather than the whole genealogy which makes up Gen. 22:20-24 emphasizes first that Rebekah is the only woman matriarch whose birth is recorded,22 and second that this mention and depiction anticipates her central role in the next part of the Abrahamic covenant.23 This itself could be read as a challenge to a patriarchal reading of Genesis since Rebekah as a woman is given prominence over men in her family and sets up how the reader may interpret her character and story over the coming pages.24 On the other hand, as Exum warns us, perhaps it would be prudent not to read too much into such a simple panel.25 On the next page which covers parashah Chayei Sarah here titled ‘Puppy Love’ (Gen. 23:1-25:18), we are given more insight into Rebekah specifically in terms of her relationship with Isaac. Isaac continues to be depicted as an overgrown baby, an adult male in a diaper crawling on all fours and this time with sandals on his hands.26 Rebekah, meanwhile, is a cunning young girl looking for ways to benefit financially from situations. Such a scenario presents itself when she overhears Eliezer at the well explain his plan out loud to offer a new life to the one who offers him water; Rebekah’s response is presented in a thought bubble (‘my ticket out of here!’), and later, we see her fist bump her father Bethel because she has deceived Eliezer, which seems to signify this was a preconceived plan.27 Freeman and Rosenzweig have written the scenes of Rebekah and Isaac’s introduction and subsequent marriage as two opposites who each have different needs that the other can fulfil. For Isaac, it is someone who can effectively replace his mother, a desire which is fulfilled in the final few panels of the page when Rebekah takes his sandals from his hands and places them on to his feet. Her act of mothering him makes him fall in love with her which fulfils her desire of coveting wealth and a new life. It is not necessarily a romantic love story, but it is vaguely reflective of biblical texts

22. Frymer-Kensky, Women of the Bible, 5. 23. Jan Jaynes Quesada, ‘Rebekah: Model Matriarch’, Review & Expositor 115, no. 4 (2018): 559–64. 24. Exum notes that the inclusion of matriarchs in genealogies such as the example of Rebekah presents the reader (and narrator) with a problem since it is normal for women’s names to be omitted from such lists as a way of casting emphasis on patriarchal lineage which relies on forgetting the mother, not remembering her. Thus, Freeman and Rosenzweig’s inclusion of Rebekah in their comic book, as well as the images of her as a baby, reinforces the role of Rebekah above Isaac which suggests a challenge to androcentric readings of the text. Exum, Fragmented Women, 85. 25. Exum, Fragmented Women, 70–5. 26. Freeman and Rosenzweig, Comic Torah, 10 (panel 2; not pictured). 27. Freeman and Rosenzweig, Comic Torah, 10 (panels 3–5 not pictured).

5. Playful Comic Book Bibles and Rebekah

97

which also suggest Rebekah’s narrative is meant to cast her as the ‘new’ or ‘next’ Sarah.28 Titled ‘Keeping what’s your brother’s’, the parashah Toldot begins with the section of Genesis we are examining in this case study. Only two panels are given over to the narrative of Rebekah and her pregnancy (Figure 5.1), and these open the page. This is significant since it restricts the perifield for the reader, and as such, the beginning of this narrative appears to start at the point of Rebekah seeking out YHWH about her pain in pregnancy. The reader is moved from the beginning of a relationship between Isaac and Rebekah on the previous page, to an image of her pregnant, meaning we are thrust into her story in the middle of the narrative. There is no mention of her struggle with infertility despite the subtitle starting at Gen. 25:19; instead, the story picks up with the narrator explaining, ‘Rebecca suffered a difficult pregnancy. YHWH spoke to her.’ In the accompanying image we see YHWH dressed as a nurse giving Rebecca an ultrasound scan. Rebecca asks: ‘Why am I alive?’ (cf. Gen. 25:22) to which YHWH responds, ‘You’ll need a peacekeeper instead of a paediatrician!’.29 On the screen of the ultrasound scanner, two babies are depicted fighting each other, accompanied by ‘Bop’ and ‘Bouf ’ sound effects. A caption runs across the bottom of the screen as if commenting on a boxing match: ‘the fight continues. . .’. There is a lot to unpack in this single panel. First, and as mentioned, there is no indication Rebekah struggles with infertility which is a key point in the biblical narrative since it aligns her in a small way with the other matriarchal narratives of Genesis, as well as being an important point in the trope of birth-of-the-hero stories.30 This small missing detail potentially changes the way in which Rebekah is understood in the story, since it removes any connection to Isaac who does not have to pray to God for intercession on behalf of his wife, reducing his role in the story to nothing. However, omitting the infertility point is potentially empowering for Rebekah. Exum argues that infertility in the matriarchal narratives is a patriarchal strategy by the narrator to ‘undermine the chosen mother’s importance by denying them the very thing for which they are so highly valued’, that is, fertility and childbearing.31 Failing to mention infertility as a barrier to producing sons for Isaac is not, and cannot be, undermined by the narrator. Furthermore, showing Rebekah in her pregnant state bestows status upon her since women mostly gained 28. Wray argues that the positioning of Rebekah’s birth announcement not only situates her as the one to take on the mantle of Sarah but also highlights her prominence in the patriarchal narratives. T. J. Wray, Good Girls, Bad Girls: The Enduring Lessons of Twelve Women of the Old Testament (New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008), 30. See also: Quesada, ‘Rebekah: Model Matriarch’, 559–60; Frymer-Kensky, Women of the Bible, 6. 29. Freeman and Rosenzweig, Comic Torah, 12, panel 1. 30. Joseph Campbell, for example, argues that in literature a hero is always born in exceptional circumstances, such as from an apparently barren mother, or a virgin mother. Joseph Campbell, Hero With a Thousand Faces (London: Fontana Press, 1993). 31. Exum, Fragmented Women, 92.

98

The Bible and Comics

Figure 5.1  ‘Gen. 25:19-26’, S. Rosenzweig and A. Freeman, The Comic Torah.

power and status through their ability to bear children.32 Lastly on this point, Exum also argues that a key patriarchal strategy in the stories of biblical mothers is by transferring control over the ability to procreate from the woman to God.33 32. Exum, Fragmented Women, 92. 33. Exum, Fragmented Women, 94.

5. Playful Comic Book Bibles and Rebekah

99

In the biblical narrative and for Rebekah, this takes the form of Isaac’s intercession on her behalf: conception comes from the patriarchal God as a result of Isaac’s intervention.34 Omitting the trope of infertility erases the need for patriarchal intervention by either Isaac or a male God. Challenging androcentric and patriarchal readings of the text are only exacerbated by the depiction of YHWH in the comic book as a woman, which further undermines patriarchal strategies inherent in more traditional readings of the text. In this one panel in the Comic Torah then, Freeman and Rosenzweig have removed several of the barriers which usually prevent Rebekah from being understood as a fully formed human and literary role model since they have visually and textually challenged androcentric perspectives which customarily subordinate women to male protagonists.35 Such a representation is coded as playing with the text since it is funny, colourful and creative with the biblical story. More importantly, however, the playful, lighthearted depiction of the scene between YHWH and Rebekah disrupts broader patriarchal concerns which seek to place YHWH at the centre of the narrative. Sawyer argues that often female characters who are given agency and control in a biblical narrative are by-products of a structure which seeks to demonstrate the ‘omniscient power’ of God:36 In narratives that allow pre-eminence to particular women, male characters can be denigrated to positions of powerlessness. In the biblical context where male supremacy is assumed, this process of emasculation functions to destabilise the audience’s expectations, and allows the author to apply the surprise tactic of a male deity using female vehicles to ensure his plan is accomplished. [. . .] When contemporary gender theory is applied to these consistent key moments of female empowerment within biblical literature, it becomes evident that both masculinity and femininity have been destabilised within the patriarchal framework, and with the intention not to undermine this worldview, but rather to reinforce it. The supreme manifestation of patriarchy, that is, the power of the male God, is triumphant and remains assured.37

Freeman and Rosenzweig counter this ‘supreme manifestation of patriarchy’ by the fact that their God is a woman; and in this scene, not just a woman but a midwife, a role traditionally and normatively exclusively held by women in ancient communities. In other words, they give YHWH one of the most womanly roles 34. Exum, Fragmented Women, 94. 35. Esther Fuchs, ‘The Literary Characterization of Mothers and Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible’, in Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader, ed. Alice Bach (New York and London: Routledge, 1999), 138. 36. Deborah Sawyer, ‘A New Discipline in Biblical Studies or Feminism in Disguise?’, in A Question of Sex? Gender and Difference in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, ed. Deborah W. Rooke (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007), 6. 37. Sawyer, ‘A New Discipline in Biblical Studies’, 6.

100

The Bible and Comics

to perform which not only visually centres women in the story but also actively erases the role of men/patriarchy. Rather than both masculinity and femininity being destabilized to reinforce patriarchal concerns, manliness has been replaced by the ultimate expression of womanliness: the process of birth, involving Rebekah as mother and YHWH as her midwife. I would add that this is only emphasized by Rebekah’s speech in this panel: ‘Why am I alive?’ which, in combination with the narrator’s voice and the image, paints Rebekah as a heavily pregnant woman in pain, seeking medical advice from YHWH the midwife. Often a famously ambiguous piece of text,38 Freeman and Rosenzweig’s rendering encourages the reader to understand Rebekah’s question in the context of her pregnancy rather than centring the unborn twins in the narrative. The second thing to note in this panel is that the narrator implies it is YHWH who seeks out Rebekah rather than Rebekah going to ‘inquire of the Lord’ (cf. Gen. 25:22); here, ‘YHWH spoke to her’.39 Again, this is seemingly a minor detail but when compared to the biblical version, it is a significant change since it strips Rebekah of her unique position of being the only matriarch to seek answers directly from God. This in turn re-centres YHWH in the story and ultimately challenges any perceptions the reader has of Rebekah’s autonomy and agency. There is still a sense of hierarchy in this story then which places YHWH at the apex of the pyramid. This is not surprising given the material; however, it does somewhat undo any reading of Rebekah as a unique mother in the line of matriarchs. Finally in relation to this panel, we must turn our attention to YHWH’s oracle. The speech given by God to Rebekah is as follows (NRSV): Two nations are in your womb,

And two people born of you shall be divided; The one shall be stronger than the other,

The elder shall serve the younger.40

38. For example, Alter translates this passage as ‘Then why me?’ noting that ‘Rebekah’s cry of perplexity and anguish over this difficult pregnancy is terse to the point of being elliptical. Her words might even be construed as a broken-off sentence: then why am I. . .?’ Alter, Genesis, 127. Other translations include: ‘If it be so, why am I thus?’ (KJV); ‘If it is to be this way, why do I live?’ (NRSV); and ‘If so, why do I exist?’ (JPS). Sarna adds to the JPS version suggesting that the text should read along the lines of ‘Why then did I yearn and pray to become pregnant?’ as if the difficult, uncomfortable pregnancy makes Rebekah regret her choice. Sarna, JPS Torah Commentary, 179. The ambiguity of the Hebrew means there is no consensus on the translation of this verse. 39. Freeman and Rosenzweig, Comic Torah, 12, panel 1. 40. Gen. 25:23.

5. Playful Comic Book Bibles and Rebekah

101

In the Comic Torah, YHWH’s oracle is slightly less distinguished: ‘You’ll need a peacekeeper instead of a paediatrician.’ There is no prophecy of the future, no indication that one brother is destined to serve the other, or that each brother will represent a different nation. In fact, it reads more like a comment on the current situation rather than a prophecy of the future. Partly, this is because the ultrasound screen depicts the part concerning the fact Rebekah is carrying twins, and that those twins are engaged in battle before they are even born. However, since this moment is meant to be about the ‘future fate of struggle between the siblings’41 which ‘sets the trajectory that will define the people of Israel’,42 the comic book version here is lacking. It is also important since it prepares the reader for the active role of Rebekah to come, simultaneously highlighting the passivity of Isaac.43 For readers unfamiliar with the story, these crucial points might pass them by and as such undermine the significance of the struggle between Jacob and Esau in Gen. 25:27-28:5 which takes place across the rest of the pages in the Comic Torah. For those familiar with the story however, it is a light-hearted interjection from YHWH which humorously sums up the relationship between Jacob and Esau through a comedic lens which may also weaken the importance of the JacobEsau narrative. See for example panel 2 in Figure 5.1, which shows the birth of the twins; Esau passes wind in the face of Jacob who grabs his heel while still on the way out of Rebekah’s birth canal. Hardly a triumphant entrance into the world for the next patriarch of the Abrahamic covenant! Retelling parashot in comic book form has afforded Freeman and Rosenzweig the opportunity to tell the stories of the Bible in imaginative and fun ways which are likely appealing to young audiences (as well as young-minded adult audiences). More than that though, their retelling focuses on the characters and narratives which they think important, depicting those stories in ways which express their own interpretations of the text. So far, this is not unusual; we have seen it play out in case studies of word-for-word comics as well as manga Bibles, and it will likely be a recurring theme in forthcoming chapters. However, where The Comic Torah differs from those previous case studies is in its willingness to play with the text, and its refusal to be bound by visual, textual or often ideological constructs. Such a playful approach not only encourages interactivity with the texts at a level not seen in previous case studies, which is itself an experimental and innovative approach to breaking down hierarchical structures which underpin traditional readings of the Bible.44 We have seen this in the panels above (Figure 5.1) where one simple moment between YHWH and Rebekah has challenged ages-old patriarchal constructs by first casting Isaac as an immature, uncomprehending figure who later is erased all together. That is often a role reserved for women in Genesis. 41. Alter, Genesis, 126. 42. Quesada, ‘Rebekah: Model Matriarch’, 564. 43. Robert Alter, ‘How Convention Helps Us Read: The Case of the Bible’s Annunciation Type-Scene’, Prooftexts 3, no. 2 (1983): 115–30, here 122. 44. Wagner, ‘The Play Is the Thing’, 54.

102

The Bible and Comics

Freeman and Rosenzweig have flipped the gender roles in this short example, but it is an action which reverberates through the rest of the pages to come. At the same time, it must be observed that Freeman and Rosenzweig maintain some elements of fidelity to the stories, even if that is with liberal lashings of creative licence. Their initial aim of writing themselves a Torah, perhaps as a way of keeping the text in circulation as well as encouraging their own exegesis of the words through images, is in their own words an attempt to ‘bring the book back to disaffected Jews’ who do not fit into the traditional confines relating to interpreting the Bible.45 Their playful retelling gets the main points of particular stories across, but it also helps break down preconceptions based on a range of ideological factors and allows the reader’s imagination to roam a little wider than if this were a text-only version of the parashot. As such, their efforts of rewriting the Torah to encourage interactivity and inclusivity should be considered a success.

The Brick Bible by Brendan Powell Smith Freeman and Rosenzweig’s Comic Torah plays with the Bible through its cartoonish, colourful comedy, sometimes subversive humour and visual-textual puns. Smith’s Brick Bible plays with the Bible through, well, the use of actual children’s toys to retell key scenes. As noted, the process for creating the Brick Bible began in 2001. The Lego bricks came from Smith’s own collection of Lego bricks, and they would carefully set up each scene before photographing them, editing them and then overlaying narration and dialogue boxes. In the introduction to The Brick Bible, Smith states: I have been inspired to do this for one reason: people should really know what’s in the Bible. For a book that so many of us consider our ultimate moral guide and the very word of God, it can be shocking to consider how few people ever actually read it. My goal is to present the Bible’s content in a new, engaging, and fun way, and yet also remain faithful to the way the Bible itself tells these stories.46

Once again, a creator of a biblical comic book indicates their intention to refresh ancient texts while maintaining fidelity to the words those texts, without speaking to or acknowledging the inherent tension between authority and medium prevalent in modern text-image retellings. That aside, we also see here a desire to aid understanding and perhaps increase literacy of the Bible, a move which creators like Crumb, Freeman and Rosenzweig have also indicated is of prime concern. This seems to be in response to a cultural idea that biblical literacy is waning, and,

45. Friedman, ‘In the “Comic Torah”’. 46. Smith, ‘Introduction’, in The Brick Bible.

5. Playful Comic Book Bibles and Rebekah

103

with it in some cases, a sense of identity,47 religiosity48 or even culture itself. It is an important point, and I mention it here since Smith’s purpose is intertwined with questions of biblical literacy and the importance of stemming ignorance when it comes to the Bible. It must be understood that, like Crumb, this is not coming from a religious perspective; Smith recognizes the Bible as an important text and sees contemporary and quirky adaptations of it as intrinsic to its survival. The Brick Bible is a heavily abridged version of the Hebrew Bible. For example, most of Leviticus and Numbers are left out, as are the prophetic books since Smith’s version stops after Chronicles. The book of Genesis receives heavy-handed attention as is normal, since it seems to be the book which most readers are familiar with. However, even here it is interesting to see what Smith included and what they left out; for example, two of the endangered ancestress narratives are omitted (Genesis 21 and 26) as is Genesis 30, the story of Rachel, Leah, Bilhah and Zilpah. Elsewhere, certain narratives receive much more attention than is given to them in the biblical story; for example, the binding of Isaac in Genesis 22 is afforded large, sweeping panels across multiple pages, visually coding it as highly significant. Such artistic decisions may be based in ideological readings of the Bible but are likely more about picking the most dramatic elements of the stories which translate well into graphical representations. As noted, The Brick Bible started life as a web-project and is still freely accessible online today.49 The book was printed about ten years after the inception of the online project, but it is important to note that The Brick Bible exists in a multitude of media and across many different channels (including social media). This case study is concerned with the print version of The Brick Bible since it is formatted most like a comic book, including panels, gutters, caption and dialogue boxes, and relies on the same level of interaction from the reader as do other comic books, and as identified as intrinsic to making meaning by Alderman and Alderman.50 It is the relationship between author, text and reader which is foundational in interpreting where and how meaning is made in text-image versions of the Bible. Digital formats are much different to print books since they rely on different modes

47. Iona Hine, for example, talks about the interconnectedness of English national identity and the King James Bible which was identified in a 2006 project where English people were asked to nominate icons of English culture. Iona Hine, ‘The Quest for Biblical Literacy: Curricula, Culture and Case Studies’, in Rethinking Biblical Literacy, ed. Katie Edwards (London: Bloomsbury, 2015), 47–67, here 48. 48. In the same study, Hine identifies a difference between biblical literacy and what she terms scriptural literacy, arguing that the latter is the preserve of the religious and is about increasing biblical literacy to then increase religiosity, whether conservative, liberal or somewhere in between. Hine, ‘Quest for Biblical Literacy’, 52. 49. ‘The Brick Bible’ website. 50. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 22–4.

104

The Bible and Comics

of reading and interaction, and thus they often produce a different interpretation or ‘meanings’.51 Aside from how the story is presented to the reader, this case study is mostly concerned with elements of playing with the text through use of Lego bricks and photography. As Dupertuis suggests, the book ‘inhabits a carefully negotiated space at the intersection of a number of genres, styles and sensibilities’52 including comic books, photography, the Bible and digitality which plays both with the conventions of these genres and with the traditions of the Bible.53 At the core of this playfulness is the humble plastic Lego brick, which both limits the retelling of the Bible because of its own inflexibility as a medium, while simultaneously challenging conventional ways of reading the text. Focusing on the same scene of Rebekah’s annunciation scene followed by the birth of her twins, I turn now to demonstrate Smith both reinforces gendered readings of the text using composition, characterization and at times, humour.

‘Why Is It Like This?’ Gen. 25:8-25 in The Brick Bible Placed in the centre row of the page (Figure 5.2), Rebekah’s birth scene is flanked on the periphery by a scene of Abraham’s attempted sacrifice of Isaac, Abraham’s death (both above) and the birth of Rebekah’s twins, and Esau as an archer (both below). The perifield of that panel speaks to the history of Isaac’s life (panel 1), his inheritance of his father’s covenantal promises (panel 2) and the future of his own sons who will inherit those promises (panels 4 and 5). In short, Rebekah’s annunciation and childbirth scene is to be understood in the context of the patriarchal promises, similar to how Exum has argued readers must understand the biblical text.54 The panels before this do not include the genealogical list which introduces Rebekah (Gen. 22:23), nor do they include the death of Sarah (Genesis 23), the marriage of Isaac and Rebekah (Genesis 24), nor do they include notice of Abraham’s marriage to Keturah and the birth of six sons (Gen. 25:1-6). In fact, were it not for the change in Isaac’s hair colour from black to grey, it may seem as if Rebekah has seemingly popped out of nowhere, and that the story of Isaac has moved at breakneck speed from his near-sacrifice to him praying to God for his wife to become pregnant. In the second panel of the page, the narrator relays that Abraham has died and left Isaac everything: ‘Abraham dies and left everything he owned to Isaac’ (note, 51. Mann engages with questions relating to digital Bibles and consumption of knowledge through virtual means, focusing on the hermeneutical impact of digital Bibles. Mann, ‘Paratexts and the Hermeneutics of Digital Bibles’, 261. 52. Rubén R. Dupertuis, ‘Translating the Bible into Pictures’, in Text, Image, and Otherness in Children’s Bibles: What is in the Picture? ed. Hugh S. Pyper and Caroline Vander Stichele (Leiden: Brill, 2012), 271–89, here 284. 53. Dupertuis, ‘Translating the Bible into Pictures’, 284. 54. Exum, Fragmented Women, 70–5.

5. Playful Comic Book Bibles and Rebekah

105

Figure 5.2  ‘Gen. 25:19-26’, B. Powell Smith, The Brick Bible.

there is no mention of Keturah or her sons, cf. Gen. 25:1-6). In the same caption box, we are told that Isaac prays to God, here called Yahweh, ‘for his wife Rebekah because she was unable to bear children’.55 The accompanying image shows Isaac on his knees; Rebekah is behind him, out of focus, stirring a utensil in a black pot. 55. Smith, Brick Bible, 52, panel 2.

106

The Bible and Comics

This interpretation opposes the gendered reading of Freeman and Rosenzweig’s Comic Torah which centred Rebekah in the narrative and ultimately erased Isaac and the need for his intercessional prayer on her behalf; in Smith’s version, Rebekah is not wholly erased but is on the periphery of the scene while Isaac dominates both the visual and textual story. We have returned to a version where control over procreative power is mediated through patriarchal strategy, from a male God to a man.56 Furthermore, the narrator’s choice of words emphasizes Isaac’s inheritance of Abraham’s possessions (and promises). This comes directly before Isaac’s intercessional prayer, visually and textually reminding the reader that patrilineal descent is the only means through which the covenantal promise may be inherited, and that Rebekah is not part of that promise. For her part, Rebekah is present in the panel but as a blurry figure in the background which reinforces the idea of distance not only between Rebekah and her husband, but between Rebekah and God too; the scene of prayer in this panel does not include her but is a private moment of prayer that even she is not privy to. Reading this panel in this way reinforces androcentric and patriarchal readings of the text, and this is only exacerbated by the medium of Lego and photography used to depict it since they restrict scope for interpretation beyond the limit of that which Lego blocks can achieve in rigidity and formality. In panel 3 of this page, we see the results of Isaac’s prayer. The panel is given the full width of the grid on the page, though interestingly, the composition within still acts as two sequential parts of the single narrative within. In the first half of the panel, Rebekah is shown heavily pregnant (as indicated by a 3 × 2 slope brick stuck rather unceremoniously on her stomach). Isaac stands behind her, reaching a comforting hand to her back, visually reminding the reader of his central role in the story. Smith has interpreted the biblical text here to include Isaac, even though there is no direct reference to him. Such a move further weakens any power Rebekah has since it reinforces the patriarchal agenda of the narrative. Turning to the representation of Rebekah explicitly, then, Smith has rather humorously chosen an expressive Lego face for Rebekah which mingles concern with worry, with a touch of cringing. It is unclear if Smith created or adapted an existing Lego head to create this expression,57 but the extraordinary moment caught in this panel is that Rebekah breaks the barrier between audience and scene. Her gaze is directed out towards the reader, not towards God or even backwards to Isaac. This is an attempt to immerse the reader into the story world in a manner similar to what we have seen in The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition when Potiphar’s wife draws the reader into her attempt to seduce Joseph. However, one might also argue that immersion in a narrative is also a way to draw empathy from the reader towards the character since the character is appealing to the reader to understand their story.

56. Exum, Fragmented Women, 94. 57. Smith notes that they have edited or created some pieces throughout their Brick Bible when necessary, if their stock of Lego did not have what was needed.

5. Playful Comic Book Bibles and Rebekah

107

The power of Rebekah’s gaze outwards to the reader is effective in eliciting an empathetic response from the reader; yet it is also humorous because of the medium of Lego which is used to tell Rebekah’s emotional story; the cartoonish grimace and block-like body and surrounding scene reminds the reader of making their own funny scenes out of Lego bricks. Dupertuis argues that Smith critiques literal readings of the Bible ‘by adhering to strict literalism [them]self ’,58 adding that by following a literal approach of capturing as much of the biblical text as possible, Smith emphasizes ‘just how much typical translations (and illustrations) do to make the text intelligible in our contemporary contexts’. With regard to this scene of Rebekah in consultation with Yahweh then, we are seeing this literalism of the text subverted to comedic effect. The key point remains, yet we as readers can empathize with Rebekah as she invites us through her gaze to recognize the absurdity of her situation in part because of the ridiculous expression on her face. In the second part of the panel, Yahweh stands in front of Rebekah and Isaac. Here is a return to the patriarchal, bearded, robed and stern God readers are likely most used to. Yahweh is separated from Rebekah and Isaac by a line of space between them which reinforces the previous panel where Rebekah is excluded from Isaac’s prayer and from Yahweh. Yahweh’s physical detachment from the scene of Rebekah’s pain is reinforced by the choice of words in the accompanying caption (emphasis mine): ‘Yahweh responded to his prayer, and his wife became pregnant, but the children inside her struggled with each other, and she said, “Why is it like this?” and Yahweh said “Two nations are in your womb. One will be stronger than the other. The elder will serve the younger”.’59 Referring to Isaac and Rebekah using pronouns and not their names is a further de-personalization of relationship between deity and humans and adds a sense of reserve or coldness to the scene further distancing God from his creation. In this panel, one can see the importance of composition to creating an emotional response from the reader. In the final scene of this part of the narrative (panel 4), Rebekah gives birth. In the scene, she is entirely alone save for a pair of pink arms which extend into the right-hand side of the panel, catching Esau as he is born. Jacob follows closely. The same expression of concern, worry and cringing graces Rebekah’s face, possibly calling back to the pain she experiences during pregnancy now being felt during childbirth. There is still an element of humour to the proceedings, especially with regard to the physical disconnect between the natural phenomena of childbirth and the hard, sterile Lego bricks used to convey the scene. Such a disconnect almost abstracts the content and provides a moment of light relief in an intense short story. Smith relies heavily on a narrative dominant pattern of panels which, according to Peeters, is normally reflective of the emotional content of the material in comic books.60 However, for Smith it may be less to do with reflecting emotional 58. Dupertuis, ‘Translating the Bible into Pictures’, 284. 59. Smith, The Brick Bible, 52, panel 3. 60. Peeters, Case, planche récit, 41.

108

The Bible and Comics

overtones and more to do with the medium in which they work. Reproducing photographs as text-image narrative constrains the creator’s ability to really play with the shape, size and composition of the panels since these are dictated by the medium. However, the composition of the panels does affect reception of the emotional content since the neatly marked and bordered panels control the way readers approach both the narrative and the emotional matter by emphasizing story over expressiveness. In other words, the medium controls the message and since toy bricks are inflexible in their ability to convey a range of emotions, and since photographs are here true representations of the subject matter (in that they have not been overly manipulated), the emotional matter of the story is difficult to get across and so narrative becomes the dominant feature in Smith’s version of the Bible. Why is this important? In a sense, the medium which Smith has chosen to work with is simultaneously restrictive and liberating. It is restrictive precisely for the reasons addressed above, but it is liberating since it is an abstraction of the text which is not rendered to fully resemble humans. Like the Manga Bible in the previous chapter, such abstraction of characters invites the reader to mask themselves in the character which, in turn, allows the reader to enter safely into the world of the comic book.61 Therefore, any emotional resonance with the story is almost wholly derived from the reader rather than the creator, which frees the text up to open interpretation by its audience rather than relying on the reader to control how the story is read. This is in stark juxtaposition to, for example, word-for-word comic Bibles like Crumb’s which intends to control the emotional response to its text through anthropomorphic representation and fidelity to the text. Smith’s Brick Bible has neither. Dupertuis’s argument that Smith’s retelling of the Bible through the medium of Lego and photography is an effective critique not only of the Bible but also of modern translations of the Bible is also important here since it reminds us of Beal’s assertion that cultural Bibles need not explicitly replicate biblical language to be recognized as biblical. Like Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated, Smith’s retelling is also a reminder that there is a complex and multilayered history to the translation and interpretation of Genesis, and The Brick Bible is part of this. But what of playing with the Bible? There are elements of humour and play in Smith’s retelling of Rebekah’s narrative, but these are not the overarching elements of the story one focuses on. This is somewhat surprising, since elsewhere in The Brick Bible, Smith is much more explicit in their attempt to inject humour and play. Consider, for example, Smith’s depiction of Gen. 7:8-9, which includes a pair of dinosaurs joining the rest of the animals boarding Noah’s ark,62 or Gen. 1:26, which is a replication of Michelangelo’s The Creation of Man from the Sistine

61. McCloud, Understanding Comics, 42–3. 62. Smith, ‘Genesis >> The Flood’, accessed 29 April 2020, http://www​.thebrickbible​ .com​/theflood/.

5. Playful Comic Book Bibles and Rebekah

109

Chapel.63 Both scenes are funny in their attempts to retell narrative either by including absurd elements, or by subversively replicating iconic scenes. Rebekah’s narrative lacks a depth of humour and play, save for her facial expression during pregnancy pain and childbirth, and this perhaps is the most frustrating part of Smith’s rendering: while elsewhere they do a good job of playing with the Bible, when it comes to Rebekah’s narrative, and by extension other women’s narratives, the playful approach is less obtrusive. This indicates either a resistance to exploring, subverting or playing with women’s stories due to a lack of experience or because they deem those stories less significant in the overall arc of the Bible. Either way, it means Rebekah’s narratives – and again women’s narratives in general – are easily forgettable, thus replicating an androcentric reading of the text which centres men. An opportunity to playfully explore the text and forefront marginalized narratives is lost.

So-called ‘Playful’ Bibles Playing with the Bible through cartoonish abstraction, through visual and textual puns and even through the use of toys like Lego can lead to those texts playfully engaging with and countering hegemonic readings of the Bible which ascribe to traditional, white-centric and androcentric ideologies. At first glance, The Comic Torah is a humorous, light-hearted and often mischievous account of biblical stories. The pages are full of colour, cartoon and comedy and include both visual and textual puns and jokes. At face value, it is not a serious retelling of the Torah, and as such, it may prove risky to use in a liturgical setting. That is perhaps the point. As a reminder, creators Freeman and Rosenzweig set out to make a comic book version of the parashot to ‘bring the book back to disaffected Jews [. . .] who have trouble fitting into the received Jewish world’64 and their modus operandi for opening sacred texts back up to ‘disaffected Jews’ is to play with the text to destabilize traditional readings of the Bible and instead, present liberal and often radical interpretations to the reader. They are successful in their endeavours, and the result is a richly satisfying, yet playful, rendition of the Bible which does not conform to traditional-ideological readings. Thus, the Comic Torah is an opportunity for marginalized perspectives to centre themselves, and for marginalized readers to find representation in texts which have either erased or oppressed them. At first glance, one may also surmise that Smith’s Brick Bible is a humorous, light-hearted and sometimes mischievous take on the Bible. Partly, this is because of the medium of Lego which is used to create scenes of violence, gore, sex and even genocide. The bright, colourful and playful medium visually and materially 63. Smith, ‘Genesis >> Creation’, accessed 29 April 2020, http://www​.thebrickbible​.com​ /creation/. 64. Friedman, ‘In the “Comic Torah”’.

110

The Bible and Comics

contrasts with the darker narratives of the Bible; such a visual oddity plays with the reader’s expectations.65 Furthermore, the content itself, even in moments of heightened tension or drama, relies on visual humour to lighten the story, a move which encourages the reader to consider the text anew, away from the sanctified, religious overtones related to the iconicity of the Bible while still being rooted firmly in the shadow of the Bible as icon. Where this falls flat is in the representation of women’s narratives in the Bible, as we have seen with Rebekah. This may be considered a ‘double’ erasure of women’s narratives, since Smith has not only replicated androcentric readings of biblical women but has replicated them in a retelling, adding a layer of exclusion on top of an already undermined text. Where both comic book Bibles succeed, however, is in their ability to clarify or at least allow for new engagement with difficult passages. The passage of Rebekah’s pain during pregnancy and her subsequent inquiry with God (Gen. 25:21-22) is one which has often perplexed translators and commentators of the Bible.66 The Hebrew is also unclear which does not help matters and leads some scholars to suggest that Rebekah met with a high-Priest or a divine oracle rather than suggest a woman has met with God with no man present. Both Freeman and Rosenzweig, and Smith are clear in their depictions that Rebekah meets with God, and this is reflective of the Hebrew. Their retellings of this scene illuminate the text in a faithful way, but also in a way which follows naturally from stories before this. Simply put, the sequential retelling of Rebekah’s story in a playful way means a woman meeting with God is not absurd – at least not absurd in a world where dinosaurs board Noah’s ark and YHWH dresses as a midwife. Thus, playfully and imaginatively toying with this verse negotiates and contextualizes the story in a non-prescriptive way which almost naturalizes the story. In this way, meaning may be made through interactive play with the Bible, rather than trying to look for meaning in the words. This potentially means the Bible becomes more appealing to, and representative of, those who have been excluded from or at least left out of traditional interpretations of the Bible. Ultimately, this case study demonstrates the ways in which biblical comic books can challenge established ideas relating to the Bible by illuminating difficult passages through playful means. A question here arises: What is the difference between humour, playfulness, subversion and satire? When does a biblical comic book take playing with the Bible too far, and what happens when it does? Let us now turn our focus to that very question as we consider satirical and subversive biblical comic books.

65. As Dupertuis notes, this means Smith’s Brick Bible is unlikely to be regarded a suitable Bible for children, further distorting the juxtaposition between children’s toy and adult story. Dupertuis, ‘Translating the Bible into Pictures’, 271. 66. T h is speaks to Høyrup’s assertion that play is a way of problem-solving, embracing transformation and creating culture. Høyrup, ‘Towards a Connective Ethnography of Children’s Literature’, 93.

Chapter 6 SATIRICAL AND SUBVERSIVE COMIC BIBLES AND EVE REVEALING TEXTS

In the previous chapters, we have mostly looked at graphic retellings of the Bible from approaches that are situated within the text of the Bible, and largely from within the tradition of biblical interpretation. In our examination of ‘word-forword’ Bible comics, for example, we saw how Crumb and McNinch attempted to stay ‘faithful’ to the biblical text of Genesis, illuminating and supporting the words from within its own literary world rather than explicitly challenging or undermining scripture from an externalized perspective; this, despite Crumb’s reputation for alternative, non-traditional and satirical comics. Though both McNinch and Crumb certainly added to the story of Sarai and Hagar (Genesis 16) with their accompanying images, those biblical comics were not about rewriting the Bible, poking fun at it, or even overtly challenging its sacred or cultural authority. Rather, those word-for-word comic Bibles were an attempt to draw attention to the biblical story of Sarai and Hagar as each creator read them, as well as how they understood those stories have been read and interpreted throughout history. Thus, those comic Bibles are themselves able to be read and interpreted within a visual and textual history of biblical exegesis, situating them firmly within that tradition. Similarly, when our attention turned to manga Bibles, we saw that each manga Bible which served as a case study was produced from within the same visual tradition of biblical exegesis. Mostly, this is because they are created by and for Christian readers of the Bible, for a religious audience. The result is that those manga Bibles often gloss over particularly problematic parts of the text to maintain a Christian-traditional, androcentric perspective on ancient Jewish scriptures, or at least to further a narrative of God’s chosen people as the heroes of the stories. Our focus on Genesis 39 and the story of Potiphar’s wife and Joseph demonstrated the desire of the creators to ensure Joseph is always read in the role of the hero, while Potiphar’s wife is the foreign villain of the narrative, a threat to Joseph’s genealogical line and legacy. Thus, both manga Bibles we encountered are invested in the tradition from which they stem and cannot be divorced from the history of biblical exegesis which likely inspired them. Our look at what I termed ‘playful’ Bibles in Chapter 4 was the first attempt to play around with ideas of authority and textual fidelity, and the first to dip a toe outside of kneeling to the Bible’s sacred and cultural authority, albeit tamely. The

112

The Bible and Comics

case studies in that chapter gently challenged and even attempted to mildly subvert traditional readings of the biblical story of Rebekah in Gen. 27. In this case, by traditional reading we refer to the androcentric and patriarchal interpretations of the Bible which picture God as an all-powerful male figure, and who value the history and genealogy of the patriarchal triumvirate of Abraham, Jacob and Joseph above the narratives of women and marginalized groups like slaves. However, such attempts to play around with the venerable text of the Bible are not about demeaning or destroying the words of the Bible. Rather, our playful Bibles by Smith and Freeman and Rosenzweig show that being creative with the Bible can open the text to a broader audience while maintaining a sense of fidelity to the story-arcs. For example, seeing God as a green-skinned, lesbian female deity does not fundamentally change the narrative of the biblical stories, but may challenge the reader’s perception of God. The basics are still there, but the depictions are a bit different, and a bit more open to a multiplicity of representations. Such an approach, we saw, prises open the text to create a space for those who have not perhaps seen themselves in the stories of the Bible before. However, the gentle playfulness is just that: gentle. These case studies are not attacks on the text, and, like word-for-word Bible comics and manga Bibles, stem from within a tradition of visual exegesis of the Bible, though, arguably, they take it a step further. This chapter is a step outside of the comfortable realms we have so far traversed. We take as our subject satirical and subversive representations of the Bible. This chapter is about biblical comic books which present satirized perspectives on scripture, in ways which utilize stereotypes, and employ obvious mockery and political commentary to both challenge and subvert the power of and expectations relating to the Bible. The position of such comic Bibles does not come from within the tradition of reading the Bible as a sacred text; rather, it is an external attempt concerned mostly with a light mocking of the Bible, challenging authority related to the text and, ultimately, ‘exposing’ the troublesome and even hypocritical aspects of the Bible by attempting to remove from it its iconic status and its sacred and cultural capital. This is achieved by reading the texts through a lens of satirical and subversive humour, approaches which out of necessity are outside of whichever culture they seek to comment upon. We take Genesis 3, the story of the ‘Fall’ and subsequent expulsion from Eden as our biblical narrative in this case study since it is a realm that we as readers are comfortable traversing, appreciating the familiarity of the story as one which is easily subverted and satirized.

Satire as a Form of Subversion, and Challenge to Authority In a conversation between W. J. T. Mitchell and Joe Sacco, the former astutely observes the following about comic books and cartoons who work within the genre of satire: Paradoxically this medium which is so often dismissed as childish, trivial, subliterary and so forth has been the place where a certain kind of justice seemed to

6. Satirical and Subversive Comic Bibles and Eve

113

be at stake, and where [we see] the ability to penetrate official so called grown-up views of the world, to look freshly at reality – that’s another way in which I think of it as a second childhood. I was led by Mad Magazine to this perception very early. Suddenly I saw what irony was, and not just irony, but a kind of irony that penetrates, that peels off the surface. This seems absolutely crucial – irony and satire as revelation.1

Mitchell’s description of irony and satire as a revelation of truth, a peeling-away of a shiny but false façade which reveals an honest ugliness beneath it is, for many, the purpose of satire as an art form. Here, the implication is that satire and irony are ways of drawing attention to injustices of power, and of challenging hegemonic forces by questioning, mocking or ridiculing existing political practices and bodies.2 This may be achieved through subtle allusions or overt examples, and the goal of the satirical comic book or cartoon may be to provoke debate over certain issues, or simply to make a visual comment or statement about a specific person, political party or ideology such as Julia diLiberti demonstrates in their examination of the ways in which so-called Golden Age cartoons both record and comment upon the political scene in which they were created.3 For many, satire is a way of expressing censure through straightforward and obvious visual and textual forms. Such a move ultimately is about ‘othering’ those who are the subject of the satirical commentary.4 But what forms do satire take, and what role does the satirist take?

1. Emphasis mine. ‘Public Conversation: Joe Sacco and W. J. T. Mitchell’, in Critical Inquiry: Comics and Media, ed. Hillary Chute and Patrick Jagoda (Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2014), 53–70, here 54. 2. Duncan and Smith, The Power of Comics, 264. 3. Julia diLiberti, ‘Gilded Age Cartoons: Artistic Antecedents and Descendants’, INKS: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society 1, Iss. 2 (Summer 2017): 126–42, here 126. 4. Zoja Pavlovskis-Petit, ‘Irony and Satire’, in A Companion to Satire: Ancient and Modern, ed. Ruben Quintero (Williston: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), 510–24, here 510. Jytte Klausen’s discussion on the ways in which cartoons stereotype and ‘other’ minority communities such as Muslim communities who were caught up in the Denmark cartoon controversy of 2007 can be read fully in J. Klausen, The Cartoons that Shook the World (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009). See also Christian Davenport who discusses the intentional hyper-differentiation of people of colour and different ethnicities within comic books who often have exaggerated features and hyperbolic visual coding as a way of marginalizing them from nominally white creators, characters and readership: Christian Davenport, ‘Black Is the Colour of My Comic Book Character’, in Drawing the Line: Comics Studies and Inks 1994-1997, ed. Lucy Shelton Caswell and Jared Gardner (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2017), 196–209. Such studies merely demonstrate the variety of ways in which stereotypical representations of identity in comic books are used to provoke humour and ridicule in the name of satire.

114

The Bible and Comics

Pavlovskis-Petit claims satire must be punchy, obvious, though it may carry with it subtleties and nuances which come to light only when certain perspectives are applied. Its punchiness is key to its Latin origins: ‘indeed, effective satire has something Roman about it: the powerful, bold attack, the abundance of crudeness, the strong disapproval and rejection of anything that falls outside norms delineated by what is established as common sense; what works.’5 Because of this last point, the satirist assumes what Pavlovskis-Petit labels an almost ‘dictatorial authority’; in other words, the consumer of satire is to believe that the satirist is not only wholly correct in their political, social or religious commentary, but that they have absolute authority on the matter.6 Such a definition potentially demeans or even erases a multiplicity of readings created by a multiplicity of readers and their own social, political or religious locus. However, it is suggested that the satirist is imbued with some level of authority in their position as commentator. What effect does such a position of authority have on the power of the Bible? That is one of the questions which I seek to answer in the case studies herein. The creation of satirical art is normally linked to a political, religious or social commentary aimed at challenging the authority of those institutions in positions of power. The employment of satire in either a textual or a visual format (or a combination of both) depends on elements such as caricature (the exaggeration of the character of a person or institution normally in an insulting way),7 the hyperdifferentiation of the powerful and the powerless to draw attention to the disparity of power and authority which exists in various social structures, and, importantly, the ability to draw laughter from the reader. On this last point, prompting the reader to laugh at a satirical comic book or cartoon is an intrinsic part of challenging the power of whichever hegemonic structure is being attacked since the reader becomes complicit in the attack on the institution but is also drawn into the wider purpose of questioning the authoritative body because their response is both emotional and physical. In the case of satire and the Bible (and on caricatures especially), such a response, argues David Carrier, means we as readers both take religious ideas seriously and refuse to take literally those ways of thinking,8 because

5. Pavlovskis-Petit, ‘Irony and Satire’, 512. 6. Pavlovskis-Petit, ‘Irony and Satire’, 512. 7. Comic book creator Art Spiegelman who is best known for his ground-breaking work Maus (1980) argues that caricature has a predisposition towards insult. A caricature, he argues, is a loaded image whose wit lies ‘in the visual concision of using a few deft strokes to make its point’ (p. 45). Not over-complicating a caricature or cartoon is important to the successful delivery of the point of the image. Thus, Spiegelman suggests that cartoons and caricatures are most aesthetically pleasing – and I would add, most effective – ‘when they manage to speak truth to power, not when they afflict the afflicted’ (p. 46). Art Spiegelman, ‘Drawing Blood: Outrageous Cartoons and the Art of Outrage’, Harpers Magazine, June 2006. 8. Carrier, ‘Caricature’, 112.

6. Satirical and Subversive Comic Bibles and Eve

115

all satire is simultaneously based in truth, and is a departure from literal truth.9 There is a double value to their nature which ‘both looks backwards historically to religious tradition and, by treating that way of thinking ironically, express[es] the scepticism associated with modernist secularisation’.10 Thus, in terms of the Bible and satire, this reveals the ‘doubleness of our [own] divided nature’11 as readers, as well as the doubleness of the divided nature of the text as one which is steeped in tradition and historicity, but is malleable and fluid to present-day concerns. However, as much as satirical cartoons and images challenge perceived authority and encourage new perspectives on traditional discourses, we must also remember that these new perspectives are not new; they are rooted in the ‘truth’ of the text insofar as satirical art is often more revealing of what the past was really like, or perhaps what was really ‘meant’ in any given text.12 Like the ability of satirical cartoons to encourage ‘new’ perspectives rooted in an existing reality, satirical commentary on the Bible is also not new. Dramatic, literary and visual satire has been employed across centuries to draw attention to, attack or occasionally even uphold biblical values. This chapter does not outline the history of the relationship between satire and the Bible13 but understanding  9. Christopher Lamb, ‘Drawing the Line: An Absolute Defence for Political Cartoons’, in Drawing the Line: Comics Studies and Inks 1994-1997, ed. Lucy Shelton and Jared Gardner (Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2017), 194. 10. Carrier, ‘Caricature’, 112. 11. Carrier, ‘Caricature’, 112. 12. Scully and Varnava cite Perry Curtis Jr to illustrate this point: ‘Cartoons are sources that are “laden with clues to the social and political dynamics of any given time and culture” and these clues and dynamics are often more revealing of what the past was “really like than the written word”.’ Richard Scully and Andrekos Varnava, ‘Introduction: The Importance of Cartoons, Caricature and Satirical Art in Imperial Contexts’, in Comic Empires: Imperialism in Cartoons, Caricature and Satirical Art, ed. Richard Scully and Andrekos Varnava (Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020), 1–30, here 5. 13. T h ere are many works available on different perspectives related to satire and the Bible. For example, Thomas Jemielity writes about the use of humour and satire in the Bible: ‘Ancient Biblical Satire’, in A Companion to Satire: Ancient and Modern, ed. Ruben Quintero (Williston: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), 15–30. In the same volume, Michael F. Suarez outlines how the Bible has been used as a vehicle for satire from Medieval to Modern times: ‘Mockbiblical Satire from Medieval to Modern’, in A Companion to Satire: Ancient and Modern, ed. Ruben Quintero (Williston: John Wiley & Sons, 2006), 525–49. François Bœspflug outlines the pictorial history of divine entities from a humorous and satirical perspective, including the Jewish, Christian and Islamic ideas of God, Jesus and Muhammad respectively and looks at the potential future of such images with regard to censorship, blasphemy laws and socio-economic impacts: ‘Laughing at God. The Pictorial History of Boundaries Not to be Crossed’, in Humour and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, ed. Hans Geybels and Walter Van Herck (London: Bloomsbury, 2011), 204–17. Many more such studies exist, but these have been directly influential on this chapter.

116

The Bible and Comics

that there is a rich history between the two is important in contextualizing the forthcoming case studies. Of greatest interest to the purposes of this book, the case studies demonstrate two things: first, how satirical retellings of the Bible in graphic format can both illuminate and examine shifting trends of biblical and religious literacy; and second, the case studies will demonstrate the ways in which satire in relation to the Bible is an attack aimed at those who hold authority in an attempt to redistribute power to marginalized groups through the power of subversive humour. Peter Berger, for example, describes satire as an aggressive intent which becomes the central motif of comic expression between the powerless and the powerful,14 and David Feltmate elaborates that ‘satire is a weapon which is directed with moral force at a target’, nominally a target superiorly positioned to the weapon.15 Such an interpretation relates back to Carvalho’s description of cultural Bibles as ‘non-controllable’ since such satirical Bible stories are created without authority and for secularized or non-religious readers. As such, though their aim is not to open the text of the Bible to those who see themselves as excluded from it, it is in fact a potential outcome. However, more importantly satirical biblical stories such as those we will encounter show that the text can be, and is, open to anyone who wishes to read it, and that in fact, the Bible does not, nor should it, belong to religious communities only. Adam and Eve are consistently popular figures in the world of satire and culture. In art, for example, William Hogarth’s 1761 print Enthusiasm Delineated shows puppet versions of Adam and Eve after the style of Dürer’s The Fall of Man (1504) as a commentary on both art and religious authority. Peter Wagner refers to Hogarth’s biblio-religious works as iconotexts, intertextual art which cannot be read without wider knowledge of the subject, time and political landscape around it.16 In literature, Mark Twain published The Diaries of Adam and Eve (1906), a humorous ‘record’ of the lives of the first man and woman which positions Adam as a fairly lazy and uninteresting person faintly annoyed by Eve’s enthusiasm and curiosity for her new life. Terry Pratchett and Neil Gaiman’s Good Omens does not explicitly satirize Adam and Eve but does satirize the situation within which they find themselves. At the opening of the novel (in a chapter titled: ‘In the Beginning’), the demon Crowley (also the serpent, Crawly, from Genesis 3) and the angel Aziraphale discuss in a deadpan manner Adam and Eve’s recent expulsion from the Garden of Eden:

14. Peter Berger, Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997), 167. 15. David Feltmate, ‘It’s Funny Because It’s True? “The Simpsons”, Satire, and the Significance of Religious Humour in Popular Culture’, Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81, no. 1 (2013): 222–48, here 228. 16. Peter Wagner, Reading Iconotexts: From Swift to the French Revolution (London: Reaktion Books, 1995).

6. Satirical and Subversive Comic Bibles and Eve

117

‘You’ve got to admit it’s a bit of a pantomime, though,’ said Crawly. ‘I mean, pointing out the Tree and saying ‘Don’t Touch’ in big letters. Not very subtle is it? I mean, why not put it on top of a high mountain or a long way off? Makes you wonder what He’s really planning.’ ‘Best not to speculate, really,’ said Aziraphale. ‘You can’t second-guess ineffability, I always say. There’s Right, and there’s Wrong. If you do Wrong when you’re told to do Right, you deserve to be punished. Er.’17

This speech and the developing relationship between the demon and the angel questions the ineffability and logic of God in a humorous yet subversive, way, since it draws the reader’s attention to the glaring inconsistencies and illogical points in the biblical narrative of the Fall without overtly calling the stories false or untrue. One of the reasons behind the proliferation of Adam and Eve’s story is that, put simply, the Fall narrative in Genesis 3 is one of the best-known in the Western world. Not only that, but one does not even require the full story in order to recognize it; the story itself can be distilled into various simple symbols which are linked to the wider narrative: the serpent, an apple, a naked man and woman, a fig leaf, a luscious garden, for example.18 It is thus easy to identify in a plurality of instances when it is retold (e.g. in literature, film, television, adverts and comic books). The story has every element it needs to remain significant and successful outside of religious tradition: human relationships, divine relationships, temptation, sin, sexuality and punishment. It is an archetypal narrative which is both familiar and strange to us as readers. The familiar and the strange narrative of Genesis 3 is also why it is often engaged with in subversive and satirical ways. Artists and writers who specialize in satire can safely exaggerate or mock a text which we are comfortably familiar with, illuminating the strangeness of the story in order to raise questions about its authenticity. Furthermore, the visual coding related to satire which often includes exaggerated features in order to draw attention to a characteristic, person or situation,19 relies heavily on pre-knowledge of the story by the readers.20 Such preknowledge is intrinsically linked to symbols as visual metaphors for the story, but by exaggerating, mocking and ridiculing those symbols, authority is challenged and

17. Neil Gaiman and Terry Pratchett, Good Omens (London: Penguin Random House, 2014), 15–16. 18. Katie B. Edwards demonstrates how the use of even just one symbol associated with the Fall narrative is enough to contextualize a cultural product, such as in advertising where such symbols are continuously used and exploited to sell luxury products through the lens of temptation. See: Katie Edwards, Admen and Eve: The Bible in Contemporary Advertising (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012). 19. Klausen, The Cartoons That Shook the World, 6. 20. Carrier, ‘Caricature’, 107, 112.

118

The Bible and Comics

it becomes obvious that literal truth is not the purpose of satire.21 As Christopher Lamb suggests, ‘cartoons appear in a setting that makes it obvious that they are intended to be humorous, fantastic, or allegorical, and that they should not be taken literally.’22 To draw on the fantastical elements of Genesis 3 – the talking serpent, the paradisaical setting, the magical tree of knowledge – is to draw the reader’s attention to the literality of the text and to void or at least devalue the idea of absolute truth. It is to play with the boundaries of sacredness and the Bible. The previous chapter in this book looked at the idea of playful and humorous comic book Bibles as a way of deconstructing the authority of the text and the social location of the reader from traditional readings of the Bible. This chapter borrows some of that perspective, but it should be clear from the outset that the style of playful (and often innocent) humour employed in comic Bibles aimed at children and young adults is different to the subversive and satirical humour displayed in the case studies of this chapter. At the forefront of our investigations in this chapter is, as ever, an attempt to untangle the messy relationship between creator, text and reader by asking a range of questions of the satirical comic book Bibles. I am interested in what the creator is commenting upon in their versions; are they magnifying an ideological position or are they attempting to obscure parts of the text? Why? Additionally, are they attempting to represent or reshape the biblical story of Genesis 3 to reflect certain political or social ideas using visual satire, and if so, what role does the reader play in this? Finally, how are our assumptions about Adam and Eve influenced by our encounter with satirical versions of their stories? Do such stories encourage readers to question their mythical beginnings, or take them less seriously? These and other questions are central to reading satirical biblical comic books to gauge our understanding and interpretation of the stories of Genesis. Let us turn now to the case study.

God, Gandalf and the Garden of Eden in Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament A group of well-known comic book writers and artists collaborated on Outrageous Tales,23 including Alan Moore, Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean and Brian Bolland, under the editorial eye of Tony Bennett. Published by Knockabout Comics, who consider themselves ‘Purveyors of Fine Alternative and Underground Comics since

21. Lamb, ‘Drawing the Line’, 194. 22. Lamb, ‘Drawing the Line’, 194. 23. I wish to thank Johann Schedlinski, who, many years ago, sourced a copy of Outrageous Tales for me from Germany and sent it to me as a gift to help my studies. I am grateful for his friendship and his kindness.

6. Satirical and Subversive Comic Bibles and Eve

119

1975’,24 this interpretation of tales from the Old Testament includes re-imaginings of Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 19), The Book of Job, Samson and Delilah (Judges 16), and, of course, the expulsion from Eden narrative (Genesis 3). It is clear from the front cover of the comic book that this is meant to be read as a funny, not-quite-literal take on biblical stories, visual coding which is supported by the title of ‘outrageous’. The front cover promises ‘Human sacrifice’, ‘Murder’, the ‘Wrath of God’, ‘Deadly tent pegs’, ‘Enormous boils’ and ‘Judges, Kings and Prophets’. Inside, humorous observations on the Creation narrative open the book in the form of a poem which outlines how all the animals of the world were created: ‘And all the animals He wrought, Did not have to be Taught, they just knew exactly what to do.’25 The poem goes on to describe how each animal acted in accordance with its species, to ‘the chaffinch chaffed’ and the ‘jaguar jagged’, for example, culminating with the following verses: Each creature small and great in short, Lived in its natural state as ought. It is difficult to tell Why, when the scheme worked so well, God went on and marred the plan, Spoiled it with the making of a Confused, messed up, lots of bother, Mixed up thing as Man? One is entitled to complain – Human behaviour is so rarely humane.26

The implication is that while every other creature acted ‘as it ought’, humans rarely behave as God, their creator, perhaps intended them to. I start with this poem because it contextualizes forthcoming stories wherein humans are the bane of their own existence, and wherein any mistakes or problems which arise and threaten their own existence and/or the existence of living things around them are at the fault of their own hands. God has little to do with this. Reading the stories through the lens of this poem prepares the reader for the pessimistic and downbeat version of biblical stories which follow. This atmosphere is also enhanced by the use of black-and-white imagery throughout the comic, which gives the impression of a ‘serious’ tone, such as is the case in R. Crumb’s Genesis, Illustrated. A word regarding the publisher, Knockabout Comics is perhaps also useful to contextualize the stories. Established during the height of creativity and proliferation of underground comix in the mid-1970s (though arguably the true 24. See the tagline on their website: Knockabout Comics, accessed 27 June 2020, https:// www​.knockaboutcomics​.com/. 25. Arthur Ranson, ‘Preface Poem’, in Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament, ed. Tony Bennett, (London: Knockabout Comics, 1987), i–iii. 26. Ranson, Outrageous Tales, inside cover page 3.

120

The Bible and Comics

boom in that industry took place during the 1960s and into the 1970s), Knockabout has remained at the forefront of championing underground comix, satirical and subversive comics, and alternative/non-traditional comics.27 Because of this, they are well placed to produce comic Bibles which resist hegemonic structures and champion the underdog. However, because of their very identity as alternative and underground, such comics like those produced by Knockabout have a habit of championing no one. Instead, while they resist hegemonic structures, they mostly do not offer an alternative vision which would promote inclusivity across identity markers. Satirical and subversive comic Bibles instead often do mock, ridicule or satirize a broad audience instead of an elite few. This is what transpires when we delve into the pages of Outrageous Tales, as we shall now see.

Who Told You That You Were Naked? Genesis 3 in Outrageous Tales God is Gandalf. That is the first thing to know about Donald Rooum’s retelling of the creation of the world, the animals and humans, and the subsequent expulsion of Adam and Eve from the Garden. Gandalf, of course, is the wizard from J. R. R. Tolkien’s literary work The Lord of the Rings trilogy. Rooum’s take on the beginning of Genesis covers Genesis 1–3, the latter of which is told across two pages. Our focus here is on these two pages which outline the events of the Fall narrative and expulsion, but we will also dip into earlier elements of the story for context. Before delving into Rooum’s remediation, it is worth reminding ourselves of the biblical text of Gen. 3:1-7 as a comparison, here taken from the NRSV: Now the serpent was more crafty than any other wild animal that the Lord God has made. He said to the woman, ‘Did God say, “You shall not eat from any tree in the garden?” the woman said to the serpent, ‘We may not eat of the fruit of the trees in the garden; but God said, “You shall not eat of the fruit of the tree that is in the middle of the garden, nor shall you touch it, or you shall die”’. But the serpent said to the woman, ‘You will not die; for God knows that when you eat of it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.’ So when the woman saw that the tree was to be desired to make one wise, she took of its fruit and ate; and she also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate. Then the eyes of bother were opened, and they knew that they were naked; and they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

In the biblical text, the story follows a pattern which is familiar to most. The serpent asks Eve if it is true that she and Adam cannot eat from any of the trees in the garden. Eve responds by clarifying it is only one tree they have been instructed not to eat from, and that the consequence of doing so is death. The serpent contradicts the information Eve has, that they will not die; instead, they will ‘be like God’. 27. Duncan and Smith, The Power of Comics, 264.

6. Satirical and Subversive Comic Bibles and Eve

121

Such a persuasive argument changes Eve’s mind, and she eats the fruit from the forbidden tree, giving some to Adam, who was allegedly with her during the whole interaction. The eyes of both were opened, they discovered they were naked and they clothed themselves. This pattern is important because for millennia, it has often been used to ‘prove’ that Eve is the first to have eaten from the tree before persuading Adam to do the same.28 The serpent shares some of the blame, but ultimately the blame of the transgression has historically and culturally been associated with Eve.29 Adam’s culpability is denied since his voice is absent and we only learn of his physical presence some time into the dialogue between the serpent and Eve. Indeed, Adam only partakes of the fruit when Eve persuades him and as we know, for centuries this has been interpreted as Eve seducing Adam into eating the fruit resulting in the trope of Eve as seductress. Such a mythological image of Eve is perpetuated in several ways throughout time, including in modern adverts selling luxury goods,30 art, literature and more. Since numerous studies exist which explore, examine and extract every fragment of argument possible relating to Genesis 3 and ‘the Fall’, there is no need to till over old ground here;31 however, reading Rooum’s version against the words of Genesis is telling in many ways. 28. Ronald Simkins describes Genesis 3 as the story which ‘has served ever since as the basis for patriarchy and the subordination of women’, and that the myth has since constructed and perpetuated common understandings of Gender using the language of agriculture and procreation. This is just one example which reflects a vast scholarly consensus. Ronald Simkins, ‘Gender Construction in the Yahwist Creation Myth’, in A Feminist Companion to the Bible: Genesis, ed. Athalya Brenner (Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998), 32–52, here 32, 34. Another is from Mieke Bal, who calls Genesis 3 ‘the most misinterpreted story that serves the most simplistic misogyny’. Bal, ‘sneaky Snakes: Seduction, the Biblical Imagination, and Activating Art’, in The Bible and Feminism: Remapping the Field, ed. Yvonne Sherwood with Anna Fisk (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017), 589–607, here 589. 29. For a thorough and helpful exposition on blame culture in the Hebrew Bible, see: Sara Stone, ‘“Those who plough iniquity and sow trouble reap the same”’: An Exploration Into Blame-Shifting Culture in the Hebrew Bible’, in Women and Gender in the Bible: Texts, Intersections, Intertexts, ed. Z. Domoney-Lyttle and S. Nicholson (Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2021), 204–21. 30. Edwards, Admen and Eve. 31. It is not possible or likely helpful to list the numerous studies here which have examined and explored the narrative of Genesis 3 through a variety of lenses. However, for a thorough examination of the reception of Eve which relates directly to this study, see: Holly Morse, Encountering Eve’s Afterlives: A New Reception Critical Approach to Genesis 2-4 (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020). This volume ‘destabilises the persistently pessimistic framing of Eve as a highly negative symbol of femininity within Western culture by engaging with marginal, even heretical, interpretations that focus on the more positive aspects of her character’ (book description). Morse’s study reveals that the character of Eve

122

The Bible and Comics

Let us now turn out attention to Rooum’s remediation. The opening pages of the comic book show a giant God/Gandalf (referred to as God forthwith for ease) rummaging in a yard sale for some old tatty statues which he brings to life through words: ‘Be Alive!’ These statues become Adam and Eve, Adam once a ‘junk earthenware garden gnome’ and Eve once a ‘plastic replica of an Etruscan bronze pan-lid handle in the form of a girl acrobat’.32 God is pleased with his creation and leaves the couple in charge of the garden while he goes off to ‘save middle earth’.33 Of note here is that the couple are not named. There is no suggestion that the garden is Eden, or indeed even paradise – it is referred to only as Gandalf ’s garden. Adam and Eve are surrounded by a variety of fruits (Figure 6.1, panel 9) when God gives his command to avoid certain trees which have ‘keep off ’ signs on them. This is an example of verbal and visual foreshadowing, a tressage technique weaving elements of the story together to indicate what is important for the reader to know. The combination of fruit, with the concept of some things being forbidden, suggests what is to come. It also suggests that the couple have plenty of edible food to choose from and that it is indeed their choice to eat the forbidden fruit since it is not necessary for survival. God’s speech is poignant here: ‘a couple of the trees are marked with “keep off ” signs’ but to help themselves to anything else since ‘it’s all edible’.34 The suggestion that there is more than one tree is interesting and resurfaces later in the story. Off trots God (visually linked to Gandalf by the horse and cart imagery) and for a short while, Adam and Eve frolic and enjoy their surroundings, but all will soon come undone (Figure 6.3). In the second panel of Figure 6.2, Eve stands in front of a tree with heartshaped fruits covered in ‘keep off ’, ‘no entry’ and ‘out of bounds’ signs. A snake is coiled around the trunk grinning at Eve; Adam is nowhere in sight. No dialogue occurs during this scene, and it lacks action or urgency; indeed, it is a passive moment, a snapshot of a moment between Eve and the serpent which we come to understand is the moment that Eve chooses to eat the fruit. The audience are not privy to Eve’s reactions or emotions since her back is turned to us. Rooum relies upon the reader inputting their own knowledge and information onto the image so that we may understand this is the moment of transgression. The only hint of anything untoward – and it is only a hint – is from the serpent who appears to be staring directly at Eve’s breasts rather than her eyes.35 This could be a suggestion of is much more complex and dynamic than representations of her have allowed, a line of thought which this study of biblical comic books buys into. 32. Donald Rooum, ‘Gandalf ’s Garden’, in Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament, ed. Tony Bennett, (London: Knockabout Comics, 1987), 5–8, here 6. 33. Rooum, ‘Gandalf ’s Garden’, 5. 34. Rooum, ‘Gandalf ’s Garden’, 6. 35. In the biblical text of Genesis 3, the serpent indicates that Eve’s eyes will be opened. Rooum’s panel has a visual nod to that with the wide eyes of the serpent trained towards Eve, further suggestive of her sexual awakening should she eat the fruit. Alter, Genesis, 12.

6. Satirical and Subversive Comic Bibles and Eve

123

Figure 6.1  ‘Gandalf ’s Garden (p. 6)’, D. Rooum, Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament.

124

The Bible and Comics

Figure 6.2 ‘Gandalf ’s Garden (p. 7)’, D. Rooum, Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament.

6. Satirical and Subversive Comic Bibles and Eve

125

Figure 6.3 ‘Gandalf ’s Garden (p. 8)’, D. Rooum, Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament.

126

The Bible and Comics

salacious behaviour indicative of the widely perpetuated idea that the knowledge Eve will gain from eating the fruit is a sexual awakening; equally, it could be nothing at all. The point is it is up to the reader. The lack of dialogue between the serpent and Eve allows Rooum to avoid the complex issue of blame with the Genesis 3 narrative. The serpent does not entice Eve, and Eve in turn does not persuade Adam to eat the fruit (which would be impossible since he is absent), nor does she enlarge the divine prohibition as she does in the biblical text.36 The point here is that no blame is apportioned to either Eve or the serpent, and no act of eating takes place in front of the reader such that we cannot apportion any blame from our perspectives. It is a swift sidestep which may be an indication that Rooum wishes to avoid the question altogether; however, it may also be Rooum’s approach to absolving Eve of the label of temptress, seductress and architect of humanity’s fall. Since no eating even takes place in the reader’s view, we are encouraged to imagine it happening. The next panel is of God/Gandalf returning home calling for the humans. He finds them among a jumble of plants, hiding. God’s dialogue here suggests that he has caught the pair in a sexual encounter though it is not explicit: ‘Hee-hee!! Don’t mind me folk. I was young myself once.’37 This removes the suggestion earlier that the serpent knew eating the fruit would lead to a sexual awakening for Adam and Eve, since it seems God expects them to be sexually active anyway. The couple respond that they are hiding since they haven’t yet been given clothing and they felt it would be rude to welcome God home in a state of nakedness. God’s wrath is not unlike that which we witness in the pages of Genesis except here his language is euphemistic and colloquial: ‘Who told you that you were naked? You snivelling little clay turd, you’ve eaten fruit from that tree I told you to keep off!!!’38 God’s giant figure looms over Adam, who is grasped in his hand, and in the next panel we are introduced to the concept of blame in the narrative. Still in God’s hand, Adam points down at Eve blaming her: ‘It was the woman’s fault, sir, she told me to eat the fruit Sir.’ In her thoughts, Eve echoes God’s sentiment that Adam is a ‘snivelling little clay turd’ but she also apportions blame to the serpent, who swings from a branch behind her. This is reflective of the biblical text we are used to as readers (save perhaps for the insults levied at various points). Rooum’s choice to label Adam a ‘snivelling little clay turd’ cleverly relates back to the origin of man as being made from the clay. Indeed, even in this version Adam is brought to life from a garden ornament likely made of clay, connecting this comic book version of Genesis with the literary version we are familiar with. The final page of the story does not quite mirror the narrative of the biblical text in terms of the punishment meted out to each party, but in a much more humorous manner. The snake (having called God an ‘incompetent old git’ for

36. Alter, Genesis, 11. 37. Rooum, ‘Gandalf ’s Garden’, 7. 38. Rooum, ‘Gandalf ’s Garden’, 7.

6. Satirical and Subversive Comic Bibles and Eve

127

failing to design him properly)39 is labelled a ‘creepy bastard’ who will always be repulsive to women; Eve is destined to always be attracted to Adam; Adam will fail as a farmer, able to grow only thistles and thorns. The serpent deems his punishment a fate worse than death as does Eve; Adam is happy that he’ll ‘still get the girl’.40 God once again refers to Adam as a ‘snivelling turd’ recalling his earlier injurious remark of ‘snivelling clay turd’, further reminding the reader of Adam’s origins. As Alter notes, Adam is a ‘mere thing shaped from clay that has aspired to be like a god’41 and Rooum has reminded us of that here whether intentional or not. Referencing an earlier panel where God mentions ‘a couple of trees marked’ as forbidden, in the next few panels we see God tramping up and down his orchard relieved that the couple had at least not found these trees. A moment of realization that they still could discover the rest of the forbidden trees leads God to permanently ban the couple from the garden, effective immediately. The story ends with God telling them, ‘Piss Off!’ while Adam and Eve mutter to themselves, ‘whatever made us think he was a nice old chap?’ this humorous ending with a dark undertone summarizes Rooum’s approach to, and reading of, the Genesis 3 narrative.

Responding to the Outrageous Treatment of Genesis 3 This is a funny take on the familiar story of Genesis 3 which enjoys a new perspective under the treatment of creator Donald Rooum. Beginning by casting God as Gandalf, a famous wizard in literature whose story is one of triumph over ultimate evil is humorous and familiar since it draws upon the age-old idea that God is an old man with a long white beard living somewhere up in the skies (or, in this case, middle earth). It also connects biblical literature with fiction, itself likely a comment about how Rooum views the texts of the Bible. It further suggests that God is magic, rather than divine. Adam’s character is portrayed as a passive figure throughout this version which is unsurprising, but Eve’s role is also downplayed, as is the role of the serpent. Since no transgression is apparent, the reader must imagine it has happened and we are likely to fill in the gap without underlying knowledge of the text: namely that the serpent persuades Eve to eat the fruit, who in turn persuades Adam to eat the fruit. But this clearly does not happen in Rooum’s version, and although the humans later admit to eating the fruit, it is the reader who must imagine that the transgression took place to make sense of the following panels. As such, the reader is the transgressor. We are to blame for moving the narrative forward and making

39. Rooum, ‘Gandalf ’s Garden’, 8. 40. Rooum, ‘Gandalf ’s Garden’, 8. 41. Alter, Genesis, 15.

128

The Bible and Comics

it so that the fruit was eaten. At the very least, we are complicit in this literary act which subsequently brings down humanity. Therein perhaps lies the revelation of Rooum’s version of Genesis 3. Using satire and humour to retell the story has reminded the reader of our role to play in the original sin. We have laughed along with Rooum’s version of the Fall and the expulsion, but unlike the playful Bibles we examined in the previous chapter, satirical perspectives have subverted the trope of Eve as seductress. Eve is effectively removed from the story – as is the serpent – and so her character is redeemed and the blame instead moves to us. Of course, we face no punishment since we are only passive bystanders but, neither do the humans nor the serpent since they are ink on paper. Applying Alderman and Alderman’s model wherein the separation between the ‘original’ text of the Bible (text 1) and the reader of a comic book Bible (reader 2)42 as the key moment where new interpretations are allowed to emerge is emphasized in this satirical version of Genesis 3. That space between the original text (text 1) and the reader of a biblical comic (reader 2) has widened enough that reader 2 is now also creating a new remediation of the Bible using their imagination, memory, and the text in front of them. Reader 2 is both part of and separate from the story, though this is true of other biblical comic books as well. The added ingredient in this version is satire or subversion of a familiar text which allows for an interpretation to emerge which vindicates Eve and the serpent (and ignores Adam entirely). Rooum’s version then is a revelation of truth; it does peel away the false façade of a complex narrative, drawing attention to an age-old injustice wherein Eve has been blamed for the fall of humanity. It is a challenge to hegemonic, harmful forces which have sought to subordinate women through the ideological reasoning that Eve once ate a bit of fruit she should not have, by questioning and mocking those who have continually sought to pin blame on women as whole.43 Mieke Bal calls Genesis 3 a story which, in its countless afterlives, ‘bend[s] representations and interpretations to incarnate age-old prejudices rehearsed ad nauseum to justify objectionable ideologies’,44 and I contend that one way to counter that is through subversive visual humour such as in Rooum’s remediation. For some, this may be a stretch. Rooum’s comic is after all only four pages in a compendium of biblical comic strips produced in the 1980s and unlikely to have impacted many. However, the point remains (and remains powerfully so) that there is more than one way to read a text, and there is more than one way to represent a text. Encouraging a diversity of biblical retellings encourages a diversity in the way the Bible is retold, and women can once again reclaim space denied to them because of traditional perspectives which have long proliferated. This has the potential to extend to other marginalized identities and let us hope that we begin to see such re-interpretations sooner rather than later. 42. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 22. 43. Duncan and Smith, The Power of Comics, 264. 44. Bal, ‘Sneaky Snakes’, 589.

6. Satirical and Subversive Comic Bibles and Eve

129

Comic book Bibles which intentionally satirize or subvert biblical narratives for humorous effect are a challenge to the perceived authority of ‘the Bible’. They not only bring humour and a sense of humanity back into the text (laughter is after all one of the most human of qualities) but also enable the text of the Bible to be at least partially claimed by secular and non-religious communities in a literary sense. This is significant since the Bible is not owned by one group of people and should be accessible to all. At the same time, satirizing or subverting the texts of the Bible can be seen as a means of legitimizing the authority of the text, since to challenge its authority is to recognize there is any authority there in the place. Of course, it depends upon who is doing the satirizing and who is reading it.45

45. Stahlberg, ‘Refuse, Realism, Retelling’, 38.

Chapter 7 DRAWING CONCLUSIONS

Any cultural version of the Bible, be it fine art, poem, literature, text-image narrative, television, cartoon, pop music, or even in the wrestling ring, is interpretively bound by the time in which it is produced. All cultural products will ultimately reflect the time in which they are made. If there is a mass conflict in the world, biblical cultural products are likely to focus on war stories, or heroes and valour, or tales of people displaced by conflict. If the global economy is thriving or struggling, cultural products might lean towards focusing on parables relating to money, disparity between poverty and wealth, or greed and power. If feminism is popular, cultural products are more likely to promote and showcase narratives of the ‘strong’ women of the Bible. In short, if particular themes or styles are ‘having a moment’ this may be reflected in the way Bible stories are retold. For centuries, the choice was between text and image – fine art consistently elevated biblical narratives into gorgeous, intricate visual stories and literature, and poetry played with, reinterpreted and remediated familiar Bible stories into epics which we still consume today. As we have seen, comic book Bibles are no different. Though there have been remediations of the Bible into comic books since at least the early 1960s, there has been a significant rise in the number and popularity of comic books from about 2005 onwards. It is not a coincidence that at the same time, comic books in general were starting to ride a wave of popularity which would last for at least a decade, with comic book superhouses Marvel and DC producing numerous films, TV shows and merchandise off the back of comic books characters like Iron Man, Captain America, Batman and Guardians of the Galaxy, to name a few. Such a rise in the popularity of the medium naturally translated into the remediation of the Bible into comic books along with other literature. For Christian or Jewish publishers, what better way to share the stories of the Bible than by utilizing a popular medium? And for non-religious publishers, what better fodder for inspiration than one of the most well-known books in the history of mankind? As the wave of popularity for comic books reaches its crescendo and begins to drop, readers and scholars are left with a detritus of biblical comic books which not only capture a moment in time but also potentially change the landscape of how biblical stories are produced, consumed, understood and valued. This monograph is an attempt to begin to understand what this landscape might look like.

7. Drawing Conclusions

131

Reading Biblical Comics To chart the landscape, this book took as its central focus Exum’s approach to visual-critical readings of biblical art, and, in this case, text-image narratives. In her approach, Exum argued that for visual criticism to successfully work as an approach (rather than a method), one must pursue ‘connections between image and text to see where they will lead’1 rather than critiquing where the artist or creator has succeeded or failed in their bid to represent biblical text. This meant that we were mostly concerned not with finding meaning in the biblical comic book, rather how meaning is made from biblical comic books.2 This also borrows from cultural criticism of the Bible, melding that together with reception-history approaches to biblical art and literature, a lá Paolo Berdini,3 Timothy Beal,4 David Jasper and Stephen Prickett,5 and Robert Alter and Frank Kermode.6 For structure, we used Alderman and Alderman’s attempts to explore the tension which exists between creator, product and reader of comic books, arguing that remediating the Bible into comic books allows different interpretations of the text to emerge, as well as different theological readings.7 Using Alderman and Alderman’s approach, although it is somewhat underdeveloped existing as it does in one research paper, demonstrates how meaning can be found at various interpretive points within biblical comic books. In this sense when we refer to ‘meaning’, it is the way in which the reader relates to and interprets the texts in front of them, drawing information and perhaps even inspiration from the pages. It must be stressed, however, that I am aware that the approach used in this book is itself underdeveloped and that this is partly due to the lack of resources for studying, analysing and contextualizing biblical comic books as serious cultural products, as well as my preference to maintain Exum’s ethos that a looser approach rather than a codified method is one of the more successful ways to read biblical cultural products and reveal meaning within them. The case studies in this book identify several points of interest, including how textual fidelity shapes comic book remediations, how authority of the sacred word is often seen as tantamount to legitimize cultural Bibles and how playing with or even subverting biblical texts ultimately removes authority from those remediations, de-legitimizing the biblical narratives when they appear in the format of comic books. In our examination of ‘word-for-word’ Bible comics and 1. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 10. 2. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 364. 3. Berdini, The Religious Art of Jacopo Bassano. 4. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’; Rise and Fall of the Bible. 5. David Jasper and Stephen Prickett (eds), The Bible and Literature: A Reader (Oxford: Blackwell, 1999). 6. Robert Alter and Frank Kermode (eds), The Literary Guide to the Bible (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987). 7. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 22.

132

The Bible and Comics

the figures of Sarai and Hagar (Genesis 16) I demonstrated the ways in which both Crumb and McNinch thought that they stayed ‘faithful’ to the biblical text of Genesis, illuminating and supporting the words from within its own literary world rather than explicitly challenging or undermining scripture from an externalized perspective. Though both creators added to the biblical narrative with their creative imaginings, they were careful to not rewrite the story but instead intended to draw focus on the main characters of Sarai and Hagar as they understood them. Moreover, their remediations nodded to the visual and textual reception history of Genesis 16 as well, contextualizing the story in terms of not only its place in the Bible but its place in cultural history too. In the second case study of manga Bibles and the story of Potiphar’s wife in Genesis 39, the manga Bibles in the case studies also spoke to the long tradition of biblical-visual exegesis, largely because they were commissioned, created and produced by Christian publishing houses for a religious audience – and likely a young audience at that. As such, the two manga Bibles reviewed and analysed tended to omit or gloss over particularly problematic parts of the text such as sexual assault and slavery to uphold androcentric, traditional readings of the story. Joseph the beautiful man is to be read as the heroic male figure, Potiphar’s nameless wife as the femme fatale villain. Their roles are black and white, much like the monochromatic style of manga in general. There are few grey areas which allow alternative theologies to emerge. Moreover, I argue that manga Bibles may act as visual aids to biblical narratives, but only on a superficial level given their attention to action and omission of content which challenges the concept that a manga Bible is itself an authoritative version of the Bible. Ultimately, this reflects Beal’s cultural-critical approach to reading Bibles since the emphasis is on how meaning is made from biblical texts based on how a culture, community or society receives, interprets and re-presents the Bible, rather than finding meaning in the Bible itself.8 Similar themes emerged in the case study on ‘playful Bibles’, a loose term to identify biblical comic books which use elements of playfulness, creativity and gentle humour (that is not subversive or even offensive humour) to retell biblical narratives. Rebekah and the story of Gen. 25:21-26 is the focus, particularly since Rebekah is often viewed as an anomaly within the narrative pattern of the Genesis matriarchs. The case studies used Freeman and Rosenzweig’s The Comic Torah and Smith’s The Brick Bible as their subjects and are the first of our examinations to challenge the authority of the biblical word subtly and even gently. There is mild subversion of the traditional reading of Rebekah’s story since God is portrayed as a woman, Rebekah as a baby and Isaac as a grown man dressed as a baby (a reflection on the creators’ view of Isaac as a tantrum-throwing, immature and entitled man). By traditional reading we refer to the androcentric and patriarchal interpretations of the Bible which picture God as an all-powerful male figure, and which values

8. Beal, ‘Reception History and Beyond’, 364.

7. Drawing Conclusions

133

the history and genealogy of the patriarchal triumvirate of Abraham, Jacob and Joseph above the narratives of women and marginalized groups like slaves. Such attempts to play around with the venerable text of the Bible are not about demeaning or destroying the words of the Bible. Rather, our playful Bibles by Smith and Freeman and Rosenzweig show that being creative with the Bible can open the text to a broader audience while maintaining a sense of fidelity to the story-arcs. For example, seeing God as a green-skinned, lesbian female deity does not fundamentally change the narrative of the biblical stories but may challenge the reader’s perception of God. The basics are still there, but the depictions are a bit different, and a bit more open to a multiplicity of representations. Such an approach, we saw, prises open the text to create a space for those who have not perhaps seen themselves in the stories of the Bible before. However, the gentle playfulness is just that: gentle. These case studies are not attacks on the text and, like word-for-word Bible comics and manga Bibles, stem from within a tradition of visual exegesis of the Bible though arguably, they take it a step further. The final case study takes the concept of playful Bibles a step further by exploring subversive and satirical comic book Bibles – in this case Knockabout Comics’ Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament. Here, we explored the ways in which Donald Rooum reimagined the figure of Eve in a retelling which redeemed her story-arc, absolving her of the blame for ‘the Fall’ and bringing the reader into the role of the guilty instead. This case study called into question the ways in which comic book Bibles can challenge the authority of the text while also lending legitimacy to the authority of the Bible by recognizing that there is anything to mock.

Revelations in Biblical Comics Closely reading such a wide range of biblical comics revealed many things, some of which illuminate the relationship between what many perceive to be sacred text and broader cultural receptions and perceptions of the Bible. The first such revelation is that there is an easy and compatible relationship between biblical texts and comic books. The two formats dialogue well together, such that when Bible stories are remediated into comic books, there is no massive sense of loss or change for the reader. If anything, the format of comic books often aids storytelling, bringing to life the characters on the page in a way which is difficult by text alone. After all, many of the stories in the Bible use visual language, even when they are sparsely detailed. Think about the story of Sarah listening to Abraham and the three visitors at the door of the tent and laughing at the proclamation she would have a son in old age (Gen. 18:1-15). There is little detail other than the group being sat under oak trees, food and hospitality being offered in the heat of the day, and the door of the tent which conceals Sarah. Yet, the scene is visual in its simplicity – heat, desert, warm colours, trees providing shade, abundance of simple foods, smells permeating the air, conversation between the group and a tent door flapping behind them, hiding Sarah. The translation of visual

134

The Bible and Comics

language into both text and image enriches the story more broadly. The Bible is rife with literal metaphors which are easily transferred into visual metaphors,9 and creators of comic books are well enabled to exploit those elements into successful text-image remediations. Though a compatible relationship exists between biblical stories and comic books, it is also important to recognize that the relationship is not always a straightforward or ‘easy’ one. Difficult stories and characters are at risk from being erased, minimized or glossed over through lenses which do not fit the purpose of the narrative in any biblical retelling. However, it is less likely that the creators of comic book Bibles will fail to engage with difficult stories. This is the second revelation our case studies have uncovered: that remediating Bible stories into comic books often reveals and ultimately celebrates difficult texts, highlighting and frequently trying to unpack areas of conflict and challenge. It is the fourth point of Alderman and Alderman’s theory that allows such varied readings of biblical comics, precisely because text 2 of their model encompasses all influences and sources which have preceded it, but also because text 2 provides us, the reader, with the opportunity to find meaning in both the biblical text and the visual accompaniments.10 Children’s Bibles (or, indeed, some of the more conservative translations of the Bible such as The Message or The Good News Bible) often leave out stories that involve violence, murder, sexual assault or ambiguous morality. In leaving them out, the editors may insist it is to protect young audience from gratuitous and complicated content, but it is also a move which protects editors from having to make decisions about how to portray such content. An example in children’s Bibles is the way in which the story of Noah’s Ark normally focuses on the building of the ark, the limited number of animals rescued, the waters rising, receding and then the covenant between God and Noah using the symbol of the rainbow. What goes unsaid is the mass genocide inflicted upon every other living thing on earth – innocent humans, animals and plants, all eviscerated to cleanse and purify the world of some evil. Those ‘unsaid’ moments often go unnoticed because the focus is on the positive morality of the tale and the justification which emphasizes good behaviour; in short, everyone who died probably deserved it. In comic books, it is difficult to ignore or gloss over such scenes without seriously impacting the story; in fact, in the story of Noah’s Ark, including the

 9. Richard Wollheim describes visual metaphors as pictures which ‘have metaphors as their [. . .] textual content’. See: Wollheim, Art and Its Objects, 2nd edn (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1980), 308. John Miers elaborates: ‘“Textual” [. . .] refers to the fact that, despite being realised in visual form, the metaphor is interpreted in much the same way as a linguistic metaphor’ since both share subject and form. John Miers, ‘Picturing National and Personal Acts of Violence: Modes of Depiction in Barefoot Gen’, in Representing Acts of Violence in Comics, ed. Nina Mickwitz, Ian Horton and Ian Hague (London: Routledge, 2020), 19–34, here 21. 10. Alderman and Alderman, ‘Graphically Depicted’, 22.

7. Drawing Conclusions

135

scenes of mass death and destruction brought about by global flooding, is an important aspect of getting across the positive morality associated with Noah’s family and their being ‘saved’ by God. Not only that, biblical comics celebrate such difficult scenes for several reasons: first because (like the first ‘revelation’ above) there is a natural affinity between the visual biblical language and translating those into text-image narratives. Second, comic books tend to be most successful when they work with stories which are grounded in emotion, action and power – all of which are intrinsic to stories of violence for example, and as such can revel in the difficult aspects of such stories because of the marriage of image and text which allows deeper levels of such elements to be made visible. Third and finally, from a broad cultural perspective, comic books are predisposed to depict acts of violence – both subjective (i.e. violence personally inflicted on another person whether physical or mental) and social (i.e. ‘violence inherent in a system: not only direct physical violence but also the subtler forms of coercion that sustain relations of dominance and exploitation, including the threat of violence’).11 Indeed, ‘[t]he presence of violence in comics form is now so prevalent and accepted that it tends to go unremarked’, so goes the opening sentence of Mickwitz, Horton and Hague’s edited volume on Representing Acts of Violence in Comic Books.12 Thus, it is almost natural (if one can use such a term for comic books) to embrace subjectively or socially difficult stories rather than avoid them since that is what they are most known for anyway. While biblical comic books might revel in the stories of violence which permeate biblical texts, it should be noted that they also struggle with parts of the text which are coated with confusing, conflicting and vague language. Erich Auerbach once famously described the story of the sacrifice of Isaac in Genesis 22 as ‘fraught with background’,13 arguing that the text purposefully lacks detail and emotions in order to accumulate suspense as the reader progresses, encouraging the reader to fit into the world of the Bible rather than to fit the Bible into the reader’s world.14 Remediating this story into comic books is difficult not because of the lack of visual language (similar to the point above, this story is easily visualized in sense of the relationship between Abraham, Isaac and the physical world around them), but it is challenging because the text in the Bible is so difficult to parse.15 On the other hand, such a sparsity of detail allows for a greater breadth of interpretation, 11. Slavoj Žižek, Violence: Six Sideways Reflections (London: Profile Books, 2008), 8. 12. Nina Mickwitz, Ian Horton and Ian Hague (eds), Representing Acts of Violence in Comic Books (London: Routledge, 2020), 1. 13. Erich Auerbach, Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature, trans. W. R. Trask (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953). 14. Domoney-Lyttle, ‘Abraham in the Hebrew Bible’, 17, fn. 30. 15. Genesis 22 has long been a focus of biblical scholars attempting to unpack and unpick exactly what happens in the text, and there is no consensus with regard to the function, purpose or outcome of the story. In fairness, this could be said of most Bible stories – after all exegetes have been working for centuries on every part of the Bible trying

136

The Bible and Comics

as we have seen throughout the case studies in this book. This brings us to the next revelation. The third revelation uncovered in this book – and related to that last point – is that comic book Bibles are well positioned to challenge the perceived authority of ‘the Bible’ by recasting and re-presenting stories from new perspectives, mostly because of the sparse detail of biblical texts. Some may argue that such a position comes with great responsibility to ensure biblical stories are accurately represented, but, as we know, there is no such thing as an accurate retelling of a fluid text. Therefore, the creator of a biblical comic book can interpret stories through whatever lens they deem appropriate, and to depict their own versions however they wish. This does mean sometimes we are presented with unrealistic portrayals which stray far from the biblical versions (e.g. as seen in the playful and satirical versions examined in the third and fourth case studies). However, it does also mean there is wider scope for diverse representation within biblical stories which traditionally exclude some audiences. As such, the main strength of biblical comic books is that they potentially open biblical stories to new audiences seeking a multiplicity of messages, meanings and representations. This is important not only in that it challenges the perceived authority of the text, but also because biblical comic books can potentially challenge centuries of white-centric, androcentric, heteronormative ‘traditional’ interpretations of the Bible which have saturated the concept of the Bible for far too long. Why not present the text in an accessible format with stories that speak to inclusivity, equality and acceptance of all peoples? Challenging the authority of classically and traditionally trained (mostly) male exegetes is not an attack on the values of the Bible, but a test for how willing we are to accept diversity in our own societies. This point is linked to our fourth and final ‘revelation’: the strength of biblical comic books and that of cultural Bibles more broadly is that they can respond to and represent contemporary issues, casting ancient text into new contexts without necessarily changing or challenging that text. In short, they can make Bibles relevant to personal, regional, national and even global concerns. They can bring to the surface the comfort or the cannon fodder we need to cope with modern life, in ways that are serious as well as humorous. Biblical comic books are just one layer of a multitude of Bible interpretations and are no less significant or relevant just because the format of comic books has been traditionally and repeatedly dismissed as being ‘children’s books’; instead, the very fact that comic books have been designated by some as products of ‘throwaway culture’ works in their favour, because they are much more readily accessible economically, physically and in appeal. These revelations are apparent by reading comic book Bibles through an approach of visual criticism, encouraging the reader to pursue connections between the text and the comic to ‘see where they will lead’16 rather than spending to understand it – but Genesis 22 is one of the more well-known stories which has been interpreted in thousands of ways with no clear agreement among scholars. 16. Exum, Art as Biblical Commentary, 10.

7. Drawing Conclusions

137

time worrying about where the author/creator has failed to represent the text (in the eyes of the reader or critic). By taking this approach, we can see the potential impact comic book Bibles may have on readers, and the importance of the reader– creator relationship highlighted in the framework by Alderman and Alderman. The Future of Biblical Comic Books This book has taken as its focus comic books which directly engage with biblical narratives albeit through various lenses. In the introduction, I noted that very little serious study has been carried out on the impact of remediating ancient, sacred texts like the Bible into comic books. While this book intends to go some way towards filling that desideratum, it has clear limitations too. One area which is rich with material but which remains understudied is autoethnographical comic books which link the personal with the Bible. Examples include Sarah Lightman’s The Book of Sarah17 and Liana Finck’s Passing for Human.18 Both writers take inspiration from biblical characters, interweaving those stories within their own life stories to make sense of themes and events such as fertility, marriage, ageing, divorce and relationships. Lightman’s The Book of Sarah chronicles the writer’s memories from childhood to parenthood within a framework of Jewish feminist approaches. It frequently but subtly nods to the matriarch Sarah of Genesis as both the story of Lightman and that of the biblical Sarah intertwine with themes of mental health, family, genealogy, fertility and motherhood. A reader familiar with the narrative of the biblical Sarah will see and understand flecks of inspiration and connection from her story throughout Lightman’s book, a move which illuminates and reveals Lightman’s thoughts and actions around certain events. Such echoes and resonances of the biblical Sarah are emphasized and sometimes cast in a new light by Lightman’s discussions of her own Jewish heritage and faith. This links the reader back to the Hebrew text of Genesis but also reminds us of how those allusions continue to shape and be shaped by Lightman’s interactions with them (see Figure 7.1 which shows the biblical Sarah listening at the tent of the door while the men discuss her fertility; this comes towards the end of Lightman’s book which has drawn on experiences of fertility, pregnancy and motherhood in Lightman’s own life). In a review of Lightman’s book, I wrote, ‘[i]t is a book about how the stories about our past inevitably influence the potential of our future’19 since they interweave our histories with our perception of ourselves in the present, and onwards. This is the strength of comic book autoethnographies which allude to biblical stories or characters within their story-arc. 17. Sarah Lightman, The Book of Sarah (London: Myriad, 2019). 18. Liana Finck, Passing for Human (New York: Random House, 2018). 19. Zanne Domoney-Lyttle, ‘The Book of Sarah. By Sarah Lightman. Myriad Editions, 2019. 256 pp. $35’, Literature & Belief 40, no. 2 and 41, no. 1 (2020 and 2021): 216–19, here 219.

138

The Bible and Comics

Figure 7.1  ‘Sarah, Sarah, Come out of the shadows’ (p. 231), S. Lightman, The Book of Sarah.

7. Drawing Conclusions

139

Liana Finck takes a similar approach in Passing for Human, where she combines biography with biblical narratives such as Ruth and Boaz (Ruth 2-4) and themes of Paradise Lost in Genesis 3.20 The graphic memoir is a masterclass in weaving broad themes of humanity, divinity, existentialism and meaning with the mundanity and complexity of life. Finck has also recently retold the books of Genesis in Let There Be Light: The Real Story of Her Creation.21 Unfortunately the book was released too late to be part of this study, but it retells Genesis with God as a woman, and with characters like Abraham residents of modern-day New York City. Interestingly, the publishers describe Finck’s latest as ‘proof that old stories can live forever, whether as ancient scripture or as a series of profound and enchanting cartoons’,22 which is the part of the point of this books. Autoethnography, comic books and the Bible are, of course, not the only avenue of study to be considered. In this book I focused on the women of Genesis, but similar studies using the same framework could be applied to different subject matter such as the characterization of God, the creation stories, the flood narrative or even the treatment of ethnicity, sexuality or race in biblical comic books. Or, I could have approached the study from a different perspective, for example, a narratological approach to reading the Bible through comic art, or a literary perspective on word choice in biblical comics. I could also have produced a comparative study between biblical comics and textual Bibles. There were, and are, many other possibilities to studying biblical comic books. As such, this book should be regarded as the beginning of a new conversation about the cultural value of comic book Bibles rather than a complete, extant study of biblical comics. By reading biblical comics using visual criticism instead of through biblical criticisms or literary approaches, I have demonstrated that new interpretations of biblical text emerge, and the ancient text is regenerated for a new audience. This carries with it its own implications and consequences which can be both helpful and contentious, but these new interpretations in biblical comics must be considered as meaningful as other critical readings.

Final Thoughts In the introduction to this book and in the second chapter, I discussed at length Corinne Carvalho’s phraseology around ‘non-controllable vehicles’ of culture acting as means to ‘undercut the monopolisation of culture by the elite and privileged’, especially with regard to biblical interpretation and reception. As a reminder, by ‘non-controllable’ vehicles Carvalho means ‘unofficial’ forms of 20. Liana Finck, Passing for Human: A Graphic Memoir (London: Jonathan Cape, 2018). 21. Liana Finck, Let There Be Light: The Real Story of Her Creation (London: Jonathan Cape, 2022). 22. Penguin Random House, ‘Let There Be Light’, accessed 18 April 2022, https://www​ .penguinrandomhouse​.com​/books​/598242​/let​-there​-be​-light​-by​-liana​-finck/.

140

The Bible and Comics

cultural expression that are not authorized or endorsed by authoritative bodies (such as the Church) and which are produced for non-religious readers (as well as religiously observant readers if they so choose).23 Carvalho suggests that the study of alternative or non-traditional expressions of culture challenges established practices of biblical interpretation, and opens the text up to broader, more rigorous and often more creative interpretations. The four revelations uncovered by the case studies converge into this overarching suggestion by Carvalho that popular-cultural products which remediate the Bible challenge the authoritative idea that the Bible is to be accessed in particular ways, by particular people, for particular purposes. Of course, there are many Christian-religious traditions which will argue against that – and rightfully so – remonstrating that the Bible should be, and can be, accessible to all. Popularcultural products like biblical comic books show how the Bible should be, and can be, accessible to all. Breaking down the barriers which have historically prevented or at least partially blocked access especially to marginalized or oppressed peoples is achieved mostly by those alternative forms of cultures which demonstrate new ways to interact with biblical text. Cultural criticism thus ‘deconstruct[s] the authority that certain evaluations of culture have had in order to bring in voices often silenced by the authorising process’. This is achieved in a myriad of ways, including by ‘faithfully’ adhering to the text by adding interpretation through image (i.e. McNinch, Crumb in the first case study), by simplifying stories while emphasizing emotion and action (such as in the case study on manga Bibles) or by playful juxtaposition of tradition with humour, subversion and even satire (as with Freeman and Rosenzweig, Smith, and the Knockabout writers). All these creators used the Bible as their influence in different ways which mostly do not attack the text in a derogatory or desultory manner but, rather, which challenge the concept of authority related to the text in an attempt to remove the power of exegetes, scholars and religious leaders who have imbued the words of the Bible with meaning which does not necessarily always fit. Additionally, addressing the ways in which biblical comic books enable new interpretive spaces for women to find representation and expression in the pages of the Bible demonstrates the unique position of subcultural products and their subsequent ability to counter or subvert authoritative, oft-exclusionary texts. For some, this last statement may be a stretch. A comic book Bible is not likely to have those same exegetes, scholars or religious leaders questioning their understanding of what is a very complex book; for most, comic books remain in the lower realms of popular culture, an emblem of the throwaway culture that they have represented for some time. Therein lies the point. What is one person’s piece of throwaway culture is another person’s access to a world they otherwise may never be admitted to. Comic books and comic book Bibles are potential gateways to people seeking representation within the pages of the Bible. They are versions of the Bible, not just allusions. Beal suggests of manga Bibles, ‘[i]t is the end of the 23. Carvalho, Primer on Biblical Methods, 72.

7. Drawing Conclusions

141

Word as we know it, and the end of a certain cultural idea of the Scriptures as a book, as the Book. [. . .] It opens up new ways of understanding Scripture and ends up breaking the idols a bit.’24 Note Beal’s language here suggests that manga Bibles – and more widely comic book Bibles – are synonymous with Scripture. At the same time comic book Bibles are also an important part of the reception history of the Bible. They may be considered versions, but they are also contemporaneous products which speak both to the Bible and to the sociopolitical and even economic environment in which they are created. Comic book Bibles are another layer in the history and reception of the Bible which means the creators take the role of author and editor of the comic book Bible they create. The creators become part of the tradition of interpreting and commenting upon biblical text. R. Crumb once suggested that it was the interpretation and exegesis of the oral history of the Bible which is preserved as the text of the Bible: ‘I believe it is the words of men [. . .] its power derived from its having been a collective endeavour that evolved and condensed over many generations’.25 Comic book Bibles are another strand in the long history of understanding, relating to and receiving the Bible. Comic book Bibles, then, are not just cultural products; they should also be considered markers in biblical reception, and they can comfortably occupy the sphere of biblical versions as well. It is important to recognize that the history of biblical interpretation and reception has shaped Western culture profoundly, and ignorance of the Bible leads to ignorance of significant cultural products, from Renaissance art to Victorian novels. Crumb’s work in Genesis, Illustrated alongside all of the other biblical comics studied in the pages of this book, comic book Bibles which currently exist and those which are in the process of being created continue the work of interpretation and reception. Genesis, Illustrated and biblical comics in general are vital to explore the boundary crossings between ancient script and modern popular culture, regenerating what is, after all, a very old text indeed.

24. Banerjee, quoting Beal, ‘The Bible as Graphic Novel’. 25. Crumb, ‘Introduction’, in Genesis, Illustrated.

142

BIBLIOGRAPHY

Aaron, Jason, r. m. Guéra and Giulia Brusco. The Goddamned: Before the Flood. Vol. 1. Portland: Image Comics, 2017. Ackerman, S. ‘Women in Ancient Israel and the Hebrew Bible’. Oxford Research Encyclopaedia of Religion. Accessed 1 August 2020. https://oxfordre​.com​/religion​/view​ /10​.1093​/acrefore​/9780199340378​.001​.0001​/acrefore​-9780199340378​-e​-45. Adelman, Rachel. The Female Ruse: Women’s Deception & Divine Sanction in the Hebrew Bible. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2017. Aitken, James. ‘Fat Eglon’. In Studies on the Texts and Versions of the Hebrew Bible in Honour of Robert Gordon, edited by Geoffrey Khan and Diana Lipton, 141–54. Leiden: Brill, 2011. Alderman, Isaac M. and Christina L. Alderman. ‘Graphically Depicted: Biblical Texts in Comic Form’. ARTS: The Arts in Religious and Theological Studies 22, no. 4 (2011): 22– 36. Accessed 31 July 2019. https://www​.academia​.edu​/1499853​/Graphically​_Depicted​ _Biblical​_texts_ in_comic_form. Alter, Robert. The Art of Biblical Narrative. New York: Basic Books, 1981. Alter, Robert. ‘How Conventions Help Us Read: The Case of the Bible’s Annunciation Type-Scene’. Prooftexts 3, no. 2 (1983): 115–30. Alter, Robert and Frank Kermode, eds. The Literary Guide to the Bible. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1987. Alter, Robert. Genesis: A Translation and Commentary. New York: W. W. Norton, 1997. Alter, Robert. The Five Books of Moses. New York: W. W. Norton, 2004. Anderson, Bradford A. ‘Sacred Texts in a Digital Age: Materiality, Digital Culture, and the Functional Dimensions of Scriptures in Judaism, Christianity and Islam’. In From Scrolls to Scrolling: Sacred Texts, Materiality, and Dynamic Media Cultures, edited by Bradford A. Anderson, 281–302. Boston: de Gruyter, 2020. Apostolos-Cappadonna, Diane. A Guide to Christian Art. London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2020. Arnold, Andrew D. ‘R. Crumb Speaks’. TIME. Accessed 19 June 2019. http://content​.time​ .com​/time​/arts​/article​/0​,8599​,1055105​-1​,00​.html. Auerbach, Erich. Mimesis: The Representation of Reality in Western Literature. Translated by W. R. Trask. Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1953. Bal, Mieke. Loving Yusuf: Conceptual Travels from Present to Past. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 2008. Bal, Mieke. ‘Sneaky Snakes: Seduction, the Biblical Imagination, and Activating Art’. In The Bible and Feminism: Remapping the Field, edited by Yvonne Sherwood with Anna Fisk, 589–607. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017. Banerjee, Neela. ‘The Bible as Graphic Novel, with a Samurai Stranger called Christ’. New York Times. Accessed 24 June 2020. https://www​.nytimes​.com​/2008​/02​/10​/us​/10manga​ .html.

144

Bibliography

Bazin, André. Bazin at Work: Major Essays and Reviews from the Forties and Fifties. Edited by Bert Cardullo, translated by Alain Piette and Bert Cardullo. London: Routledge, 1997. Beal, Timothy. ‘Reception History and Beyond: Toward the Cultural History of Scriptures’. Biblical Interpretation 19 (2011): 357–72. Beal, Timothy. The Rise and Fall of the Bible: The Unexpected History of an Accidental Book. Boston and New York: Houghton Mifflin Harcourt, 2011. Beal, Timothy. ‘Children’s Bibles Hot and Cold’. In Text, Image, and Otherness in Children’s Bibles: What Is In The Picture?, edited by Hugh S. Pyper and Caroline Vander Stichele, 313–19. Atlanta: SBL, 2012. Bekins, Peter. ‘Tamar and Joseph in Genesis 38 and 39’. JSOT 40, no. 4 (2016): 375–87. Bennett, Tony, ed. Outrageous Tales from the Old Testament. London: Knockabout, 1987. Berdini, Paolo. The Religious Art of Jacopo Bassano: Painting as Visual Exegesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1997. Berger, Peter. Redeeming Laughter: The Comic Dimension of Human Experience. Berlin: de Gruyter, 1997. Berlinerblau, Jacques. ‘The Bible as Literature?’ Hebrew Studies 45 (2004): 9–26. Blyth, Caroline. Reimagining Delilah’s Afterlives as Femme Fatale: The Lost Seduction. London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2017. Bœspflug, François. ‘Laughing at God. The Pictorial History of Boundaries Not to be Crossed’. In Humour and Religion: Challenges and Ambiguities, edited by Hans Geybels and Walter Van Herck, 204–17. London: Bloomsbury, 2011. Bolter, J. David and Richard A. Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Braverman, Lois. ‘Jewish Mothers’. Journal of Feminist Family Therapy 2, no. 2 (1990): 9–14. Brenner-Idan, Athalya. The Israelite Woman: Social Role and Literary Type in Biblical Narrative. 2nd edn. London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2015. Brown, Ash. ‘The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition’. Experiments in Manga. Accessed 27 April 2019. http://experimentsinmanga​.mangabookshelf​.com​/2012​/06​/the​-bible​-a​ -japanese​-manga​-rendition/. Browning, Frank. ‘Crumb’s “Genesis,” A Sexy Breasts-and-Knuckles Affair’. Accessed 2 July 2019. http://www​.npr​.org​/templates​/story​/story​.php​?storyId​=113842476. Campbell, Joseph. The Hero with a Thousand Faces. London: Fontana Press, 1993. Carrier, David. ‘Caricature’. In A Comics Studies Reader, edited by Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester, 105–15. Jackson: University of Mississippi Press, 2009. Carvalho, Corrine. Primer on Biblical Methods. Winona: Anselm Academic, 2009. Clanton Jr., Dan W., ed. The End Will Be Graphic: Apocalyptic in Comic Books and Graphic Novels. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012. Cohn, Neil. The Visual Language of Comics: Introduction to the Structure and Cognition of Sequential Images. London: Bloomsbury, 2013. Cohn, Neil. ‘Linguistic Relativity and Conceptual Permeability in Visual Narratives: New Distinctions in the Relationship between Language(s) and Thought’. In The Visual Narrative Reader, edited by Neil Cohn, 315–40. London: Bloomsbury, 2016. Collier, Myles. ‘Sams Club: The Brick Bible Banned After Complaints of Overly-Sexual Lego Men’. Christian Post, 25 November 2011. Accessed 4 June 2022. https://www​ .christianpost​.com​/news​/sams​-club​-the​-brick​-bible​-banned​-after​-complaints​-of​-overly​ -sexual​-lego​-men​.html.

Bibliography

145

Crossley, James G. Harnessing Chaos: The Bible in English Political Discourse since 1968. London: Bloomsbury T&T Clark, 2014. Crumb, Robert and Peter Poplaski. The R. Crumb Handbook. London: MQ Publications, 2005. Crumb, Robert. The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb. London: W. W. Norton, 2009. Cushing Stahlberg, Leslie. ‘Refuse, Realism, Retelling: Literal and Literary Reconstructions of Noah’s Ark’. In Subverting Scriptures: Critical Reflections on the Use of the Bible, edited by Beth Hawkins Benedix, 23–45. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2009. Cuthbertson, Philip and Elaine M. Wainwright, eds. The Bible in/and Popular Culture: A Creative Encounter. Semeia Studies 65. Atlanta: SBL, 2010. Cybulska, Magdalene. ‘Women in 21st Century Pop: Reimagining Biblical Themes’. MTh Diss., University of Glasgow, 2022. Davenport, Christian. ‘Black Is the Colour of My Comic Book Character’. In Drawing the Line: Comics Studies and Inks 1994–1997, edited by Lucy Shelton Caswell and Jared Gardner, 196–209. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2017. David Bolter, J. and Richard A. Grusin. Remediation: Understanding New Media. Cambridge, MA: MIT Press, 1999. Davies, Philip R. ‘Preface: Genesis and the Gendered World’. In The World of Genesis: Persons, Places, Perspectives, edited by Philip R. Davies and David J. A. Clines, 7–15. Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1998. DiLiberti, Julia. ‘Gilded Age Cartoons: Artistic Antecedents and Descendants’. INKS: The Journal of the Comics Studies Society 1, no. 2 (2017): 126–42. Dillenberger, John. Images and Relics: Theological Perceptions and Visual Images in Sixteenth Century Europe. New York: Oxford University Press, 1999. Domoney-Lyttle, Zanne. ‘Drawing (non)Tradition: Matriarchs, Motherhood and the Presentation of Sacred Text in The Book of Genesis, Illustrated by R. Crumb’. PhD Diss., University of Glasgow, 2018. Domoney-Lyttle, Zanne. ‘Abraham in the Hebrew Bible’. In Abraham in Jewish and Early Christian Literature, edited by Sean A. Adams and Zanne Domoney-Lyttle, 9–27. London: T&T Clark, 2019. Domoney-Lyttle, Zanne. ‘Graphic Assault: Reading Sexual Assault and Rape Narratives in Biblical Comics’. The Bible & Critical Theory 15, no. 2 (2019): 49–65. Domoney-Lyttle, Zanne. ‘Manga Bible’. In Encyclopaedia of the Bible and Its Reception. Berlin: De-Gruyter, 2019. Domoney-Lyttle, Zanne. ‘The Book of Sarah. By Sarah Lightman. Myriad Editions, 2019. 256 pp. $35’. Book Review. Literature & Belief 40, no. 2 and 41, no. 1 (2020 & 2021): 216–19. Domoney-Lyttle, Zanne. ‘Wrestling with the Bible: Kingmakers, Crucifixions and Creed in WWE Sports Entertainment’. In Cultural Bibles in Popular Visual Entertainment, edited by Rebekah Welton and Zanne Domoney-Lyttle. London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2023. Duncan, Randy and Matthew J. Smith. The Power of Comics: History, Form & Culture. New York: Continuum, 2009. Dupertuis, Rubén R. ‘Translating the Bible into Pictures’. In Text, Image, and Otherness in Children’s Bibles, edited by Caroline Vander Stichele and Hugh Pyper, 271–89. Leiden: Brill, 2012. Edwards, Katie B. Admen and Eve: The Bible in Contemporary Advertising. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012.

146

Bibliography

Edwards, Katie B., ed. Rethinking Biblical Literacy. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. Edwards, Katie B. ‘Black Madonna: Beyoncé Projects Positive Image of “Good” Motherhood’. The Conversation. Accessed 20 May 2020. https://theconversation​.com​/ black​-madonna​-beyonce​-projects​-positive​-image​-of​-good​-motherhood​-81105. Eisner, Will. Graphic Storytelling and the Visual Narrative. Florida: Poorhouse Press, 1996. Eisner, Will. Comics and Sequential Art: Principles and Practices from the Legendary Cartoonist. New York: W. W. Norton, 2008. England, Emma and William John Lyons, eds. Reception History and Biblical Studies: Theory and Practice. London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2015. England, Emma. The Biblical Flood Story as Retold for Children: The Dove, the Rainbow and the Unicorn. London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2017. Exum, J. Cheryl. ‘Who’s Afraid of the Endangered Ancestress’. In Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader, edited by Alice Bach, 141–58. New York: Routledge, 1999. Exum, J. Cheryl and Ela Nutu, eds. Between the Text and the Canvas: The Bible and Art in Dialogue. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007. Exum, J. Cheryl and David J. A. Clines, eds. Biblical Reception 1. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012. Exum, J. Cheryl and David J. A. Clines, eds. Biblical Reception 2. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2013. Exum, J. Cheryl and David J. A. Clines, eds. Biblical Reception 3. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2014. Exum, J. Cheryl. Fragmented Women: Feminist (Sub)versions of Biblical Narratives. 2nd edn. London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2016. Exum, J. Cheryl, David J. A. Clines and Diane Apostolos-Cappadonna, eds. Biblical Reception 5: Biblical Women and the Arts. London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2018. Exum, J. Cheryl. Art as Biblical Commentary: Visual Criticism from Hagar the Wife of Abraham to Mary the Mother of Jesus. London: Bloomsbury, 2019. Feltmate, David. ‘It’s Funny Because It’s True? “The Simpsons”, Satire, and the Significance of religious Humour in Popular Culture’. Journal of the American Academy of Religion 81, no. 1 (2013): 222–48. Ferguson, George. Signs & Symbols in Christian Art. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1961. Fewell, Danna Nolan. ‘Changing the Subject: Retelling the Story of Hagar the Egyptian’. In Genesis: A Feminist Companion to the Bible, edited by Athalya Brenner, 182–94. Sheffield: Sheffield University Press, 1998. Finck, Liana. Passing for Human: A Graphic Memoir. London: Jonathan Cape, 2018. Finck, Liana. Let There Be Light: The Real Story of Her Creation. London: Jonathan Cape, 2022. Fischer, Irmtraud. ‘On the Significance of the “Women Texts” in the Ancestral Narratives’. In The Bible and Women: An Encyclopaedia of Exegesis and Cultural History – Torah, edited by Irmtraud Fischer, Mercedes Navarro Puerto and Andrea Taschl-Erber, 251–94. Atlanta: SBL, 2011. Flood, Michael. ‘Pro-feminist Men and Pro-feminist Men’s Politics’. Accessed 14 April 2019. http://xyonline​.net​/content​/frequently​-asked​-questions​-about​-pro​-feminist​-men​ -and​-pro​-feminist​-mens​-politics. Freeman, Aaron and Sharon Rosenzweig. The Comic Torah: Reimagining the Very Good Book. Teaneck: Ben Yehuda Press, 2010. Friedman, Rebecca Honig. ‘In the “Comic Torah”, God Looks a Lot Like Sharon Rosenzweig’. The Sisterhood. Accessed 21 August 2019. https://forward​.com​/sisterhood​ /113192​/in​-the​-comic​-torah​-god​-looks​-a​-lot​-like​-sharon​-ros/.

Bibliography

147

Frymer-Kensky, Tikva. Reading the Women of the Bible: A New Interpretation of their Stories. New York: Schocken, 2002. Fuchs, Esther. ‘Literary Characterization of Mothers and Sexual Politics in the Hebrew Bible’. In Women in the Hebrew Bible: A Reader, edited by Alice Bach, 127–40. London: Routledge, 1999. Gafney, Wilda. Womanist Midrash: A Reintroduction to the Women of the Torah and the Throne. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2017. Gaiman, Neil and Terry Pratchett. Good Omens. London: Penguin Random House, 2014. Goldman, Shalom. The Wiles of Women/The Wiles of Men: Joseph and Potiphar’s Wife in Ancient Near Eastern, Jewish, and Islamic Folklore. Albany: State University of New York Press, 1995. Gossai, Hemchand. Power and Marginality in the Abraham Narrative. 2nd edn. Eugene: Pickwick, 2010. Greenough, Christopher. ‘Activism in the Queer Biblical Studies Classroom’. JIBS 2, no. 1 (2020): 107–26. Greenough, Christopher. ‘Ambiguities, Authenticity and Actualisation: Life Story Research with a Bisexual Christian’. In Bisexuality, Religion and Spirituality: Critical Perspectives, edited by A. Toft and A. Kam-Tuck Yip, 102–19. London: Routledge, 2020. Greenough, Christopher. ‘Queer Eye in Theology and Biblical Studies: “Do you have to be queer to do this?”’ JIBS 1, no. 1 (2020): 26–41. Groensteen, Thierry. The System of Comics. Translated by Bart Beaty and Nick Nguyen. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2007. Gross, Peter and Mark Millar. American Jesus Volume One: Chosen. Berkeley: Image Comics, 2009. Groth, Gary. ‘Robert Crumb – Live Online: The Interview That Didn’t Happen’. The Comics Journal. Accessed 28 June 2019. http://www​.tcj​.com​/crumb​-and​-groth​-live​ -online/. Gunkel, Hermann. The Stories of Genesis. Oakland: BIBal Press, 1994. Gunn, David M. ‘Cultural Criticism: Viewing the Sacrifice of Jephthah’s Daughter’. In Judges and Method: New Approaches in Biblical Studies, 2nd edn, edited by Gale A. Yee, 202–36. Minneapolis: Augsburg Fortress Press, 2007. Gutmann, Joseph. ‘The Dura Europos Synagogue Paintings and Their Influence on Later Christian and Jewish Art’. Artibus et Historiae 9, no. 17 (1988): 25–9. Hatfield, Charles. ‘An Art of Tensions’. In A Comic Studies Reader, edited by Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester, 132–47. Mississippi: University of Mississippi Press, 2009. Henderson-Merrygold, Jo. ‘Gender Diversity in the Ancestral Narratives: Encountering Sarah & Esau through a Hermeneutics of Cispicion’. PhD Thesis, University of Sheffield, 2022. Hignite, Todd. In The Studio: Visits with Contemporary Cartoonists. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2006. Hine, Iona. ‘The Quest for Biblical Literacy: Curricula, Culture and Case Studies’. In Rethinking Biblical Literacy, edited by Katie Edwards, 47–67. London: Bloomsbury, 2015. Hollis, Susan Tower. ‘The Woman in Ancient Examples of the Potiphar’s Wife Motif K2111’. In Gender and Difference in Ancient Israel, edited by Peggy L. Day, 28–42. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 2006. Hoth, Iva. The Picture Bible. Colorado Springs, IL: David C. Cook, 1978. Høyrup, Helen. ‘Towards a Connective Ethnography of Children’s Literature’. In More Words about Pictures: Current Research on Picture Books and Visual Verbal Texts for

148

Bibliography

Young People, edited by Naomi Hamer, Perry Nodelman and Mavis Reimer, 81–99. London: Routledge, 2017. Humphreys, W. Lee. Joseph and His Family: A Literary Study. Colombia: University of South Carolina Press, 1988. Hutchings, Tim. ‘E-Reading and the Christian Bible’. Studies in Religion 44 (2015): 423–40. J. Alan Groves Center for Advanced Biblical Research. ‘Unicode/XML Leningrad Codex [UXLC 1.0] Tanach’. Accessed 23 May 2020. https://tanach​.us​/Tanach​.xml. Jasper, David and Stephen Prickett, eds. The Bible and Literature: A Reader. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing, 1999. Jeansonne, Sharon Pace. The Women of Genesis: From Sarah to Potiphar’s Wife. Minneapolis: Fortress Press, 1990. Jemielity, Thomas. ‘Ancient Biblical Satire’. In A Companion to Satire: Ancient and Modern, edited by Ruben Quintero, 15–30. Williston: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. Jolly, Don. ‘Interpretive Treatments of Genesis in Comics: R. Crumb & Dave Sim’. Journal of Religion and Popular Culture 25, no. 3 (2013): 333–43. Junior, Nyasha. Reimagining Hagar: Blackness and the Bible. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2019. Kacsuk, Zoltan. ‘Re-Examining the “What Is Manga” Problematic: The Tension and Interrelationship between the “Style” versus “Made in Japan” Positions’. Arts 7, no. 26 (2018): 1–18. Klausen, Jytte. The Cartoons that Shook the World. New Haven: Yale University Press, 2009. Kramer, Phyllis Silverman. ‘Biblical Women that Come in Pairs: The Use of Female Pairs as a Literary Device in the Hebrew Bible’. In Genesis: A Feminist Companion to the Bible, edited by Athalya Brenner, 218–32. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. Kumai, Hidenori and Kozumi Shinozawa. Manga Bible (series). Tokyo: Japan Bible Society, 2006–2011. Kunzle, David. The Early Comic Strip: Narrative Strips and Picture Stories in the European Broadhseet from c.1450–1825 [History of the Comic Strip – Vol. 1]. Berkeley: University of California Press, 1973. La Cour, Erin. ‘Comics as Minor Literature’. Image [&] Narrative 17, no. 4 (2016). Accessed 4 May 2020. http://www​.imageandnarrative​.be​/index​.php​/imagenarrative​/ article​/view​/1336. Lamb, Christopher. ‘Drawing the Line: An Absolute Defence for Political Cartoons’. In Drawing the Line: Comics Studies and Inks 1994–1997, edited by Lucy Shelton and Jared Gardner, page range. Columbus: Ohio State University Press, 2017. Langsdale, Samantha and Elizabeth Rae Coody. Monstrous Women in Comics. Jackson: University Press of Mississippi, 2020. Laycock, Emily. ‘Graphic Apocalypse and the Wizard of Grotesque: Basil Wolverton, the Worldwide Church of God and Prophecy’. In The End Will Be Graphic: Apocalyptic in Comic Books and Graphic Novels, edited by Dan W. Clanton, Jr. 20–34. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012. Levenson, Alan T. Joseph: Portraits through the Ages. Philadelphia: Jewish Publication Society, 2016. Lewis, A. David. ‘The Secret Untold Relationship between Biblical Midrash and Comic Book Retcon’. International Journal of Comic Art 4 (2002): 261–75. Lewis, A. David and Christine Hoff Kraemer, eds. Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels. New York: Continuum, 2010. Lewis, A. David. ‘(Ir)reverence after Rapture: Mocking and Maintaining Christian Doctrine in Battle Pope, Chronicles of Wormwood and Therefore, Repent!’ In The End

Bibliography

149

Will be Graphic: Apocalyptic in Comic Books and Graphic Novels, edited by A. David Lewis and Christine Hoff Kraemer, 44–58. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2012. Maddox, Mike and Jeff Anderson. The Lion Graphic Bible: The Whole Story from Genesis to Revelation. Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2004. Mann, Joshua L. ‘Paratexts and the Hermeneutics of Digital Bibles’. In From Scrolls to Scrolling: Sacred Texts, Materiality, and Dynamic Media Cultures, edited by Bradford A. Anderson, 247–61. Boston: de Gruyter, 2020. Mauss, Doug and Sergio Cariello. The Action Bible: God’s Redemptive Story. Colorado Springs: David C. Cook, 2010. McAlpin, Gordon. ‘A Comics Panel: Chris Ware, Seth and Ivan Brunetti’. Webcomic Stripped Books. Accessed 6 March 2018. http://www​.strippedbooks​.com​/comics​/ stripped07​/comics​-00​.html. McCloud, Scott. Understanding Comics: The Invisible Art. New York: HarperPerennial, 1993. McKay, Heather. ‘Confronting Redundancy as Middle Manager and Wife: The Feisty Woman of Genesis 39 [1]’. Semeia 87 (1999): 215–31. McKinlay, Judith. ‘Potiphar’s Wife in Conversation’. Feminist Theology 10 (1995): 69–80. McNinch, Timothy C. Illustrated Genesis in Hebrew. Wilmore: Glossahouse, 2018. Mercier, Jean-Pierre. ‘Revelations to Angoulême 2020: Robert Crumb on Genesis’. Accessed 21 June 2019. http://www​.paulgravett​.com​/articles​/article​/revelations​_at​ _angouleme​_2010. Mickwitz, Nina, Ian Horton and Ian Hague, eds. Representing Acts of Violence in Comic Books. London: Routledge, 2020. Miers, John. ‘Picturing National and Personal Acts of Violence: Modes of Depiction in Barefoot Gen’. In Representing Acts of Violence in Comics, edited by Nina Mickwitz, Ian Horton and Ian Hague, 19–34. London: Routledge, 2020. Miller, Ann. Reading Bande Dessinée: Critical Approaches to French-language Comic Strip. Chicago: Intellect Books, 2007. Mitchell, William J. T. Iconology: Image, Text, Ideology. Chicago: Chicago University Press, 1986. Mitchell, William J. T. Picture Theory: Essays on Verbal and Visual Representations. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1994. Morse, Holly. Encountering Eve’s Afterlives: A New Reception Critical Approach to Genesis 2–4. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2020. Moss, Candida and Jeremy Schipper, eds. Disability Studies and Biblical Literature. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2011. Musa, Aysha W. ‘Jael Is Non-binary; Jael Is Not a Woman’. JIBS 1, no. 2 (2020): 97–120. Nakazawa, Jun. ‘Manga Literacy and Manga Comprehension in Japanese Children’. In The Visual Narrative Reader, edited by Neil Cohn, 157–84. London: Bloomsbury, 2016. Nelson, Marcia Z. ‘Comedian and Artist Produce “A Love Story with Blood”: The Comic Torah’. Publisher’s Weekly. Accessed 24 August 2019. https://www​.publishersweekly​ .com​/pw​/by​-topic​/industry​-news​/religion​/article​/45298​-comedian​-and​-artist​-produce​ -a​-love​-story​-with​-blood​-the​-comic​-torah​.html. New Standard Revised Version (NRSV) Bible. New York Times. ‘New York Time Bestsellers: Hardcovers in Graphic Novels’. Accessed 10 July 2019, http://www​.nytimes​.com​/best​-sellers​-books​/2010​-02​-21​/hardcover​ -graphic​-books​/list​.html.

150

Bibliography

Nicholson, Sarah. ‘Buffy the Philistine Slayer: Echoes of Samson in the Buffyverse’. In Cultural Bibles in Popular Visual Entertainment, edited by Rebekah Welton and Zanne Domoney-Lyttle. London: Bloomsbury, forthcoming 2023. Norton, David. A History of the English Bible as Literature vol. 1: From Antiquity to 1700. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Norton, David. A History of the English Bible as Literature vol. 2: From 1700 to the Present Day. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1993. Norton, W. W. ‘The Book of Genesis Illustrated by R. Crumb’. Accessed 4 August 2019. http://books​.wwnorton​.com​/books​/The​-Book​-of​-Genesis​-Illustrated​-by​-R​-Crumb/. NPR. ‘Genesis: R. Crumb illustrates the Bible’. Accessed 3 November 2019. http://www​.npr​ .org​/2009​/11​/02​/120022241​/genesis​-r​-crumb​-illustrates​-the​-bible. O’Kane, Martin. Painting the Text: The Artist as Biblical Interpreter. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007. One Peace Books. Accessed 27 April 2019. https://onepeacebooks​.com Oxford English Dictionary. ‘Retcon’. Accessed 7 April 2017. https://en​.oxforddictionaries​ .com​/definition​/retcon. Pavlovskis-Petit, Zoja. ‘Irony and Satire’. In A Companion to Satire: Ancient and Modern, edited by Ruben Quintero, 510–24. Williston: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. Pearl, Michael, Ben Avery, Art Ayris and Danny Bulanadi. The Kingstone Bible. Vol. 1. Fruitland Park: Kingstone Media, 2011. Peeters, Benoit. Case, planche, récit: lire la bande dessinée. Translated by Jesse Cohn. Paris: Casterman, 1998. Penguin Random House. ‘Let There Be Light’. Accessed 18 April 2022. https://www​ .penguinrandomhouse​.com​/books​/598242​/let​-there​-be​-light​-by​-liana​-finck/. Petersen, Robert S. ‘The Acoustics of Manga’. In A Comics Studies Reader, edited by Jeet Heer and Kent Worcester, 163–71. Jackson: University Press Mississippi, 2009. Pillario, Simon Amadeus. ‘The Word for Word Bible Comic’. Accessed 4 February 2020. http://www​.wor​dfor​word​bibl​ecomic​.com. ‘Public Conversation: Joe Sacco and W. J. T. Mitchell’. In Critical Inquiry: Comics and Media, edited by Hillary Chute and Patrick Jagoda, 53–70. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press, 2014. Quesada, Jan Jaynes. ‘Rebekah: Model Matriarch’. Review & Expositor 115, no. 4 (2018): 559–64. Ravits, Martha A. ‘The Jewish Mother: Comedy and Controversy in American Popular Culture’. Jewish American Literature 25, no. 1 (2000): 3–31. Robbins, Vernon, K. Walter, S. Melion and Roy R. Jeal. The Art of Visual Exegesis: Rhetoric, Texts, Images. Atlanta: SBL, 2017. Ross, Samuel. ‘A Transgender Gaze at Genesis 38’. JIBS 1, no. 2 (2020): 25–39. Rulon-Miller, Nina. ‘Hagar: A Woman with an Attitude’. In The World of Genesis: Persons, Places, Perspectives, edited by Philip R. Davies and David J. A. Clines, 60–89. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. Rushkoff, Douglas. ‘Foreword: Looking for God in the Gutter’. In Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels, edited by A. David Lewis and Christine Hoff Kraemer, ix–xii. New York: Continuum, 2010. Sacred and Sequential: @ the intersection of comics and religion. Accessed 1 August 2019. http://www​.sacredandsequential​.org/. Saraceni, Mario. The Language of Comics. London: Routledge, 2003. Sarna, Nahum M. Understanding Genesis: Heritage of Biblical Israel. Stuttgart: Schocken Books, 1966.

Bibliography

151

Sarna, Nahum M., ed. The JPS Torah Commentary: Genesis. Philadelphia: The Jewish Publication Society, 1994. Sawyer, Deborah. ‘A New Discipline in Biblical Studies or Feminism in Disguise?’ In A Question of Sex? Gender and Difference in the Hebrew Bible and Beyond, edited by Deborah W. Rooke, 2–17. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2007. Scholz, Susanne. Introducing the Women’s Hebrew Bible: Feminism, Gender Justice and the Study of the Old Testament. London: T&T Clark/Bloomsbury, 2017. Scully, Richard and Andrekos Varnava. ‘Introduction: The Importance of Cartoons, Caricature and Satirical Art in Imperial Contexts’. In Comic Empires: Imperialism in Cartoons, Caricatures and Satirical Art, edited by Richard Scully and Andrekos Varnava, 1–30. Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2020. Siku. The Manga Bible: Frome Genesis to Revelation. London: Hodder & Stoughton, 2007. Simkins, Ronald. ‘Gender Construction in the Yahwist Creation Myth’. In A Feminist Companion to the Bible: Genesis, edited by Athalya Brenner, 32–52. Sheffield: Sheffield Academic Press, 1998. Smith, Brendan Powell. The Brick Bible: A New Spin on the Old Testament. New York: Skyhorse Publishing, 2011. Smith, Brendan Powell. ‘The Brick Bible’. Accessed 26 June 2019. http://thebrickbible​.com. Spiegelman, Art. ‘Drawing Blood: Outrageous Cartoons and the Art of Outrage’. Harpers Magazine, June 2006. Spitznagel, Eric. ‘Robert Crumb Thinks God Might Actually Be Crazy’. Accessed 20 June 2019. http://www​.ericspitznagel​.com​/awkward​-question​-time​/robert​-crumb/. St. John Stott, Gary. ‘Gold Plates, Inked Pages: The Authority of the Graphic Novel’. In Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels, edited by A. David Lewis and Christine Hoff Kraemer, 78–92. New York: Continuum, 2010. Stichele, Caroline Vander and Hugh Pyper, eds. Text, Image, and Otherness in Children’s Bibles: What is in the Picture? Atlanta: SBL, 2012. Stone, Sara. ‘“Those Who Plough Iniquity and Sow Trouble Reap the Same”: An Exploration Into Blame-Shifting Culture in the Hebrew Bible’. In Women and Gender in the Bible: Texts, Intersections, Intertexts, edited by Z. Domoney-Lyttle and S. Nicholson, 204–21. Sheffield: Sheffield Phoenix Press, 2021. Straczynski, J. Michael. The Amazing Spider-man: Revelations. New York: Marvel, 2001. Suarez, Michael F. ‘Mock-Biblical Satire from Medieval to Modern’. In A Companion to Satire: Ancient and Modern, edited by Ruben Quintero, 526–49. Williston: John Wiley & Sons, 2006. Tabachnick, Stephen E. The Quest for Jewish Belief and Identity in the Graphic Novel. Tuscaloosa: University of Alabama Press, 2014. Teubal, Savina J. Sarah the Priestess: The First Matriarch of Genesis. Ohio: Swallow Press, 1984. Teubal, Savina J. Ancient Sisterhood: The Lost Traditions of Hagar & Sarah. Ohio: Swallow Press, 1997. One Peace Books. The Bible: A Japanese Manga Rendition, New York: One Peace Books, 2012. Thomas, Richard, Jeff Anderson and Siku. The Lion Comic Book Hero Bible. Oxford: Lion Hudson, 2015. Tollerton, David, ed. Biblical Reception 4: A New Hollywood Moses: On the Spectacle and Reception of Exodus: Gods and Kings. London: Bloomsbury/T&T Clark, 2016.

152

Bibliography

Trible, Phyllis. Texts of Terror: Literary-Feminist Readings of Biblical Narratives. Philadelphia: Fortress Press, 1984. Trible, Phyllis. ‘Genesis 22: The Sacrifice of Sarah’. In Women in the Hebrew Bible, edited by Alice Bach, 271–92. New York: Routledge, 1999. University of Florida. ‘Comix-Scholars Discussion List’. Accessed 7 February 2016. http:// www​.english​.ufl​.edu​/comics​/scholars/. Wagner, Peter. Reading Iconotexts: From Swift to the French Revolution. London: Reacktion Books, 1995. Wagner, Rachel. ‘The Play Is the Thing: Interactivity from Bible Fights to Passions of the Christ’. In Halos and Avatars: Playing Video Games with God, edited by Craig Detweiler, 47–62. Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 2010. Waid, Mark and Alex Ross. Kingdom Come. Burbank: DC Comics, 1996. Welton, Rebekah. ‘Isaac Rebounds: A Video Game Retelling of the Aqedah’. JSOT 44, no. 3 (2020): 293–314. White, Hugh C. Narration and Discourse in the Book of Genesis. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991. Widmer, Ted. ‘R. Crumb, the Art of Comics No. 1’. The Paris Review. Accessed 21 June 2019. http://www​.theparisreview​.org​/interviews​/6017​/the​-art​-of​-comics​-no​-1​-r​ -crumb. Wildavsky, Aaron. ‘Survival Must Not Be Gained through Sin: The Moral of the Joseph Stories Prefigured through Judah and Tamar’. JSOT 62 (1994): 37–48. Williams, Raymond. Keywords: A Vocabulary of Culture and Society. Revised edition. New York: Oxford University Press, 1983. Winshluss. In God We Trust. London: Knockabout, 2014. Wolverton, Basil. The Wolverton Bible: The Old Testament & Book of Revelation through the Pen of Basil Wolverton, compiled by Monte Wolverton. Washington: Fantagraphic Books, 2010. Wray, T. J. Good Girls, Bad Girls: The Enduring Lessons of Twelve Women of the Old Testament. New York: Rowman & Littlefield, 2008. Žižek, Slavoj. Violence: Six Sideways Reflections. London: Profile Books, 2008.

INDEX OF REFERENCES OLD TESTAMENT/ HEBREW BIBLE Genesis 1 35 1-3 120 1:1 35 1:1-2 27 1:26 108 2:8-9 27 3 6, 30, 31, 36, 112, 116, 117, 118, 119, 120, 121, 122 n.35, 126, 127, 128, 139 3:1-7 120 5:1-32 39 7:8-9 108 8:18-19 27 11:29-30 48 12 94 12-50 89 12:2 42 12:7 42 12:15 59 13:15-16 42 15 43, 44, 94 15:1-5 44 n.45 15:1-6 42 15:4-5 44 15:12 44 15:18 42 15:18-21 44 16 36 n.4, 42, 43, 44, 48, 50, 57 111, 132 16:1 36 16:1-2 57, 61 16:1-3 42 16:1-6 4, 37, 42, 43, 44, 52, 53, 57, 61, 63 16:2 50, 52, 60

16:3 47, 52, 53, 59, 61 16:4 46, 50, 51, 51 n.62, 52, 60 16:4-6 60 16:5 52, 53, 61 16:5-6 60 16:6 51 n.63 16:4-6 42 16:7-19 42 16:11 51 16:11-16 42 16:13 51 16:14 51 17 94 18 94 18:1-15 133 18:1-22:24 95 19 119 19:1 27 21 103 21:20-21 53 22 95, 103, 135 22:1-19 95 22:7 95 22:20-24 96 22:23 95, 104 23 104 23:1-25:18 96 24 104 25:1-6 104, 105 25:8-25 104 25:19 97 25:21 89 25:21-22 110 25:22 97, 100 25:21-26 5, 92, 94, 132 25:22 89 25:23 89, 100 n.40 25:27-28:5 101 26 103 27 111 28:12 27

30 37-50 37:1-36 37:36 38

103 72 77 70 67, 70, 70 n.33, 72, 76, 79 39 70 n.33, 77, 79, 80, 82, 85, 86, 87, 88, 111, 132 39:1-6 72 39:1-20 5, 67, 86 39:1-23 70 39:1-41:40 77 39:8-9 73 39:10 84 39:12 73, 85 39:13-19 75 39:16-18 85 39:17 86 39:20 86 40:20 59 Deuteronomy 31:19 94 Judges 16 8:26

119 59

Ruth 1-2 139 1 Samuel 28:7 36 DEUTEROCANONICAL BOOKS 1 Maccabees 10:20 59 11:58 59

154

 155

156

 157

158