The Bible has often proven an inspiration for comics adaptation, in various forms, both in straight re-telling of key stories, and humorous adaptations. Here are just a few of them…
Eagle
In Britain, among the best known adaptations are the Bible stories published in Eagle, running on the title’s back page, content that was integral to the weekly comic’s initial editorial mix, which, given its founding editor was the Reverend Marcus Morris, shouldn’t surprise anyone.
Part of the original aim of Eagle was to offer an alternative to post-war American horror and crime comics, seen as polluting young minds. These only grew after Eagle launched. We’ve previously noted government concerns in response to fears about the impact US horror comics were having on children, and that a then secret memo circulated to the Prime Minister and the Cabinet in November 1954 noted that deputations from the Education Institute of Scotland, the Glasgow Corporation and the Church of England Council for Education (which was led by the Archbishop of Canterbury) had “urged that the Government should introduce legislation to deal with the matter, and a resolution to that effect has been passed by the Church Assembly.”
(The concerns eventually leading to 1955 Parliament passed The Harmful Publications Act (Children and Young Persons), seeking to protect the nation’s innocence, which is is still on the statute books today, as is the 2009 Coroners and Justice Act, under which it is a criminal offence to possess images depicting certain forms of child abuse. Tge original wording of the latter prompted concerns from a coalition of comic creators, including Neil Gaiman and Bryan Talbot, and publishers and MPs in 2009 when it was being considered by Parliament and was, thankfully, considerably tightened in response).
As Eagle was being developed, space adventurer Dan Dare was originally cast as a space reverend, but wiser heads prevailed and instead he became the humanist action hero still popular with many today.
The Eagle stories featured stories by writers such as Chad Varah, founder of The Samaritans, who supplemented his meagre reverend’s stipend by writing comic strips, and a range of artists, including Frank Bellamy, Frank Hampson and others. The Eagle Times has recently been running a series of features about these, written by downthetubes contributor Steve Winders, and his articles not only compare the comics with the original Bible narrative, but reveal how much work went into creating them.
Back in 2009, I worked on two collections of Eagle’s Bible stories for Titan Books, under the banner “Classic Bible Stories” – the first book edited freelance by myself, featuring “The Road of Courage” by Frank Hampson and “Mark, The Youngest Disciple”, drawn by Giorgio Bellavitis, released in 2010, and still available. David Leach was Titan’s in-house editor on the book and Spaceship Away’s Dez Shaw provided all the scans.
Sadly, planned background feature material – including images of the sculpted head of Jesus Hampson used as reference, then owned by the late Dave Westaway – were dropped from the publication, and I wasn’t able to persuade the Archbishop of Canterbury to write an introduction. For some reason, Titan ran from any suggestions that might encourage sales by churchgoers, including getting the title into SPCK bookshops.
Concurrent with this, a film adaptation of the life of Christ inspired by The Road of Courage, was then in pre-production, and I had a lot of discussion about it with the team at Bill Melandez Productions Inc (BMPI), the animator of the Charlie Brown and Snoopy cartoon series. Re-titled Jerusalem A.D., the project was based on the illustrations of Frank Hampson, and was announced in March 2009, but initially the news was picked up by religious newspapers such as the Baptist Times.
Unfortunately, the producers fell foul of muddy rights issues, having initially approached IPC/ Time believing them owners of Eagle, to be told they “reserved judgment” on whether they owned the strip or not, prompting much confusion, since it was the Dan Dare Corporation who laid claim to ownership as far as Titan were concerned, and who Titan licensed rights from.
A second volume of Classic Bible Stories, comprising “The Shepherd King” (written by Clifford Makins and drawn by Frank Bellamy) and “The Great Adventurer”, the story of Saint Paul (written by Chad Varah, drawn by Frank Hampson) was scheduled for release in 2011 but, presumably, sales on the first were disappointing, as it wasn’t progressed, even though editorial material was being prepared and the collection was listed by online retailers for years.
The Bible Story
Post-Eagle, the Look and Learn stable of titles expanded in early 1964 with The Bible Story, edited by Edward Holmes. It didn’t include comics, but the art was stunning. We had a set as kids, and I vividly recall how impressive these magazines were, despite the title’s short run. It featured a variety of articles on aspects of the Bible, retelling many stories and parables in terms easily understood by children alongside articles on animals which featured in the Bible and biographical strips such as “The Story of Abraham” illustrated by Pat Nicolle and “Herod the Great”, illustrated by Don Lawrence, the latter better known, of course, as the artist on “The Rise and Fall of the Trigan Empire”.
Although beautifully produced, the Look and Learn web site , which owns the rights, notes the high price of 1/6d made it too expensive for children to buy, and suggests parents showed no great enthusiasm for it. Bible Story lasted just 29 issues, folding in September 1964.
“While the articles were well written and researched, it was the quality of the illustrations that made these magazines shine,” notes comic artist and writer David Hine in a series of articles about the title.
Dudley D. Watkins
Dudley D. Watkins, an artist integral to the success of DC Thomson’s comics, co-creator of “The Broons” and “Oor Wullie”, illustrated some Bible stories for the publisher in the 1960s.
Christian Comics International notes that despite his busy work schedule, Watkins still found time to pursue activities related to his faith in Christ. He was a strong Believer and an enthusiastic supporter of the Church of Christ in Dundee, where he met his wife. Watkins was also involved with the Dundee For Christ organisation and was president of the Dundee United Evangelistic Association and Tent Mission. On his desk he had a huge Bible on a stand, a Bible in which he made copious notes in the wide margins.
From 1956 he produced the comic strips “William the Warrior” and “Tony and Tina – The Twins” for Young Warrior, a children’s comic paper, published by the Worldwide Evangelisation Crusade (WEC). These strips, filled with Scriptural quotations, were collected into a series of booklets.
Watkins also illustrated two full-colour Bible stories for DC Thomson: “David” appeared in the 1968 Sparky annual and “The Road to Calvary” appeared in the 1969 annual.
Watkins had planned to spend his retirement painting and walking the countryside, which was one of his chief pleasures, but did not achieve it, or fulfil his ambition to adapt the whole Bible into illustrated format. On the morning of 20th August 1969 his wife found him at his desk with a half-finished ‘Desperate Dan’ strip. He had died of a heart attack. His strips continue to be popular to this day.
Pass It On: Bible Tales Like You’ve Never Read Them Before
Pass It On: Bible Tales Like You’ve Never Read Them Before, published in 2015 by The British and Foreign Bible Society, features contributions from authors including Anthony Horowitz, Kev F. Sutherland, and Martin Coleman. It offers a fresh, potentially unconventional retelling of various biblical stories, designed to be engaging and accessible.
Copies are still available on AmazonUK (Affiliate Link) and Amazon.com
Beano and Shakespeare graphic novel creator Kev Sutherland provided the cover, and his take on the Samson story, which he talks about here on his blog.
The Lion Kids Bible Comic
The Lion Kids Comic Bible, was published in 2019 by Lion Children’s Books, a collaborative project from Ed Chatelier (original concept), Mychailo Kazybrid (script and pencils), Bambos Georgiou (inks), Jeff Anderson (colourist) and Jesus Barony (colourist).
Described as great for reluctant readers, offering fun for all ages, the book offers 60 Bible stories in comic strip style, from a team that includes several former Marvel UK creators.
The team involved have also worked on strips such as Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Sesame Street, and provided work for Transformers, Beano, Dandy and Marvel UK. You can read our 2019 news story here
• The Lion Kids Comic Bible is on sale now through all good book shops and online stores, including Amazon (Affiliate Link)
The Word for Word Bible
Currently in production is an unabridged, untamed and historically rich Bible comic project, The Word for Word Bible Comic produced by a team based in Bristol led by Simon Pillario. This ambitious project, online at wordforwordbiblecomic.com, has been running since 2012, is now well and truly established now, currently adapting the New Testament. Editions of their books are also available in Spanish.
Based in Bristol, Simon Pillario has a degree in graphic design and has been creating comics for over 20 years. He became a committed Christian at the age of 23 and after reading the Bible as an adult was struck by how much of the exciting intrigue, drama and challenging elements are dropped from dramatisations and retellings of the stories.
The project has also released The Great Commission, a cooperative (or solo) strategy game set in the first-century Roman Empire, the bold contemporary artwork is drawn from the Acts of the Apostles: Word for Word Bible Comic. You take on the challenge of leading a church in the tumultuous Roman era. Manage a church full of diverse personalities, each contributing their own unique abilities and gifts, but also bringing their struggles with sin, conflict or even demonic opposition.
In addition to the official website at wordforwordbiblecomic.com, you can follow the project on Facebook, too.
The Bible Abroad
Beyond Britain, there’s been a huge number of retellings of the Bible, in various different forms, far too numerous to detail for the purposes of this article. Christian Comics International has a catalogue of them here, including the Manga Mesiah Graphic Novel Series.
US publishers Marvel published Life of Christ: The Easter Story, written by Louise Simonson with art from Mary Wilshire and Colleen Doran, inked by Bill Anderson; and DC Comics started to produce an adaptation of the Bible in the mid-1970s, as one of their Treasury range. The first book in the projected series adapted the earliest chapters of the book of Genesis, including the stories of The Garden of Eden, the Flood, and Sodom and Gomorrah. Drawn by Joe Kubert alongside the criminally underrated Nestor Redondo, distribution seems to have been patchy.
While the adaptation never continued, the first volume has become something of a legend among collectors, and was reprinted in a deluxe hardcover edition in 2012 (AmazonUK Affiliate Link).
Then, of course, there is The Wolverton Bible. Cartoonist Basil Wolverton was known for his grotesque drawings, fantastically odd creatures, spaghetti-like hair, smoothly sculpted caricatures and insanely detailed crosshatching. His career in the golden age of comic books lasted from 1938 until 1952, after which his illustrations and caricatures extended into such publications as Life, Pageant and MAD magazines. Stylistically, he has been regarded as one of the spiritual grandfathers of underground and alternative comix.
Less well known and understood is his work for the Worldwide Church of God, headed until 1986 by radio evangelist Herbert Armstrong. From 1953 through 1974, Wolverton, a deeply religious man, was commissioned and later employed by the church to write and illustrate a narrative of the Old Testament (including over 550 illustrations), some 20 apocalyptic illustrations inspired by the Book of Revelations, and dozens of cartoons and humorous illustrations for various Worldwide Church publications.
Scurrilous Scriptures!
Let’s not forget that not every take on Bible stories is one intent on delivering a religious message, Outrageous Stories from The Old Testament by Alan Moore and Hunt Emerson, for example, published by Knockabout in 1987, was a collection of stories highlighting and accurately translating Biblical stories they normally skip at Sunday School….
If you’re looking for other alternative takes, rather than straight adaptations, then Robert Crumb’s re-telling of The Book of Genesis may also be up your street! Envisioning the first book of the Bible like no one before him, Crumb, the legendary illustrator, retells the story of Genesis in a profoundly honest and deeply moving way…
Head downthetubes for…
• Christian Comics International
With thanks to Myles Sullivan, who kicked off a discussion thread on Facebook some time back now, that initially prompted this article, David Hine, David Leach, David Robertson and many others
- About the Author
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
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