The Jewish Side of Denver Comic Con 2014

Today is the first day of the 3rd annual Denver Comic Con.

In addition to Jewish stars of film and television (such as William Shatner and Saul Rubinek, who also happen to both be Canadian), there will be creators of "Jewish" comic stories (i.e. comic stories which have at least one identifiable Jewish character in them).

Such creators include :

* Neil Adams is the illustrator of the “Son O’ God” stories, which appeared in the pages of National Lampoon. That sounds more like a Christian story than a Jewish one, but it’s actually a bit of both. Son O’ God is that unique super-powered protagonist whose “superhero self” is a Christian deity and whose civilian alter ego is a Jewish kid named Bennie David and whose 12 Jewish friends act as “the 12 apostles” when duty calls. You may read all of the Son O’God stories (as well as the story of how Adams was recruited to be the artist) at Dial B for Blog. Adams also illustrated the Batman story “Night of the Reaper” in which the vengeful Grim Reaper is revealed to be a Nazi-hunting Holocaust survivor. Adams penciled “The Last Outrage” (inked by Andy Kubert’s father, Joe Kubert) which appeared in both The New York Times and the final issue of the miniseries X-men : Magneto : Testament and which also appeared as a stop-motion video on YouTube.

* Colleen Doran is an accomplished cartoonist whose work includes a one-page illustration in The Death Gallery, in which Death is at a concentration camp.

* Al Fukalek is an illustrator and co-creator of the World War II-era Specialists webcomic which features the character Max Finkelstein, builder of a powerful, but imperfect robot he calls The Golem. To use The Golem to defeat the Nazis, Max must inhabit the robot himself, at great personal risk.

* Mike Grell is the author-illustrator of Green Arrow #57-58 and Jon Sable : Freelance #22-24.

* Shawn Gustafson is a computer programmer and co-creator of the Specialists webcomic (please see above).

* George Perez is the illustrator of Wonder Woman #37 and #38 which had the character Rabbi Benjamin Hecht.

* Ron Randall (illustrator of the first 2 issues of the comic book series Jewish Hero Corps.

* Joe Rubinstein is an illustrator of the 2nd Mendy & the Golem series and also a contributor to both Journeys : The Collected Edition and the anthology Balm in Gilead.