Christopher Reeve had a subtle swagger to his portrayal of Superman, particularly when slyly commenting on the color of Lois’s underwear. This sexless Superman, this chaste strange visitor, is far more a function of his comic book adventures than, say, his film or television personae.

Second, how many devoted readers have read or think fondly of a “sexy Superman” story? At best, such a tale is a trivia-winner at worst, it’s a back-in-the-bin forgotten day for the Man of Steel. To which, I say two things:įirst, the words “stray” and “fleeting” are key these are by no means general traits of the character. Maybe *somewhere* there’s a stray issue that a mylar-bag Geek-keeper can cite to point out Supes giving a rare leer at a lady - not a hoax, not a dream, not an imaginary story! Perhaps Superman has shown fleeting glimpses of hypothesis-shattering lust. Superman lacks libido.įrom Action Comics #592-#593 by John Byrne. What he’s not, what he’s never been, is a sex symbol nor a sexual being. Superman is an icon, an identity, a cash cow, a cottage industry, a brand, and an ideal all in one. That’s not a slight to the medium or a slam to the genre it’s just a fact. And let’s be honest.įor some time now, Superman has been more than simply a superhero comic book character. “Frontal and Profile as Symbolic Forms,” in Words and Pictures (Paris: Mouton, 1973), 37–49.This article first appeared in The Frontiersman #6, © Broken Frontier 2010. The Complete Persepolis (New York: Pantheon Books, 2007). “Vision and Precarity in Marjane Satrapi’s ‘Persepolis,’” Women’s Studies Quarterly 44, no.

“Memoir as Iranian Exile Cultural Production: A Case Study of Marjane Satrapi’s Persepolis Series.” Iranian Studies 39, no.

“Occidentalism: Rewriting the West in Marjane Satrapi’s ‘Persepolis,’” French Forum 36, no. David Lewis and Christine Hoff Kramer, eds., Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels (New York: Continuum, 2010), 230–246. “Narrative and Pictorial Dualism in Persepolis and the Emergence of Complexity,” in A. “The Message is on the Wall: Mural Arts in Post-Revolutionary Iran,” Persica 22 (2008), 15–46. Review of Persepolis, New York Times Book Review online, May 11, 2003. “The Texture of Retracing in Marjane Satrapi’s ‘Persepolis,’” Women’s Studies Quarterly 36, no.

Graven Images by A. David Lewis