Stories Of Who We Are and Admire
Nov. 6th, 2009 11:13 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
eumeliaComic books came to me at a time in which I was searching for belief.
Between the ages of 13 to 15 I was going through a Wiccan/Pagan phase, sad but true, I lived the stereotype. I even have a paper diary in which I wrote down my teenage angst and rage at not being able to be polytheist, not realising I didn't actually believe in any god - because the gods are stories to me.
Mythology, the stories of why we are, who we are; that was what attracted me to the Bible stories, the cosmology of Life after Death in ancient Egypt and incestuous love affairs of ancient Greece.
I can't remember what motivated me to explore religions outside Judaism (I loved the myths before I understood that god was supposed to be more than just a character in a book), possibly because I found and still find, going to shul incredibly boring.
The liturgy can be lovely, but I can't stand the thought of being there just because of (cue the Fiddler) Tradition.
At around that time I was reading Terry Pratchett and found that the philosophy he espouses in Pyramids and Small Gods sat very well with me and my apathetic-yet-literary pursuits.
I also found Good Omens and wasn't that a delight for me, receiving validation in my dislike of religion and being critical of belief at the time1.
I had no clue who Neil Gaiman was.
I found out.
Enter the Sandman.
It took me four years to collect all ten volumes, as a teen my funds were lacking, of course, so I begged for early birthday presents, loaned money from my brother, just to get my hands on the next Sandman books.
When I realised that Sandman operated in the same world (though a different plain) as DC comics - I began to read Batman again.
Batman, whose villains are so much like himself... he even "dates" them - costume fetish? You bet!
I can now see, looking back and thinking critically upon that very apathetic time of my life, that my need for religion, the search for something bigger than myself - was the search for stories that were bigger than my life... and there ain't nothing bigger than the Endless, the Justice League, the X-Men, V and even the all too fallible Watchmen - post-humanism... oh yes. Now that's transcendent.
I remember reading Season of Mists at 18 and feeling as though my ideas regarding all the gods, faith and world order, laid out in front of me... in vivid colour2.
I read "Concerning Mammoths, and Falling Walls" again (the third chapter in Brief Lives) not long after the second Lebanon War and the line Death (our friend, our constant companion in Life) says to the very long-lived man who asks "...I did okay, didn't I?" concerning how long he lived, she says:
"You got a lifetime. No more. No less."
That sentence has been resonating in me for the past three years. It comforts me when I think of my mortality, because we live as long as we do.
And that's it.
Having recently read Gaiman's rendition on the "death of Batman" in Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" that line echoed in my mind.
It echoes all the time.
Though slash fiction were my main source of understanding "alternative" sexuality and the fact that I, myself, was not straight, comics empowered me in being outwardly weird - I like the colours... in comics even black is bright.
The dynamics of gender in comics are far more complex that what people think - sure, it's busty women in skin tight (or barely there) costumes and it's muscled men in skin tight (there are bulges) costumes.
You can learn so much about what is idealised and why by reading these people who still hark from that time of pulp-fiction and illicit magazines.
I'm writing this whole spiel because Blognewsarama (my main comic oriented news site) plugged this website:
The A-Z LGBT Comic Book Character Superlist, which is freakin' awesome! This website Queersupe appears to be that much more extensive, in-depth and analytical.
Works for me! Go and explore.
And just to keep with the theme of this somewhat sombre entry; comic books (along with my search for faith through religion) enabled me to doubt, ask questions about the veracity of the stories we tell ourselves (all are real of course) and the ideals upon which they are supported... helped me learn about myself and the stories that make my world the way it is.
Footnotes
(1) I'd just like y'all to know that it took me a long time to come to the conclusion that agnosto-atheism was the best place for me, I really wanted to have some kind of faith that was bigger than me. But my identification with being Jewish is too strong, though historical, cultural and ethnic - religion is a composite in that, and despite being a complete heretic... I cannot remove it from me entirely.
Back to text.
(2)For a long time Bast and Anubis were my closest companions in my dreams and I even bought two little figurines of them... they sit along with the other statuettes in my room, that I collected over the years. I once used them in a ceremony with a bunch of friends - I was still trying to be of belief, faith and religion, but inwardly I was already gone. A hypocritical portion of my life, without a doubt.
Back to text.
Between the ages of 13 to 15 I was going through a Wiccan/Pagan phase, sad but true, I lived the stereotype. I even have a paper diary in which I wrote down my teenage angst and rage at not being able to be polytheist, not realising I didn't actually believe in any god - because the gods are stories to me.
Mythology, the stories of why we are, who we are; that was what attracted me to the Bible stories, the cosmology of Life after Death in ancient Egypt and incestuous love affairs of ancient Greece.
I can't remember what motivated me to explore religions outside Judaism (I loved the myths before I understood that god was supposed to be more than just a character in a book), possibly because I found and still find, going to shul incredibly boring.
The liturgy can be lovely, but I can't stand the thought of being there just because of (cue the Fiddler) Tradition.
At around that time I was reading Terry Pratchett and found that the philosophy he espouses in Pyramids and Small Gods sat very well with me and my apathetic-yet-literary pursuits.
I also found Good Omens and wasn't that a delight for me, receiving validation in my dislike of religion and being critical of belief at the time1.
I had no clue who Neil Gaiman was.
I found out.
Enter the Sandman.
It took me four years to collect all ten volumes, as a teen my funds were lacking, of course, so I begged for early birthday presents, loaned money from my brother, just to get my hands on the next Sandman books.
When I realised that Sandman operated in the same world (though a different plain) as DC comics - I began to read Batman again.
Batman, whose villains are so much like himself... he even "dates" them - costume fetish? You bet!
I can now see, looking back and thinking critically upon that very apathetic time of my life, that my need for religion, the search for something bigger than myself - was the search for stories that were bigger than my life... and there ain't nothing bigger than the Endless, the Justice League, the X-Men, V and even the all too fallible Watchmen - post-humanism... oh yes. Now that's transcendent.
I remember reading Season of Mists at 18 and feeling as though my ideas regarding all the gods, faith and world order, laid out in front of me... in vivid colour2.
I read "Concerning Mammoths, and Falling Walls" again (the third chapter in Brief Lives) not long after the second Lebanon War and the line Death (our friend, our constant companion in Life) says to the very long-lived man who asks "...I did okay, didn't I?" concerning how long he lived, she says:
"You got a lifetime. No more. No less."
That sentence has been resonating in me for the past three years. It comforts me when I think of my mortality, because we live as long as we do.
And that's it.
Having recently read Gaiman's rendition on the "death of Batman" in Whatever Happened to the Caped Crusader?" that line echoed in my mind.
It echoes all the time.
Though slash fiction were my main source of understanding "alternative" sexuality and the fact that I, myself, was not straight, comics empowered me in being outwardly weird - I like the colours... in comics even black is bright.
The dynamics of gender in comics are far more complex that what people think - sure, it's busty women in skin tight (or barely there) costumes and it's muscled men in skin tight (there are bulges) costumes.
You can learn so much about what is idealised and why by reading these people who still hark from that time of pulp-fiction and illicit magazines.
I'm writing this whole spiel because Blognewsarama (my main comic oriented news site) plugged this website:
The A-Z LGBT Comic Book Character Superlist, which is freakin' awesome! This website Queersupe appears to be that much more extensive, in-depth and analytical.
Works for me! Go and explore.
And just to keep with the theme of this somewhat sombre entry; comic books (along with my search for faith through religion) enabled me to doubt, ask questions about the veracity of the stories we tell ourselves (all are real of course) and the ideals upon which they are supported... helped me learn about myself and the stories that make my world the way it is.
Footnotes
(1) I'd just like y'all to know that it took me a long time to come to the conclusion that agnosto-atheism was the best place for me, I really wanted to have some kind of faith that was bigger than me. But my identification with being Jewish is too strong, though historical, cultural and ethnic - religion is a composite in that, and despite being a complete heretic... I cannot remove it from me entirely.
Back to text.
(2)For a long time Bast and Anubis were my closest companions in my dreams and I even bought two little figurines of them... they sit along with the other statuettes in my room, that I collected over the years. I once used them in a ceremony with a bunch of friends - I was still trying to be of belief, faith and religion, but inwardly I was already gone. A hypocritical portion of my life, without a doubt.
Back to text.
