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Comics on Catholic Saints and other Catholic Heroes |
This page covers
a large collection of old Catholic comics you can view on line for free, some of the current Catholic comics, the older ones you maybe able to get. You can also read pages on Bible comics by Protestants from a Catholic view point, and sophisticated long comics, called graphic novels which support the Christian faith. There is also a Comics for Catholics index page, a page with successful letters which convinced librarians to add comic book Bibles and a page on getting Catholic and Christian comics, books, and other media into public libraries.
Lots of Free Old Catholic Comics on the InternetTreasure Chest 1946-1963Treasure Chest of Fact and Fun was a series of Catholic Comics that came out about 20 times a year. Each comic I checked had 36 pages. Seventeen years of the series running from 1946 to 1963 is available for free on the Internet. That is over 12 thousand pages. The comic actually ran until 1972, the last nine years are missing, but that will not prevent you from enjoying the first 17.The following link will take you to a page with links to the 1946 comics, click on one of the other years to go to that years comics. Treasure Chest - Catholic Comics. Much of the Treasure Chest series is not specifically about the Bible and the Catholic Church. You might want to use the following link to get to the religious content. I would like to give many thanks to the person who gave me this tip in the guest book. I believe over a thousand people access this page each year. Here is one other set of free resources on the Internet, Christian children's movies and videos. There are links to "Miracle Maker" and a Veggie Tales movie, first rate material. Current Catholic ComicsArcadius PressArcadius Press is putting out a series of graphic novels, remember that means long comic books, on the lives of the saints. Each will have five saints stories, 112 pages long, 15 dollars. You can see what the comics look like on their site. By the way they look very good. The style is similar to what is currently popular in secular comics.Here is an article on the project in a major secular paper, the Telograph. I think that is a major English paper. Here is another article from The Saint Lousis Review, the weekly newspaper of the Archdiocese of Saint Louis. You can google Arcadius Press to find many more, but actually I did not learn much more by going through the first couple of pages of Google. Daughters of Saint PaulThe Daughters of Saint Paul through their publishing house Pauline Press are offering three comics. One is on the Rosary, is 56 pages long, and costs $5.95. The second is on Padre Pio, it is 62 pages long and costs $7.95. I have not read any of these, all three have come out recently. The third is a comic on Pope John Paul II. It is 64 pages and costs 7.95.You can find them on the Pauline Press web site. Over the last few years the Daughters of St. Paul have been offering a series of comics on the lives of many different saints, but I have been told this is going out of print and I could no longer find it on their web site. More on this below in the out of print comics section. Factoid PressThe Big Book of Martyrs is a comic on the deaths of many Catholic martyrs. This book appeals to many devote Catholic men, I have never seen a woman who liked it. The comic, like its topic, is gruesome.Like the other books in DC Comics Big Book series, there are many different artists, the cover says more than 50, each with there own unique style of drawing comics. I found the different styles interesting, but like most aspects of this book it appeals to rather mature tastes rather than children. Most of the styles are properly respectful of the topic, but maybe five of the artists have styles that are not particularly respectful. As far as I know they did not go out of their way to be disrespectful. It is probably just the case that their style is not respectful and they did not change it, or change it enough, for this book. The writer, who put the whole thing together, is respectful of the Catholic faith. He ends by suggesting that we should aspire to be martyrs. I read and reread this book and found it inspiring, but so far I have not become an Martyr. Nevertheless, it is not for women and children. In fact it says for mature audiences right on the cover. If your target is young men, however, this could be a useful. The Big Book of Martyrs is 192 pages long and the pages are larger than normal size. The comics are in black and white. You can find The Big Book of Martyrs at comic book stores and Amazon.com. The list price is about 15 dollars, 11.66 at Amazon. This is a relatively good price, but not as good as some of the comic book bibles. Out of Print and Going out of print Catholic ComicsThere are also several out of print Catholic comics that you maybe able to find. As mentioned above the Daughters of Saint Paul put out a series of comics on the famous saints. The Daughters of Saint Paul are still selling about five of them on their web site. These were originally done in France in I believe 1994. In 1995 they came out in English. I think there were about nine in the series. They were about 2 dollars per comic, for about 30 pages. The pages were somewhat smaller than a normal comic book. The Saints covered in the series are:
I sent a letter to the Daughters of Saint Paul in 1994 suggesting that they do the lives of the Saints in comic book form. They sent me a nice letter back saying that it was a great idea but they could not do it. Was my letter the stimulus for the French comic book series. Perhaps, but as both my letter and the French series were 1994 I would not be surprised if the French series was actually started before I sent the letter to the Daughters of Saint Paul. Did my letter stimulate the Daughters of Saint Paul to go looking for comics on the lives of the saints. Perhaps, but perhaps the Daughters of Saint Paul or some other Catholic publisher would have imported the French comics any way. I have frequently thought up ideas that I did not send to a company only to have the company come out with the product a few weeks or months later even though they could not possibly have gotten the idea from me, so it could all be coincidence. Currently I am trying to find a new publisher for the series, perhaps one who will combine all or most of the comics into one book. I have contacted three publishers, one is showing a little interest. Marvel comics came out with a series of three comics, on St Francis of Assisi, Pope John Paul ll and Mother Teresa. They sold a huge number of copies and you may well be able to find these if you keep your eyes open. In addition to Treasure Chest comics which as I mentioned above and are already on the net, I learned through my guest book that there were two other long running Catholic Comic series: the Catechetical Guild's TOPIX, about 300 issues, ran weekly in 40s and 50s, HEROES ALL, about 100 issues, mainly in 40s. It does show that Catholics were once strong in comics and we should do it again. We also might try to contact the copyright holders and get these series on the Internet. Especially if we have reason to believe that the Treasure Chest series is being used heavily. A big thanks to the guy who left the note in the guest book. Web pages have the potential to be cooperative, collecting information from many.
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