American Cult: A Graphic History of Religious Cults in America from the Colonial Era to Today

by Robyn Chapman (Editor)

Overview

From its earliest days, America was a home for spiritual seekers.

In 1694, the religious tolerance of the Pennsylvania Colony enticed a Transylvanian monk and his forty followers to cross the Atlantic. Almost two hundred years later, a charismatic preacher founded a utopian community in Oneida, New York, that practiced socialism and free love. In the 1960s and '70s, a new generation of seekers gathered in vegetarian restaurants in Los Angeles, Satanic coffee shops in New Orleans, and fortified communes in Philadelphia. And in the twenty-first century, gurus find their flocks through self-help seminars and get-rich-quick schemes.

Across the decades, Americans in search of divine truths have turned to unconventional prophets for the answers. Some of these prophets have demanded their faith, fortunes, and even their very lives. In American Cult, over twenty cartoonists explore the history of these groups with clarity and empathy—digging deep to find the human stories within.

Featuring the talents of Lara Antal, Brian “Box” Brown, Ryan Carey, Rosa Colón Guerra, Mike Dawson, Lisa Rosalie Eisenberg, Mike Freiheit, Emi Gennis, Andrew Greenstone, Janet Harvey, Josh Kramer, Jesse Lambert, Ellen Lindner, Lonnie Mann, Ben Passmore, Jim Rugg, Robert Sergel, Vreni Stollberger, Steve Teare, and J.T. Yost.

2021 PW Graphic Novel Critics Poll - Honorable Mention
2022 Cartoonist Studio Prize Nominee - Print Comics

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781945509636
Publisher:	Silver Sprocket
Publication date:	05/18/2021
Pages:	208
Sales rank:	391,148
Product dimensions:	5.90(w) x 8.90(h) x 0.80(d)

About the Author

Robyn Chapman is an editor, a publisher, and (sometimes) a cartoonist. She was the first fellow at the Center for Cartoon and later became their program coordinator and a faculty member. During her time at CCS she was honored with MFA, having previously earned her BFA at the Savannah College of Art and Design. Currently, she is an editor at First Second.

Editorial Reviews

04/12/2021

A breathtaking panoply of what Philip Roth termed the “indigenous American berserk” is on full display in this detail-packed anthology about American cults. In the introduction, Chapman (Drawing Comics) calls for a critical but human approach—“50% empathy and 50% justice”—to the individuals sucked into such movements. Eighteen stylistically varied pieces avoid tabloid hysterics as much as possible, given the outré subject matter, but are too brief to delve deeper than thumbnail histories. Regardless, they offer fantastic introductions, ranging from Steve Teare’s chapter on the late 17th-century mystics following Johannes Kelpius in the woods outside Philadelphia, to Brian “Box” Brown’s dry mockery of sex cult NXIVM’s leader Keith Raniere (who “enjoyed telling people what was wrong with them having sex with female followers”). The material leans heavily on the last half century and balances obvious subjects (Charles Manson’s gaggle of lost hippie teenagers) with lesser-known movements (Louisa May Alcott’s father dragging the family into a comically disorganized utopian sect). Some chapters are straightforward, but others follow Chapman’s challenge to interrogate the lines between cults and religions, with Josh Kramer—writing about the Cheesecake Factory–funded Sufism Reoriented—asking, “Does it matter?” Though these comics raise more questions than they answer, they sweep admirably through a little-understood phenomenon. (May)

Publishers Weekly

"An engrossing primer on the bizarre and often deadly cults that sprout from American culture like weeds."
– Matt Bors, founder of The Nib and author of We Should Improve Society Somewhat

"A breathtaking panoply of what Philip Roth termed the 'indigenous American berserk' is on full display in this detail-packed anthology about American cults." – Publishers Weekly, a 2021 Summer Reads selection

From the Publisher