(ANALYSIS) In the company of endless superhero comics and Japanese pirate manga lives a delightfully sizable population of religious graphic novels. This is fitting, as perhaps the oldest comics are religious.

For, regardless of intention, what do ancient Egyptian hieroglyphics read like if not the comic strip our modern age believes itself to have invented?

Well, much like the Egyptians, graphic novel writers and illustrators often go against the grain. They are able to tell stories in ways that are unconventional but also capable of preserving the core emotions of a tale.

READ: What Happens When Christianity and Buddhism Are Forced To Compete?

Graphic novels — a long-form work of sequential art — have grown in popularity over the past two decades. The genre, while often applied broadly, can include works of fiction, nonfiction and anthology.

The following three graphic novels are all testaments to how certain aspects of the Buddhist, Baha’i and Islamic faiths can be conveyed by comic almost as powerfully as by holy book:

‘Buddha Vol. 1’ by Osamu Tezuka

“Buddha Vol. 1” by Osamu Tezuka is not simply a story of Buddhism. Instead, much like the origins of Buddhism itself, the story begins with Hindus.

It was published in 1972 and it is the first in an eight-book series of black-and-white manga detailing the life of the Buddha. However, the man who would go on to meditate beneath the Bodhi tree and create a major world religion is not even born until the latter half of the series.

Instead, “Buddha, Vol. 1” focuses on a Brahmin, a naked Pariah boy, and a mother and son from the Slave caste. Throughout the manga, the ideas discussed show Hinduism and Buddhism tugging at each other. Characters ask questions which poke holes in the way Hinduism was being exercised at that point in history. The holes those questions make are conveniently shaped a lot like ideas that the Buddha would go on to teach.

Despite the rational posturing of Buddhism, the author was not a Buddhist at all — but rather a humanist. Perhaps you don’t need a religion when you are known as the “God of Manga.” 

All the characters in the book share the same whimsical art style as most manga. They have big eyes, soft edges and really rad hair. While the characters are simple and cartoonish, the backdrops are sharp and naturalistic. Round little figures are often backdropped by sprawling mountainscapes. 

Tezuka is probably best known for his robotic superhero character “Astro Boy,” but he also wrote works with more somber tones, such as his World War II solidarity manga “Message to Adolf.”

As for “Buddha Vol. 1,” the seriousness of religion is juxtaposed with a playful attitude toward human morality. Amid riddles that encourage people to treat animals with as much respect as humans, numerous death scenes and themes that criticize the caste system are instances of a gang of young boys urinating on their enemies, fourth-wall-breaking comments about color printing and even two illustrated cameos of Osamu himself.

In fact, Osamu does not shy away from the messiness of morality. Holy men bring death, and warlords do sudden acts of good. In his portrayal of various ethical puzzles, he seems to call into question the validity of both Hindu and Buddhist beliefs on karma. Namely, actions are done with good intentions and result in great evil. In this book, good or evil choices do not always breed respective good or evil.

As a work of Buddhist literature, “Buddha Vol. 1” encourages nonviolence, humility and equality of all beings. But it is much more a work of humanistic fantasy than a religious text. The rest of the series, meanwhile, continues to tell Buddha’s story with a great deal of added sparkle and silliness. 

What do Buddhists think? Well, According to Dan Zigmond of the Buddhist Magazine Tricycle, “It’s hard to imagine any reader — whether 13, 30 or well beyond — not coming away moved by this captivating rendition of Buddhism’s most fundamental story.”

‘Zanjan’ by Aaron Emmel and C. Aaron Kreader

Aaron Emmel and C. Aaron Kreader’s “Zanján,” despite its medium, is not comic in any way. Unlike with Tezuka’s “Buddha,” which is a secular take on religious biography, Emmel and Kreader are both members of the Baha’i faith. “Zanján” tells the story of a Muslim boy, Navid, in the late 1800s as he becomes a member of the Babi faith, the predecessor to the Baha’i belief system.

While “Zanján” is a work of fiction, Zanján is a real city in Iran that held a Muslim teacher who began to believe that the Babi faith was a natural part of the progression of Islam. When Islamic authorities found out about this, they ordered a siege on the city. Both sides lost many.

In its opening pages, “Zanján” is dedicated to all members of the Baha’i faith and all those persecuted or martyred for their beliefs.

Such an ecumenical appeal is consistent with the Baha’i value of respecting all faiths but feels inconsistent with the content of “Zanján.” Where stories such as “Buddha Vol. 1” portray a nuanced morality and give nearly every character both moral failures and honorable moments, “Zanján” rarely ever humanizes its Muslim villains at the risk of portraying Baha’i suffering as anything less than cataclysmically unjust.

The story’s Islamic characters oppress women, kill children and convey total closed-mindedness. Its Baha’i characters, on the other hand, are noble protectors who fight to survive and seek truth. Over time, they allow women to fight among their ranks. An action that might seem brutal, sending boys and elderly men into a bloodbath, is framed as reasonable. After all, how could the people who had threatened to kill the Babi time and time again kill their fathers and children?

While it seems not unlikely that those who did fight against the Babi were mostly fighting out of ignorance and fear of the unknown, I believe the story would have benefited from some admittance of wrong on the part of the Babi people. Framing any war as a situation in which people behave rationally seems to be generally untrue and is, then, counterproductive to the anti-war cause.

The anti-war cause is, of course, an integral one to the Baha’i beliefs. For a religion that promotes equality, unity, harmony and peaceful problem-solving, “Zanján” details a history of the Babi people being forced into quite a bit of violence and bloodshed.

The book’s sharp, dark illustrations weave a tale of loss and martyrdom that does little to establish much of any hope or joy. But what they do portray is a great deal of care. Questions are asked thoughtfully.  

Deaths are noted. Characters are given a choice between good and evil. Even the wordiness, which is significant for a graphic novel, shows a need to fully portray the thoughts and intentions of the story’s heroes. 

Ultimately, despite Baha’i faith’s ultra-inclusive reputation, “Zanján” often reads a bit like propaganda. But, perhaps that was not simply done out of negligence and an inability to see both sides of the issue. Maybe “Zanjan” exists to inform the public about the trials and triumphs of a faith that has often been overlooked and undervalued. In order to do that, it needed to tell its story the way that most religions do: with really obvious good guys and bad guys. Propaganda or not, this very kind of storytelling is a religious rite of passage.

‘Infidel’ by Pornsak Pichetshote

“Infidel” is a traditional comic book in every sense. It’s quick, weird and sometimes violent. Illustrated with bold line work and black shadows, it’s also a true graphic novel. It’s split into chapters divided by full-page artwork, asks intense questions and deals with existential evils in the modern day but ends unsatisfactorily. In this way, it is reminiscent of graphic novel giants such as “The Sandman” or “Watchmen.”   

The story follows the residents of an apartment building that has recently been blown up by bombs built by a Muslim man. This instance, which is slowly revealed throughout the story, sets the scene for Aisha, a Muslim woman living with her non-Muslim fiancé and his family, to be attacked by evil, ghost-like entities that exist as physical embodiments of the deep-seated racism held by several of the building’s residents. 

“Infidel” is a horror story — there’s no doubt about that. It gets you to care about people, then terrorizes those same people. What it doesn’t do is infect you with dread. This is likely due to pacing. The monster is revealed in the first two pages — which, to be fair — is extremely upsetting. The problem is that even though the book gets gorier, it somehow doesn’t get any more off-putting. The reader is asked to shriek upon its opening and then build up a more existential kind of fear as the book explores more philosophical concepts. In this way, if the reader has not been a victim of Islamophobia, they must be the one creating the fear by thoughtfully considering the vast implications of the evils of racism. 

In addition to this, the reader has trouble asking all the questions he ought to because he must focus hard on the trajectory of the story. “Infidel” did not bite off more than it could chew. In fact, it never had more than two storylines going at once. But, somehow, this back-and-forth storytelling does not build suspense. Instead, it merely makes the reader feel more distant from either of the characters in either storyline. The reader is unable to decide who to fully invest their empathy with. The two storylines are both interesting but feel disconnected and are never quite satisfactorily fused. This is confusing as it very much feels that they are supposed to become unified at some point.

While “Infidel” is lacking in fear factor and progression, it is a work that carefully utilizes its medium. “Infidel” takes advantage of the graphic novel format by distinguishing scenes visually from the past, present, spiritual and imaginative. Art styles shift to childish drawings in memories of childhood. Colors become pastel when events from the recent past are recounted. And the ghosts that haunt the characters are smoother and blotchy than the sharply drawn humans.

However, “Infidel” takes as little time as possible with its writing. Sometimes, characters think in article-less sentences — almost in the style of Rorschach from “Watchmen.” The minimal writing is skillfully thin, as it manages to convey a great deal of information in the unblemished tone with which so many characters speak. With this efficient use of words, “Infidel” makes room for large, detailed panels that often portray hyper-grimy rooms covered in ink splotches and charcoal smudges. The grit of the imagery adds to the horror genre by giving everything a sick, visceral quality.

“Infidel” is essentially a horror story that asks the reader not only to fear the monsters in its pages but to be afraid of the greater evils which those monsters represent. Throughout the story there is constant speculation of how evil things are done, and often people of color, and Muslims in particular, are suspected as the villains.

At the same time, “Infidel” does not oversimplify the conversations like those unfamiliar with the medium probably expect a comic book to do. Instead of refusing to see nuance in prejudice, the story explores the reasons for the xenophobic attitudes — even portraying people of color as exhibiting prejudice against White people.

It does not dignify hateful thoughts and actions, but it does allow for their existence in a way that seems to say that in the effort to be just and inclusive, somehow we tend to get lost. This belief is what really scares the authors: Maybe the monster of xenophobia is too old to be beaten. The ghosts in the story are never defeated. After all, the monster only gets stronger each time we try to kill it.

Matthew Peterson is currently the John McCandlish Phillips intern at Religion Unplugged. He is a student at Baruch College in New York City.