Today, my second day in Paris, I've been doing research for my book Jewish Images in the Comics, by walking around and harassing various comic shop owners, trying to find interesting examples of Jewish characters in general, anti-Semitism, Israel in comics and so on.
Today's first stop was the well kept and well stocked BD Net, where I found several books that will add to the variety of my book.
My guide in the world of French comics was editor, translator, author and friend Jean-Paul Jennequin. He helped out today, showing me the good shops, rummaging through the books trying to find leads into my subject and generally translating my sparse French to the shop owners, who were also running around, looking for suitable books.
Here's my traveling companion Jamil Mani, who couldn't help himself, but also had to buy a few books.
This shop, Librarie Opera BD, was small but surprisingly well stocked and had a friendly and helpful owner who kept coming up with new suggestions until I had to leave before my bags got too heavy.
Here's part of today's "harvest". Now I'll write the second spread for today and then head out for dinner. Cheers everybody!
In case you've missed it, there's this too: http://www.themarysue.com/anti-semitic-comic-book/
ReplyDeleteOh yeah. Although I'm willing to believe the author that anti-semitism isn't his main point. The stereotype doesn't seem worse to me than the eternally perpetuated Arabic terrorists in mainstream media, and if you're trying to work with superhero cliches to hamfistedly prove a point, this is roughly what might be expected. Also, all of the villains are blatant stereotypes, the first issue features an evil mutant doctor and the third issues African tribesmen, Might be a safe bet that the fourth features muslims. Not that it's very skillfully done propaganda in itself, but sort of what could be expected from the original viewpoint.
ReplyDeleteI don't think the intention was to make any broad statement against Jews either. In all likelyhood the goal was only to indict the Jewish practice of circumcision, in line with the overall "intactivist" mission of Foreskin Man, but in doing so Hess taps pretty deep into the cultural archive of anti-Semitic representation.
ReplyDeleteThe use of stereotypes is an important part of making comics in general, and because of this it is important for creators to think about what stereotypes they make use of, lest they suffer exactly the type of criticism we see in this case. Will Eisner put it pretty well when he wrote that "Since stereotype is an essential tool in the language
of graphic storytelling, it is incumbent on cartoonists to recognize
its impact on social judgment." Hess could have gotten his point across with less, and in choosing to go that extra mile, he has put himself in the line of fire.
Absolutely. I agree.
ReplyDelete