Comics and Religion in Liquid Modernity

Since the early twenty-first century, the study of comic books, manga, and graphic novels has taken off. Religion is involved with comics in several ways. De Groot distinguishes four questions. How do religions use and respond to comics? How do comics represent and criticize religion? When does the social role of comics resemble the social role of religion? And finally: what and how do comics teach about religion, culture, and society? These issues structure a systematic collection of essays that gives an impetus to the new field of research into comics and religion from a sociological perspective. In liquid modernity, the articulation of the sacred is no longer governed by religions. Religion is both “in there,” and “out there,” mediatized also by cartoons, comics, and animated movies.