Dante Today

Citings & Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture

Marvel Comics, Ka-Zar the Savage #9-12 (1981-1982)

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“In 1982, Marvel Comics incorporated Dante Alighieri into their superhero universe in Ka-Zar the Savage Issues #9-12. Apparently, Dante based the Inferno on a pre-historic, Atlantean amusement park, one where cultists killed Beatrice in order to summon inter-dimensional demons. Dante managed to defeat the cultists with his prayers, but they return to power seven centuries later to attempt to summon their demon-lords again. That leaves it up to Ka-zar the Savage to climb down an animatronic Hell to finish what Dante started.”  –Paul Jenizm

(Contributed by Paul Jenizm)

Five Circles of Baffling Webcomic Hell

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“A recent study by the New England Journal of Medicine found that 86 percent of all webcomic artists are, quote, “clownshit insane.” Not that I’m criticizing; I wrote a horror novel about dongs, I’m not going to throw stones from that glass house. But man, there is something about webcomics as a medium that really drives people to reach their craziest potential.

“In our exhaustive analysis in the forums we found that all of the mind-blowingly insane webcomics fit neatly into five categories, which we have arranged in order of most innocuous to the very nightmares of the Devil himself. So hang onto your sanity good and tight as we tour these five circles of webcomic hell, beginning with Level 5, where we find…” — Nick Coffin, Cracked, August 10, 2009

Find out the rest here.

Waiting For Doom: Episode 107

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On Waiting For Doom, hosts Mike and Paul discuss “everyone’s favorite” superhero team, the Doom Patrol. In episode 107,”As In One of the Circles of Hell,” Mike and Paul talk about the Doom Patrol story that references the Inferno, “Tenth Circle” (Justice League of America 2004).

“We take our first nervous steps into an era we’ve never covered before…save for giving the entire run a brief recap back in Episode 7 (February 2015) because SOMEONE at the time refused to buy/read it…anyway, what was I saying? Oh. Yes. This week we take a look at the ‘Tenth Circle’ story from JLA (2004) issues 94 through 99, by John Byrne, Chris Claremont, Jerry Ordway, Tom Orzechowski and David Baron!” [. . .]    —Waiting For Doom, Podbean, October 5, 2017.

You can listen to this episode and more from Waiting For Doom on Podbean, and Apple Podcasts.

To keep up with all things Doom Patrol and see all the visuals from WFD’s episode, check out MyGreatestAdventure80 on Blogspot.

Octobriana and The Tenth Circle of Hell

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Octobriana is a public domain Russian super-heroine, who first appeared in a comic strip in 1971. In the new Octobriana book, titled Octobriana: The Exotic Time Domina, there is a comic spoof of Dante’s Inferno titled “The Tenth Circle of Hell.”

In his review for Kult Creations, John A. Short writes:

“Firstly we have reprints of Reima’s two rare, out-of-print Octo strips from the early nineties… ‘Mission in the North’ (with artist Petri Tolppanen) and ‘The Tenth Circle of Hell’ (with artist Timo Niemi.) It is ‘The Tenth Circle of Hell’ that is the backbone of this book, since it runs to 37 pages and is by far the longest strip in the collection. The story sees the Spirit of the October Revolution flying her time travelling Wonder Machine to Hell to take on everyone from Cerberus, Pluto (the God not the dog), Medusa, the Devil and her own evil sister (Decabriana!) This spoof of Dante’s Divine Comedy has some great humour and cracking action all in artist Niemi’s macabre woodcut-style.” [. . .]   –John A. Short, Kult Creations, October 9, 2015.

In addition to “Mission in the North” and “The Tenth Circle of Hell”, the new Octobriana book includes the comic strips “Origins”, “Wasted Time”, and “From Cuba with Love.”

This book was written and illustrated by Reima Mäkinen, Petri Tolppanen, Timo Niemi, Vesa Vitikainen and Sauli Jokinen.

You can pick up a copy of Octobriana: The Exotica Time Domina online at Turun Sarjakuvakauppa for 12,00 €.

Nine Circles of Hella-Peño

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“Long, long ago, we promised ourselves that if Jack in the Box ever launched a new Munchie Meal featuring a Hella-Peño Burger, we’d make Ms. Morrow proud (she was, after all, Taft Union High School’s finest 11th-grade English teacher). Have we lost our minds? Probably, but the result is one of the greatest things in the history of things.

With no further delay, feast your eyes on (reverb voice) The 9 Circles of Hella-Peño!” –Robyn Reynolds for Struck on Behance, August 28, 2015.

To get a larger view of the artwork, click here.

You can check out more of Robyn Reynold’s work on Behance and her online portfolio.

You can check out more of Struck’s projects on Behance and the Struck website.

How to Cite

Coggeshall, Elizabeth, and Arielle Saiber, eds. Dante Today: Citings and Sightings of Dante's Works in Contemporary Culture. Website. Access date.

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