Thomas Nelson, Marvel team on glossy project.
Comic books have long been the black sheep of literature. Yet, while many literati consider them trash, comics provide a motivation for many children to read. And such comic characters as Superman and Popeye are firmly established as icons of American culture.
This year Thomas Nelson Publishers is trying an unusual experiment, introducing three lines of comic books in both Christian and secular comic-book stores.
Some Thomas Nelson staff whose young children were drawn to comics noticed there was little available from a Christian viewpoint. Realizing they did not have the resources in-house, the publisher struck a deal with Marvel Comics to produce a series of comics under Nelson’s editorial direction, using Marvel artists and writers. The resulting comics would be marketed in Christian markets by Thomas Nelson and in comic-book stores by Marvel.
Colorful history
Marvel is the largest comic-book publisher in the world, known for its series featuring heroes such as Spider-Man and Captain America. Around since the 1930s, Marvel now publishes more than 100 comic-book titles, with monthly sales of around 14 million. The Life of Jesus comics are the first of a series of Bible-story comic books. Thomas Nelson’s second series, Christian Classics, is a variation on the Classics Illustrated series—classic Christian books in comic-book form. The first of these, Pilgrim’s Progress, is a striking adaptation of the John Bunyan classic; the primary difference in story line between the comic book and the original is that the story has been updated to the twentieth century. The second Christian Classic, currently in production, is The Screwtape Letters by C. S. Lewis.
The third line of coproduced comics is perhaps the most interesting. The Illuminator looks, at first glance, like a standard superhero comic book, but on closer examination, the superhero is a Christian, and spiritual discussions and struggles are an integral part of the story lines.
There have been several previous attempts at putting Bible or Christian stories in comic-book form. In the secular market, DC Comics, publisher of Superman and Batman, produced a series of illustrated Bible comics in the 1940s. Within the past decade, Marvel produced biographical comic books on Pope John Paul II and Mother Teresa.
In Christian bookstores during the 1970s, Revell sold comic-book adaptations of the books The Cross and the Switchblade and Charles Colson’s Born Again as part of the Archie comics series.
Engaging the culture
Darryl Winburne, editor on the Thomas Nelson side of the production team, says, “Everyone has gifts, and with them come burdens. The Illuminator is a teenager who can fly and has super strength, and he has to figure out how best to use these gifts to help people. When the Illuminator has a struggle, it’s not always a fist-fighting ‘slugfest’ like you see in many comics; quite often his powers alone are not enough, and he has to beat his enemies and solve his problems in other ways.”
Glenn Herdling, the 28-year-old Marvel writer of The Illuminator, has been writing comics for six years, including work on such well-known characters as Spider-Man and Mighty Mouse. Herdling says, “Andrew Prentiss, the teenager who gains super powers and becomes the Illuminator, is deliberately modeled on my own teen years and struggles—except, of course, that he’s got these awesome powers, and I don’t.”
Concern over violence
The level of violence and the occult aspects of some of the villains may be disturbing to some parents. “But it’s a comic book, and in order to hold interest, a comic book needs action; it has to have conflict,” Herdling says.
“I would ask parents to read the comic and look at the overall message, which is a positive, Christian message framed in a language that kids can understand. As to the occult elements, much of the Christian life is a spiritual war; we’re trying to depict that. In particular, a hero is only as heroic as a villain is villainous.”
The primary difficulty in selling The Illuminator to the secular comic-book market is not the subject matter, but the price.
As a book publisher, Thomas Nelson wants the comics to look as high quality and booklike as possible. They have more pages than standard comics, carry no advertising, and are printed using higher-quality paper and ink than standard comics.
Thomas Nelson likes to call them “illustrated novels,” a variation on the comic industry term “graphic novel.” Because of this, the 48-page Illuminator sells for $4.99. As one comic store owner put it, “That’s a pretty stiff price for a comic with no well-known characters, artists, or writers.”
It may well be the response in the Christian market, then, that determines the comic’s success or whether a format change to lower the price will be necessary.
By Ross Pavlac in Chicago.
