It’s Iimi! Coffee Clash II: Electric Boogaloo

Returning from the mystagogia lessons of RCIA and waiting for the next bus, Iimi and Kismetta have another encounter at the coffee shop with Najiyah. Only this time, she’s joined by Assistant Imam Salah Hamdan.

 

Pre-Comic Notes

If you are wondering about the title, the phrase is often mockingly used for an unwanted and unnecessary sequel. The origin is the 1984 movie Breakin’ 2: Electric Boogaloo… which was an unwanted and unnecessary sequel to a mediocre breakdancing movie.

Post-Comic Notes

If you forgot what “Lesson One” means, this is Peter Kreeft’s term for Socrates’ “realizing that you are ignorant about something.” You need to understand that you’re ignorant before you can start to learn about it (“Lesson Two.”) It’s discussed in Issue 27.

With the Assistant Imam, Salah Hamdan, you need to realize he’s educated, but he’s also young, lacking the experience of the Imam or Ibtihaj. He’s not intended to be a cardboard cutout villain. 

The arguments used by Salah in this comic are arguments actual Muslims have used.

It’s Iimi! The Universe, Galileo, & All That…

Mr. Gehr uses his science class to talk about the beginning of the universe… or is he misusing it to attack the beliefs of Iimi and her friends by means of The Universe, Galileo, & all that…

 

Preliminary Notes:

286 Human intelligence is surely already capable of finding a response to the question of origins. The existence of God the Creator can be known with certainty through his works, by the light of human reason, even if this knowledge is often obscured and disfigured by error. This is why faith comes to confirm and enlighten reason in the correct understanding of this truth: “By faith we understand that the world was created by the word of God, so that what is seen was made out of things which do not appear.”

(Catechism of the Catholic Church #286)

Unfortunately, certain people insist that EVERYTHING in the Bible is supposed to be taken literally. So they rely on an English translation without allowance for language, context, culture, or genre. But not everything in the Bible is intended to be read as history. 

 

Hebrew words like yom (יוֹם) and ʾāreṣ (אֶרֶץ) are commonly translated as “day” and “world,” respectively. But Hebrew has a broader meaning than those English terms. So, we’re not stymied by people who insist that the world is over six thousand years old or there is no evidence of the Flood covering the entire planet.

 

Like Iimi, I accept the Bible as true and view the Catholic Church as the authentic interpreter. I accept that God is the creator of all that has existed. These views come from what the Church has had to say on the subject. Anyone who reads the comic and thinks, “she’s saying the Bible is in error,” has missed the point.

 

All of my information on the Hebrew meaning of words comes from HALOT (The Hebrew-Aramaic Lexicon of the Old Testament). It’s considered the standard modern dictionary for Biblical Hebrew.

It’s Iimi! The Road to Now

Since she first invited Iimi to the Mosque in the hope of making a convert, Kismetta, unwittingly at first, found herself on the road aimed at seeking Christ. Now the road is at its end… and at its beginning.

Readers who need to be reminded of the context for a specific panel, the Issue numbers there correspond with the information on THIS page.

Interestingly enough, Kismetta’s debut on Facebook was April 12, 2020. So, while it was unplanned, it was almost exactly three years from the time she tried to convert Iimi to her Baptism. 

Post-Comic Notes:

From this day forward in the comics, Kismetta is a Catholic. So this might be a good moment to say a prayer for the real-life converts who entered the Church this Easter Vigil. 

 

The title is multi-layered. In one way, it is a comic showing the influential moments in Kismetta’s journey from Islam to Catholicism. But it was also inspired by 2 Corinthians 6:2… “now is a very acceptable time; behold, now is the day of salvation.” So if you looked at the inscription behind Iimi on the cover, you might not have been surprised…

 

Each panel on pages 1-15 came directly from the original comic. I decided against modernizing the graphics of the panels. So, you can see how the comic evolved from 2020 to now. So, You get to see the crude artwork, the clunky word balloons, the overly broad free fonts, the short skirts, and so on. My only changes were removing captions and footnotes to avoid cluttering the panels where I inserted issue information on each panel.