I think a lot of people don’t know the extent of the research I do for my comic, but I am a little obsessed with research, and in my thesis I get to ramble about it for 5,000 words.  Here’s a small sample, which may be interesting to those who read “Sister Claire.”

P.S. This is something I just wrote out now and haven’t actually gone back to re-read/edit, so it’s raw:

Because sisterhood is such a core theme, and almost all the characters are female, it was relevant for me to research the context of female characters[…].  But I also needed to research the cultures and religions which inspired the story.  Having grown up in Rome, Italy, and attended Catholic school run by nuns, I had good firsthand experience of Catholic culture, but in regards to the pagan religions that inspired the Witches of my story, I needed reference.  Because witchcraft is a huge, sprawling subject, I picked up books on Wicca (a modern pagan religion utilizing witchcraft ) spellbooks, druids (Celtic priests of the Iron Age) psychic powers, world mythology, and in keeping with the humorous and parody nature of the comic, I also plan to reference and parody some mainstream magic/fantasy series such as “Harry Potter.” I intend to tie in many other religions into this comic’s eclectic theology, such as Islam, Hinduism, Hawaiian mythology, Nordic mythology, and Scientology to name a few,  although Celtic paganism and Catholicism are my main focuses.  (See bibliography for full list of references.)

Although I don’t consider myself a religious person, I have nonetheless always been interested in the study of theology from an impartial perspective, and “Sister Claire” has been a wonderful way to do that.  Because my comic attempts to reconcile and encompass many world religions, much care must be taken to find the perfect balance of parody, homage, and loyalty to the real sources and beliefs.  Religion is not a new subject for comics, but there are precious few which are both well-researched and not intentionally offensive.  My goal with the series is not to offend, but to explore humanity through the lens of religion: the manifestation of our cultural values, and our uniquely human attempt to explain the unexplainable.

 In “Sister Claire,” the fundamental concept behind both “Nun-Fu” and the Witches’ magic is “energia,” or life force.  I appropriated the term from the Greek word, “energeia,” which was coined by Aristotle.  This word is the root of the English word “energy,” but it’s meaning is not so simple.  In order to explain “energia,” it helps to understand Aristotle’s fascinating concept of the “Prime Mover.”  

Aristotle proposed that all things are in a constant state of flux, or motion- whether literal motion, or expanding/cooling, etc.  But every “motion”  must be linked back to something that caused it.  According to Aristotle, the first source of motion must be something which paradoxically moves, but is itself unmoved. This is the Prime Mover, a being made of pure energeia- which Aristotle referred to as “God.”

“In the Prime Mover we have a being which both thinks and is all possible intelligible content, existing as a single eternal and unchanging whole. The intelligible structure of things, however, is what makes them what they are. […] Thus one could equally say that the Prime Mover is present in all things, imparting—or rather, constituting—their intelligible structure, and thus their being. In light of all this, when we say that the Prime Mover is pure energeia, how ought we to translate that term? Activity? Actuality? Plainly the answer is both—and therefore neither. It seems to me that the closest we can come in English is to say that it is pure energy. Specifically, I have in mind the sense given in the American Heritage Dictionary as “power exercised with vigor and determination,” and illustrated with the phrase, “devote one’s energies to a worthy cause.” But of course no illustration drawn from ordinary objects will be adequate to the notion of a being that is pure energy, an energy that constitutes the being of other things.” (Bradshaw, 2006)