Spirit(ualitie)s of Science in Words and Pictures: Syncretising Science and Religion in the Cosmologies of Two Comic Books

Abstract

This article contributes to recent interest in visuality in contemporary spirituality through a focus on comic books. It builds on the analysis of the discourse of reflexive spirituality regarding the syncretising of science and religion to examine how discursive and visual representations are combined in a mutually reinforcing way to invest a transcendent cosmological belief with a sense of realism. As a ‘hybrid’ medium that combines words and pictures, comics provide an opportune focus for such study and in recent times some comics creators have used them to set out such transcendent visions. Two such visions are examined: those of Dave Sim, writer-artist of Cerebus, and Alan Moore, writer of Promethea. Although both draw upon traditional religious/spiritual beliefs in combination with science, they do so in different ways. However, they use similar rhetorical techniques, including metaphor and synecdoche—features which this article elicits.

Acknowledgements

A version of this article was presented to the annual conference of the BSA Sociology of Religion Study Group “Religion and Youth” in Birmingham, UK, in April 2008. I would like to thank the organisers and participants, especially Sylvia Collins-Mayo for support and encouragement. My thanks also go to Lorraine Allibone for editing assistance and to the two anonymous reviewers of the Journal of Contemporary Religion for helpful comments and additional references.

Notes

1. Sim and Moore are explicitly critical of institutionalised religion and I take it that their alternatives are not simply implicit critiques of traditional forms of religious expression; in fact, Moore (Moore et al., “Wrapparty” 7) likens the rituals of ‘conventional religion’ to the symbolic interplay he associates with comics.

2. Cerebus ran for 300 issues (December 1977–March 2004). The present discussion focuses on a single issue (two in the series issued as one) where Sim set out his version of the creation story most fully. Similarly with Promethea, which ran for 32 issues (August 1999–April 2005), the focus is on a single issue where Moore's creation story is most fully found.

3. Sim does not use this term, but refers to similar ideas (Sim and Gerhard, note 2: 36–9, note 3: 3, note 3: 22).