Some comics choose to revolve themselves around religion. Here is a list of some of the best ones that you could purchase. These comics are excellently written, beautifully illustrated, and they are incredibly interested. Many are even outright educational
Behold, the graphic novel – first as a serialized comic in Raw magazine, then a two-part collection – that finally earned the medium the respect it deserved. Winner of a Pulitzer Prize, Maus stands next to Eli Weisel’s Night and Stephen Spielberg’s Schindler’s List as an artful account of the Jewish Holocaust, as well as the guilt and conflict felt by subsequent generations.
The autobiography of French cartoonist Marjane Satrapi has become an international sensation and a celebrated 2007 animated film adaptation. From her childhood in pre-revolution Iran to her life as an expatriate, Satrapi’s story of otherness beautifully represents a modern Muslim experience while connecting to a universal search for identity.
The comic book industry’s top honors are called the Eisner Awards after the man himself, Will Eisner, legendary creator of The Spirit and, arguably, the father of the graphic novel. In this, one of his earliest collections of downtrodden Dropsie Avenue, Eisner examines a pious Jew’s anguish over the loss of a child and perceived betrayal by God.
The healthy Christian remedy to Chick Tracts. While there are any number of evangelical Christian comic book companies, Kingstone excels where many others fail, delivering high-quality art and well-paced storytelling in works like The Remaining, Eternity, and The Book of God without either muddling, hiding, or offending with their message.
This ragnarok-like showdown of DC Comics’s superheroes in the not-too-distant future grounded itself on a Book of Revelation subtext while treating long-suffering characters like Superman and Batman with respect and nuance. Beautiful painted art by Alex Ross (the son of a preacher!) and pluralistic insight from writer Mark Waid resulted in a new classic.
Craig Thompson delivers his award-winning, heartfelt, and unflinching testimony about growing up in and breaking free of a fundamentalist Christian community as a young man coming to terms with his libido and his faith. Blankets is as much as story about the nostalgia of one’s first true love as it is a critique of the religion of his childhood.
All of Neil Gaiman’s epic Sandman volumes merit examination and appreciation, but this particular one, collecting issues #21-#28 of his original 75-issue run, is chock-full of pantheon goodness. When the keys to Hell fall into the hands of Lord Morpheus (aka Dream, the Sandman), every manner of god comes petitioning for possession of the hellscape: the Norse gods, Egyptian divinities, figures from Japanese lore, etc. Their characterizations, interactions, and reactions to Morpheus’s ultimate decision for Hell are delectable.
Alan Moore is not only the lauded comic book writer of Watchmen, V for Vendetta, and From Hell — he is also a real-life practicing magician and occultist. His mastery of the Western Mystery tradition and Contemporary Neopaganism is on full display in Promethea, an immersive primer on his blend of esotericism disguised as a superhero adventure. Follow college student Sophie Bangs as she discovers not only the power of Promethea’s myth, but also ascends sephira by sephira up the kabbalistic tree of life!
When Virgin Comics restructured and rebranded as Liquid Comics, one of the casualties of the transformation was Deepak Chopra’s India Authentic, the U.S. and U.K. markets’ answer to India’s long-running Amar Chitra Katha series. The title richly detailed the lore of the major Hindu gods for 16 issues, from 2007-2008.
Writer Grant Morrison is perhaps best known for his mind-blowing superhero epics, plunging spandex heroes into metaphysical, high-philosophical perils. Yet, as with his monumental The Invisible series, Morrison also shines in bringing audiences into what may be unfamiliar theological and cultural territory; in Vimanarama, he balances the humdrum life and love of a middle-class Pakistani-British teen with Hindu lore, Islamic philosophy, and the bombast of a Bollywood musical.
Jim Munroe and Salgood Sam’s independent graphic novel may begin like a Left Behind copycat, but that’s only to lure the reader in to a Rapture that’s not all that it seems. Before HBO had The Leftovers, Munroe and Sam built a world where faith functioned in unexpected ways: angels might be aliens and damned survivors may have the supernatural power to take back the anti-apocalypse in America.
Osamu Tezuka’s ten-year project of what would become the eight-volume manga Buddha recounts, admittedly in Tezuka’s highly stylized art and sometimes-juvenile tone, the entirety of Siddhartha Gautama’s life. Though not a strict nor necessarily pious depiction of Buddha, the immense project does showcase religious matter as a wellspring of creativity and inspiration for comics creators.
Mainstream superhero comics usually shy away from religion or explicit matters of faith. Not so with Ms. Marvel, the ongoing series from Marvel Comics by G. Willow Wilson and Adrian Alphona. Featuring the teenage, female, Pakistani-American, Muslim superhero-fangirl Kamala Khan as its protagonist, a slice-of-life as a U.S. Muslim can be placed alongside adventure, irreverence, and issues of identity in a fantastical, superpowered setting.
With all six issues of Sean Murphy’s 2012 series Punk Rock Jesus collected as a stand-alone trade paperback, readers can experience its Rorschach Test-like nature all in one sitting. DNA is extracted from the shroud of Turin to produce, so they claim, the perfect clone of Jesus growing up and inspiring millions on TV through the corporately sponsored reality show J2. However, when the boy rebels in anti-authoritarian, punk rock style, is he destroying the image of Christ or exemplifying it?