It’s Iimi! Blood Libel!

On a Monday morning, heading to club period, Yaminah tells the girls that Gali is deeply upset about something involving their religion. They promptly head over to see if they can help Gali, but they are unsure what is wrong. Will they be able to help when the topic turns out to be the ugly history of... Blood Libel

Post-Comic Notes:

March 24^th is the actual day in Butler’s Lives of the Saints “commemorating” these "saints." The Church had been working to remove them from the calendar for a long time, finalizing it in 1969.

A brief overview of “Blood Libel” can be found here: https://www.catholicworldreport.com/2023/04/17/a-short-history-of-the-lie-of-the-blood-libel/

The Catholic Encyclopedia entry that Iimi quotes Pope Innocent IV from can be found here: https://www.newadvent.org/cathen/08386a.htm

If you must read about the accounts of Simon and William, you'll find them in Butler's (the unabridged at least). Just be aware that the Church has ordered them removed from the calendar as spurious and condemns blood libel. The fact that they were never removed from Butler despite the medieval condemnations of blood libel by the Popes is something I deplore.

If you’re curious how Iimi’s sensei uses belts in the martial arts compared to other Aikido schools, here’s how it works (though there seems to be many variations):

Before 6th kyu: white (no belt for Iimi)
6th: yellow (white for Iimi)
5th: yellow w/ stripe (white for Iimi)
4th: blue (white for Iimi)
3rd: blue w/ stripe (white for Iimi)
2nd: brown
1st: brown w/ stripe
(After that comes the black belts)

Image Credits

The medallion of balances on page 15 is  © 2015 Dean Spencer, used with permission. All rights reserved.

Some images used in this comic were AI drafted by the author using NightCafe and then edited by the same. No copyrighted artist names (living or dead) were used in the prompts or for “AI training.”