Words and images just got sharper in the battle against circumcision, as Matt Hess released the second issue of his comic book, "Foreskin Man." Hess founded a San Diego group supporting efforts to ban circumcision in San Francisco and Santa Monica.
In this installment, super-buff, blond and blue-eyed super hero Foreskin Man -- secretly goateed Miles Hastwick, a retired corporate scientist who now heads the Museum of Genital Integrity, throws wild yacht parties with lots of booze and busty babes off the coast of San Diego and coincidentally shares the initials and hometown of his creator Hess -- does battle against the dark haired, bearded Monster Mohel, who is clad in the traditional Orthodox Jewish wide brimmed hat with a tallis around his neck. The mohel has eagerly improvised a billiard table-top bris with traditional wine and the Torah. Explains the text of "Foreskin Man": "Nothing excites Monster Mohel more than cutting into the penile flesh of an 8-day-old infant boy."
Foreskin Man battles Monster Mohel and his equally Orthodox, Uzi-wielding, peos-wearing, bloodthirsty strongmen, wresting the baby boy from the clutches of his pro-circumcision father and delivering him to the voluptuous intactivist Tia Kumming and her tribe, who celebrate the arrival of the intact baby with a huge (environmentally incorrect) bonfire made from circumcision tools arranged the shape of their symbol. Creepy. And, some feel, anti-Semitic.
The Jewish Journal says "Foreskin Man" "gives further credence to the accusation that so-called intactivists are in fact motivated by anti-Semitism."
But Hess told SFGate otherwise : "A lot of people have said that, but we're not trying to be anti-Semitic. We're trying to be pro-human rights."
You can view more images from "Foreskin Man" here, including Foreskin Man calling Monster Mohel's prayer "blabbering" and the mohel depicted as a lascivious goon.
All images used with permission.
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Rev. James Martin, S.J.: Who Killed Jesus? An Examination of the Evidence
On another note,
Why would anyone from San Francisco be against circumcision?
http://www.cdc.gov/hiv/resources/factsheets/circumcision.htm
Freedom of religious beliefs does NOT equal freedom of religious practice. Can Christian Scientists deny life-saving medical care for their children? Can Mormons force their children into polygamous marriages? Children have the right to have their bodies left whole and intact (unless there is immediate health need).
The first objection to circumcision within Judaism occurred in 1843. The Society for the Friends of Reform said that brit milah was not a mitzvah but an outworn legacy from Israel's earlier phases, an obsolete throwback to primitive religion.
According to modern scholars, circumcision is not even mentioned in the earliest, "J", version of Bereshith ("Genesis") nor the next three rewrites by other authors. The story of Abram is there in its entirety, except the part about the Covenant being "sealed" with circumcision. The parallel Covenant story of "a smoking kiln and its blazing torch" passing between the halves of animals and birds sacrificed by Abram is in J. Many biblical scholars agree on this point, and it is in accord with the mitzvot against desecrating the body.
Then they call it mutilation. Most men regard their circumcised pen+s as though its apollo--(ala Rep Weiner) They brag about it. Not exactly what those who have been mutliated do.
I'm glad Jewishness broke out of the box a long time ago and now is an idea that is for everyone.
http://www.vosizneias.com/85127/2011/06/06/santa-monica-ca-backer-of-circumcision-ban-pulling-out
I read the entire comic online and you know what I found the most offensive? The 'superhero' actually kidnaps the 'Jewish' baby and gives it to an entirely different family. Disgusting.
Also, this has been tied in with the tough issue of 'religious rights' vs. 'state rights' -- morality changes, gets more fine-tuned with time, so, of course we are going to see this, believers (of any sort) feeling 'threatened'.
Thanks for playing, Matt.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Maus
BUT.
This is issue number 2 of "Foreskin Man". The villain in issue number 1 was a doctor, not identified as Jewish and not having any stereotypical Jewish features, and I don't remember Judaism even being mentioned. The doctor in issue 1 was at LEAST as grotequely drawn as the mohel in issue 2. I don't think these guys are anti-doctor. As somebody said before, they're just doing supervillian tropes badly. The next one will probably be something else; whoever does circumcisions in Islam, maybe.
Praying vacuously when you're doing something heinous is indeed "babbling", and that sort of thought balloon is another superhero trope.
People on the net have been interpreting the obvious symbol made of "circumcision tools" (restraints, to be precise) as a "burning menorah made of little people". Which it does NOT look like... and the specific (real) restraint product is specifically identified in the comic.
The (environmentally incorrect) bonfire is clearly made from "circumstraints" the tools used in hopsital circumcisions ,something mentioned in the comic book as being stolen from hospitals. The bonfire kinda felt like a cross burning or book burning...couldn't the intactivists have found a better use for them, like recycling them? But then that wouldn't have been gloriously graphic.
In the special features of "Dr. Horrible's Sing-A-Long Blog," featuring video auditions of supervillains trying to get into the Evil League of Evil, there's a mohel villain called Tur-mohel (a delightfully bad pun on "turmoil") who plans to destroy the tip of the Washington Monument. When I saw this, I thought it was hysterically brilliant.
In other words, it's all in the execution.