Is Superman Jewish, and is that cape thing on his back a tallis? Not a chance -- buth there are plenty of other Jews in comic books, that form of literary effluvia your mother probably threw away when you moved out of the house.
Steven Bergson, a librarian in Canada, obviously defied his mom; the result is a Web site devoted exclusively to Jews in comics.
In an e-mail interview, Mr. Bergson confessed that he's been reading comics since the age of 5. He thought it was a "goyishe medium" -- until he came across Sabraman, an Israeli comic, which started him thinking.
"What really grabbed my attention, in a big way, though, was teh graphic novel A Contract with G-d by Eisner, followed by art spiegelman's Maus," he said. "Never had I seen comics with such a strong Jewish presence."
Naturally, he started talking to other Jewish comic buffs on the Net, and those conversations venetually resulted in his Web-based bibliography. The idea here is to simply cite and briefly describe just about every comic with Jewish characters or content -- a surprisingly long list for this "goyishe" medium.
Jewish moms may disagree, but Mr. Bergson is convinced he's on the leading edge of a trend in Jewish life.
"More Jews are interested today in the way Jews are portrayed in all kinds of media than they have been at any time in history," Mr. Bergson said. "And in today's global village, the media has a lot more impact than it once had."
Check it out by visiting Mr. Bergson's interesting home page -- where you also can learn more than you ever wanted to know about library science -- and follow the links to the comics bibliography: http://www.oocities.org/Athens/Acropolis/5756/JWISHC.HTM