A. David Lewis Explained

A. David Lewis should not be confused with David A. Lewis.

Birth Name:Aaron David Lewis
Birth Place:Boston, Massachusetts, United States
Write:y
Edit:y
Publish:y
Notable Works:The Lone and Level Sands Kismet, Man of Fate The Prophet: A Graphic Novel Adaptation

Aaron David Lewis (born 1977 in Boston, Massachusetts) is an American comic book and graphic novel writer. He is also a comics scholar focusing on literary theory, religious studies, and graphic medicine.

He is the founder of the Caption Box comic book imprint.[1] He has also served as an instructor at Georgetown University, Northeastern University, MCPHS, Bentley University, and Boston University (as a teaching fellow for Frank Korom, Stephen Prothero, and Steven T. Katz). Additionally, he has given lectures at conferences such as WizardWorld,[2] the San Diego Comic-Con, and the New York Comic-Con, among others. He is an editorial board member for the International Journal of Comic Art under editor John Lent.[3] He was an executive board member for the Comics Studies Society.[4] He has also been involved in several podcasts.[5]

Early life

Lewis was raised in Framingham, Massachusetts. He graduated from Brandeis University with a B.A. in English and Psychology in 1999.[6] He earned his M.A. in English Literature from Georgetown University.[7] He earned his PhD in Religion and Literature from Boston University.[8]

Career

Lewis's 2005 work, The Lone and Level Sands (written by Lewis, and illustrated by Marvin Mann and Jennifer Rodgers), won a Howard E. Day Prize and has been nominated for three Harvey Awards in 2007.[9] His 2002 creation, Mortal Coils, was named one of the winners of the 2003 Cinescape Literary Genre Competition,[10] and in 2004 it was given the Paper Screen Gem Award for Mystery/Suspense.[11] It was republished as a hardcover, color edition by Archaia Comics; Mann and Lewis collaborated again through Archaia with Some New Kind of Slaughter, or Lost in the Flood (and How We Found Home Again): Diluvian Myths from around the World in 2009.

In the late 2006, Lewis started a PhD program studying religion and literature at Boston University.[12] There he also helped organize the "Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels Conference"[13] and co-edit its later text Graven Images: Religion in Comic Books and Graphic Novels published in 2010.[14] He completed his PhD in 2012 and revamped his dissertation work into the book American Comics, Literary Theory, and Religion: The Superhero Afterlife published in 2014 by Palgrave Macmillan.[15]

In 2011, Lewis became co-editor of Muktatafaht: A Middle East Comics Anthology initially through the Harvard University Center of Middle East Studies' Outreach Center but, due to administrative circumstances,[16] shopped elsewhere. He is also the organizer of the Chain World Freeform Comics Experiment and its customized book The Tome, and, in 2014, a founding member of Sacred and Sequential, an organization of religion & comics scholars.[17]

In 2015, Lewis's co-edited volume with Christopher Moreman, entitled Digital Death: Mortality and Beyond in the Online Age, was a winner of the Ray at Pat Browne Award for "Best Edited Collection",[18] and his American Comics, Literary Theory, and Religion: The Superhero Afterlife was nominated for "Best Scholarly/Academic Work" in the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards.[19]

In 2017, Lewis edited and contributed to essays on Islamic representation and Muslim characters in superhero comic books and graphic novels.[20]

In a 2018 interview with Nicholas Yanes of Sequart Organization, Lewis stated that his next work would focus on an academic manuscript of the depictions of cancer battles in comics, to tentatively be called: Cancer in Comic Books.[21]

During the pandemic, Lewis launched the Graphic Medicine Review, the first journal dedicated to the field of Graphic Medicine. The open access, online publication originated at the MCPHS University Library and subsequently moved in 2023 to the Lamar Soutter Library at the UMass Chan Medical School under the co-editorship of Mary Piroun.[22]

In 2023, he was named as one of the six national judges for that year's Eisner Awards.[23] [24]

Nonprofit work

Lewis was the founder and president of Comics for Youth Refugees Incorporated Collective (CYRIC), a 501(c)(3) nonprofit organization in Massachusetts dedicated to producing free comic books based in Syrian folklore for refugee children. By 2019, the organization had sent over 1000 copies of their Haawiyat anthologies overseas to camps and schools along the Turkish border in partnership with NuDay Syria (for which Lewis is also a board member).[25]

Comics bibliography

Scholarly bibliography

Notes and References

  1. http://www.captionbox.net/media.htm About Caption Box
  2. News: Levy, David . 2005-10-20 . Behind the spandex: secrets of the superheroes . . 2007-03-31 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20060722035942/http://www.thejewishadvocate.com/this_weeks_issue/entertainment/?content_id=410 . July 22, 2006 .
  3. Web site: About IJOCA . . 2007-03-31 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070505182729/http://www.ijoca.com/IJOCA.htm . 5 May 2007 . dead .
  4. Web site: About. 2016-09-08. Caption Box. en-US. 2019-04-30.
  5. Web site: A David Lewis. Cotter. Christopher. 2013-10-20. The Religious Studies Project. en-US. 2019-04-30.
  6. Web site: A David Lewis. Cotter. Christopher. 2013-10-20. The Religious Studies Project. en-US. 2019-04-30.
  7. Web site: About. 2016-09-08. Caption Box. en-US. 2019-04-30.
  8. Web site: About. 2016-09-08. Caption Box. en-US. 2019-04-30.
  9. News: Taylor, Denise . 2007-03-04 . Picturing the world . . 2007-03-31 . https://web.archive.org/web/20070314174605/http://www.boston.com/news/local/articles/2007/03/04/picturing_the_world/. 14 March 2007 . live.
  10. News: 2004-03-24 . Mann and Lewis offer LONE AND LEVEL SANDS online . . 2007-03-31 .
  11. Web site: Paper Screen Gems . Mike Bullock . 2004-06-14 . . 2007-03-31 . https://web.archive.org/web/20061112134806/http://www.brokenfrontier.com/columns/details.php?id=130 . 2006-11-12 . dead .
  12. News: Comic Conspiracy. Waltz, Vicky. 2007-02-12. BU Today. 2007-03-31. https://web.archive.org/web/20070313101235/http://www.bu.edu/phpbin/news-cms/news/?dept=4&id=43403&template=4. 13 March 2007. dead. Boston University. dmy-all.
  13. http://www.comicbookresources.com/?page=article&id=16345 Graven Images: Religion in Comics
  14. Book: Google Books: Graven Images. 9780826430267 . David Lewis . A. . Kraemer . Christine Hoff . 21 October 2010 .
  15. Book: American Comics, Literary Theory, and Religion - The Superhero Afterlife A. Lewis Palgrave Macmillan. en.
  16. Web site: Lewis. A. David. The Middle East Comic Book Anthology You'll Never Read. ISLAMiCommentary. Duke Islamic Studies Center. 13 July 2015. December 5, 2014. https://web.archive.org/web/20150714051508/http://islamicommentary.org/2014/12/the-middle-east-comic-book-anthology-youve-never-read/. 14 July 2015. dead.
  17. Web site: Klassen. Asher. New Websites and Research Plans. Watercolour Horizons. 13 July 2015. July 22, 2014.
  18. Web site: Cal State East Bay Philosophy Department Chair Wins National Pop Culture Award. California State University, East Bay. 13 July 2015. May 7, 2015.
  19. Web site: 2015 Eisner Awards Nominations . San Diego Comic-Con International . 13 July 2015 . dead . https://web.archive.org/web/20150613194937/http://www.comic-con.org/awards/2015-eisner-award-nominations . 13 June 2015 .
  20. Web site: A. David Lewis on Being a Religion and Comics Scholar, and His New Book Muslim Superheroes: Comics, Islam, and Representation. Sequart Organization. en-US. 2019-04-30.
  21. Web site: A. David Lewis on Being a Religion and Comics Scholar, and His New Book Muslim Superheroes: Comics, Islam, and Representation. Sequart Organization. en-US. 2019-04-30.
  22. https://publishing.escholarship.umassmed.edu/gmr/article/id/787/
  23. Comics Beat "2023 Eisner Award Judges Announced: Barrette, Jones, King, Kleefeld, Lewis and Sheflin"
  24. MCPHS Community News "'I Leapt at the Chance': MCPHS Professor is Judge for the Oscars of Comics"
  25. MCPHS Alumni News. "A Vessel for Stories: A. David Lewis Brings His Comics Anthology to Syria"
  26. http://www.archaiasp.com/lone_and_level_sands.php Archaia Studios Press
  27. http://www.eximiouspress.com/postcards/ POSTCARDS: True Stories That Never Happened
  28. http://archaiastudiospress.com/some_new_kind_of_slaughter.php Archaia Studios Press
  29. https://comicvine.gamespot.com/kismet-man-of-fate/4050-98825/ Kismet, Man of Fate
  30. https://www.graphicmundi.org/books/978-1-63779-050-2.html THE PROPHET