Atheist Stickers

Yesterday I was at a punk show in Belgium. Good stuff. Mohawks, loud music, a lot of shouting, singing and dancing, the works. One other thing that was also there was an anarcho punk merch table. They were selling a lot of stuff, promoting vegetarianism and saying that the state should be abolished, but what caught my eye were some anti-religion stickers.

It did make me think about the phenomenon of merchandise. This is somewhat my specialty. I always wonder why people buy and use merchandise. A lot of times it seems to me that it has to do with identity. You wear shirts, put stickers on everything and get a whole bunch of fridge magnets to let other people know who you (think you) are. Ironically, most of the time it doesn't matter what it says, as long as it says something. In the case of atheism arguably things even get weirder, because the identity construction revolves not around what you are, but what you aren't.

 I love the primitiveness of this one.

Bobbleheads

Probably the central symbol of the commodification of religion: the bobblehead! Lets see what we can dig up.

 Some Jesuses first then.

 Swing it, Jesus!

 Add a little bit of Moses.

 Add a little bit of pope.

 This Rabbi looks like he had a hard day at the synagogue.

 Buddha? Buddha!

Moses and the Gift of Laughter

So people know by now about my obsession with religious kitsch. And some folks are actually nice enough to give me some things they find. Like this Moses bookmark. You know, to help you remember which commandment you closed the Book at.

In fact, Mo' comes with some stickers that you can put on his tablet. That's right, just put it on Mo's tab. I thought I'd add the motto of this blog.

Yeah so I didn't do a good job putting that sticker in the right place, so what?!

Manufacturer: http://www.philosophersguild.com. On the back it says that no Philosophers were harmed in the making of this card. I don't believe them. Perhaps I just don't want to believe them.

Rubber Duck Divinities

Currently I'm reading the book Understanding Evangelical Media by Quentin J. Schulze (editor) and Robert Herbert Woods Jr. (editor). Finally I got to the chapter Merchandising Jesus Products by Diane M. Badzinsky. I thought it would be a treat. And indeed it was.

One of the things this chapter treated me to was this Jesus rubber duck. I love him so. With his little sheep! I thought then though, hey but so what about the rest of the gang? Yeah some team members jumped into the swimming pool as well. This stuff makes me want to own a bath tub!

 Looking good there, Jesus!

 Be the rubber duck!

 I wonder what happens if you put this one in the Red Sea.

Find yourself stuck? Ask Rabbi Rubberduck!

Religious Snow Globes

Recently I read the book Consuming Religion by Vincent J. Miller, in which he argues that in relation to religion, “we witness a great hollowing out. Exchange demands interchangeability, equivalence. Anything that stands in the way of exchange becomes a problem. Rough edges must be smoothed. Objects must now function outside of their original contexts.” (p. 77). I may have my doubts about this idea (what does original context matter anyway?), but I can't deny that a prime example of it seems to be the snow globe.

 Can't go wrong with the nativity scene!

 What better way to communicate the essence of the passion than by means of a snow globe? Shake it one more time for Jesus!

 Hey there pope!

 I don't know if this qualifies as a snow globe or if it's more of an... aquaglobe? Anyway, underwater Jesus in a sphere action!

Santa Claus praying to baby Jesus in a snow globe. Priceless.

Judaism seems to keep it simple. Nice blingifications.

Faithbook

Ever since facebook came into existence, or at least prominence, I've seen the parody faithbook. However parody isn't where it stops, it actually exists... several times over! Since Christians seem to make Christian alternatives for everything, why not for a social network? This is strange by the way, because why are all these Christian alternatives necessary? Perhaps it is understandable in the case of say movies, music and novels, but a social network? You can't just take a corner of the existing social networks and sanctify it? You really have to establish a whole alternative network yourself? Well I guess the church is an independen building too and not just a hired part of an office space building. Still it puzzles me a bit

http://faithbook.proforums.org/

 http://www.faithbook.tv/

http://www.faithbook.co.za/ ... dot za? Zuid Afrika?

http://faithbook.fowc.net/ This one looks particularly lame.

I believe the second one, the faithbook.tv, is the more popular one. There is also talk about a faithbook page started on facebook by Rabbi Shoshana Boyd Gelfand, "for interfaith dialogue" (see this page). I can't find this page anywhere though.

Moses Parting the Red Sea

So to be honest, I had expected more illustrations with a certain pathos than the few I managed to find. I mean, how dramatic is this event? Is it not the perfect opportunity to really make your paint brushes burst with epic sentiment? Some seem to have gotten it right at least.

Then I came across one that is less dramatic but hello how cool to show all the fishies in the sea that is being split! It sort of looks like all the sea creatures are saying "Hey Moses, can you keep it down a bit? I finally managed to get my kids to bed and now you pull a sea split on me?"

Noah's Ark Toys

Hanukkah Hat

Record: Meshugga Beach Party - Lets Go Schlepping

Judaikitsch: Tefillin Barbie

Turns out Fulla the Muslim doll has a friend from across the border. Meet Tefillin Barbie!

Jewish fine art: Nechama Tamara Farber

I don’t know if Jesus Christ is the center of the universe but he definitely seems to be the center of the universe of religious kitsch. Whenever I have a hard time finding inspiration for this blog then indeed yes! I can always count on Jesus! He is the bright and shining star in this universe and surrounding him is a beautiful sphere of Christianity in general with special emphasis on its expressions coming from the United States of America with its rich rich palette of seemingly endless denominations. In its magnificent orbit are two very lonely planets though: Islam and Judaism. Most of the time they seem to be uninhabited planets, yet sometimes, when studied carefully, they appear to sustain life! So it appeared to me when I became acquainted with the work of Nechama Tamara Farber, which definitely put a big smile on my face and perhaps even a bit of a tear in my eye.

 My Son, Let Me Teach You Torah by Nechama Tamara Farber

http://www.finejewishart.com/

Hebrew comics

I was away for a few days, so I have some catching up to do. First up is Hebrew comics. Now, to be honest, I'm not actually sure if this would qualify as a religious expression of popular culture, since whatever is written in Hebrew and/or is Israeli in origin is of course not necessarily religious. Since most of the comics are in Hebrew too, I can't read what it says on the cover, making it harder for me to accurately determine whether it deals with religious matters. However, there seems to be a significant amount of religious symbols embedded in the front visuals for it to be relevant to at least mention this universe. And they look cool anyway. :)

 URI ON by Michael Netzer

Sabraman by Uri Fink

I got these off the website http://www.internationalhero.co.uk/h/hebrewc.htm which is actually a whole essay on the history of Hebrew comics accredited to a guy named Eli. It's an interesting piece albeit a bit of a factual rapid fire.

Bible comics

So there are a lot of Christian comics out there. First there is the Picture Bible by Iva Hoth and Andre LeBlanc. It seems to be a classic in its genre but it does look more like an illustrated Bible bordering on the comic book than a real comic book. There are probably more advanced geeks with a whole repertoire of comic book theory that are better suited to judge this than me. Say what you want, but Moses sure is looking mighty pissed on the cover of this one!

Next we have the Action Bible. Amazon tells me that "in February, 2006, [Sergio Cariello, the illustrator of this work] was contacted by David C. Cook to gauge his interest in a new project; completely re-illustrating Cook's classic Picture Bible." There seems to be some continuity there. It looks a lot more modern than the Picture Bible does and a lot more like a proper comic book too actually.

Another one is the Picture Stories from the Bible series, published by All-American Publications in the 1940s. The publishing company seems to have a big reputation in the secular world of comic books, so I'm thinking that it's not necessarily written with a religious agenda. They look fantastic!

One also very recently published (2006-2008) is the Testament series by Douglas Rushkoff & Liam Sharp. Wikipedia tells me that "the story takes place simultaneously in the near future and the biblical past to illustrate the most prominent theme: that history repeats itself." This means that it does stray from the strict biblical narrative, but I'd consider it a Bible comic still. It seems to make minced meat out of all the other comics mentioned above anyway.

Then there also seem to be some manga/anime comics. The MANGA Messiah and the Manga Bible.

I can't resist mentioning also the comic Saint Young Men. From Wiki: "The series is about Jesus Christ and Gautama Buddha living together in a Tokyo apartment while taking a vacation on Earth." I decided not to depict the front but an illustration from it because it says more than the front seems to.

Finally then I'd like to mention the recent work of comic book artist Robert Crumb, Genesis, illustrating the entire book of Genesis (including all the family trees!) which is a really huge project.