Mendy and the Golem, originally written by Leibel Estrin and later by Matt Brandstein, is the name of two Americancomic book series featuring Jewish characters.
The original was a slapstickcomedy aimed primarily at children. The second series straddles a variety of genres, including swashbuckling adventures with elements of fantasy, mystery, and science fiction, while retaining slapstick humor offset by dashes of satire and political and cultural commentary.
Publication history
The first Mendy and the Golem series followed the exploits of Mendy Klein, who found a Golem in their father's synagogue. The Klein siblings and their Golem (named Sholem) get into all sorts of scrapes, and walk out of them with a moral based on Jewish texts.
In the second series, the Kleins have created a modern-day Golem with the assistance of the venerable Reb Zushe, an aging Rabbinicalscholar. This version of the characters originated as a series of comic strips, Mendy's Fun Page that ran weekly in Jewish newspapers in North America and Australia, beginning in 1997.
Mendy and the Golem Vol. 2, #3 (#9) (March 1983). Cover art by Dovid Sears.
1981 series
Billed as "The World's Only Kosher Comic Book", Mendy Enterprises' Mendy and the Golemfirst appeared in 1981. Written by Leibel Estrin and drawn by Dovid Sears, the comic book featured the offbeat misadventures of Mendy, an Orthodox Jewish boy, and his pet Golem. Other characters include Mendy's parents, Rabbi Yaakov and Sara Klein; Mendy's sister, Rivky; and a host of colorful supporting characters such as Moshe the Mayven; the Lone Stranger and his faithful friend Toronto; Captain Video; Dr. Hardheart and his evil robot Oy Vayder; and Professor Nemo.
Nineteen issues were produced.
2003 series
A new Mendy and the Golem series appeared in 2003, published by The Golem Factory. Under editor-in-chief Tani Pinson, it was written by Matt Brandstein and featured art by Stan Goldberg, Ernie Colón and Joe Rubinstein.
A golem is an animated anthropomorphic being in Jewish folklore, which is created entirely from inanimate matter, usually clay or mud. The most famous golem narrative involves Judah Loew ben Bezalel, the late 16th-century rabbi of Prague. According to Moment magazine, "the golem is a highly mutable metaphor with seemingly limitless symbolism. It can be a victim or villain, man or woman—or sometimes both. Over the centuries, it has been used to connote war, community, isolation, hope, and despair."
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Matt Brandstein is an American writer and occasional Bollywood film actor. He is most known for his writing of the popular Jewish children's comic book series Mendy and the Golem. Brandstein often employs the use of his Hebrew name Moshe in honor of his Jewish heritage.
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Mendy Pellin is an American Chabad Hasidic comic with a web-based satirical news show called "The Mendy Report". "Mr. Pellin, a garrulous 25-year-old, was beginning yet another segment as the host of The Mendy Report, an Internet news broadcast on the Web site ChabadTube.com. He runs the broadcast out of his childhood bedroom, now cluttered with production lights and videotape cassettes, in his family’s fourth-floor walk-up apartment on Kingston Avenue in a Hasidic enclave of Crown Heights, Brooklyn."
The Goetic demon Astaroth, whose name is derived from Ashtoreth, the biblical spelling of the name of the Phoenician goddess Astarte, has appeared many times in modern popular culture.
Mendy can refer to:
Mendy is a given name and can refer to:
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