Two years in the making, The Lion Kids Comic Bible, was published last week 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 previously worked on strips such as Wallace and Gromit, Shaun the Sheep, Sesame Street, and provided work for Transformers, Beano, Dandy and Marvel UK.
Pencils and colour of the cover for the Lion Kids Comics Bible – art by Mychailo Kazybrid, inked by Bambos Georgiou
Artist Mychailo Kazybrid is no stranger to adapting Bible stories into comic strip, having previously provided strips for the Scripture Union, such as the Easter Bible Comic, which are distributed into schools in the UK and elsewhere – but this latest project was far more challenging.
“A great deal of the material I drew for Scripture Union was more teaching based for youngsters,” Mychailo told downthetubes. “Equally, when I produced The Great Bible Adventure for Candle Books, that was still very much keeping to most of the original content of biblical stories. What I enjoyed about The Lion Kids Comic Bible was that the brief given was to produce a kind of children’s annual, but where all the characters and strips were based on various biblical ones.
“Oh yes – and to throw into the mix, a feel of The Simpsons, provide a European cartoon style, which I thought could well work.
The Red Sea Crossing, retold in the Lion Kids Comic Bible
“Thankfully, I was given a mountain of freedom with both the scripts and all the pencils, producing the work at two levels: fun for the kids with lots of detail, and lots of additional background humour for the grown ups, for example, camel and donkey disabled parking!
“It took two years to do, but working with an amazing professional team helped to produce what hopefully will be seen as a fantastic product.
The team are delighted by response so far, particularly Mychailo.
“I was really taken back with the highly positive response on some of the book review sites,” says Mychailo. “It’s wonderful to see five stars. All credit to the team.”
• The Lion Kids Comic Bible is on sale now through all good book shops and online stores, including Amazon (Affiliate Link)
• Mychailo Kazybrid is online at kazybridscharactercreation.blogspot.com | Humph the Cat
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The founder of downthetubes, which he established in 1998. John works as a comics and magazine editor, writer, and on promotional work for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He is currently editor of Star Trek Explorer, published by Titan – his third tour of duty on the title originally titled Star Trek Magazine.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine, Babylon 5 Magazine, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics. He has also edited several comic collections, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”.
He’s the writer of “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.
Categories: British Comics, Creating Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News
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