Christianity and Comics

Stories We Tell about Heaven and Hell

By Blair Davis

Rutgers University Press

The Bible has inspired Western art and literature for centuries, so it is no surprise that Christian iconography, characters, and stories have also appeared in many comic books. Yet the sheer stylistic range of these comics is stunning. They include books from Christian publishers, as well as underground comix with religious themes and a vast array of DC, Marvel, and Dark Horse titles, from Hellboy to Preacher.

Christianity and Comics presents an 80-year history of the various ways that the comics industry has drawn from biblical source material. It explores how some publishers specifically targeted Christian audiences with titles like Catholic Comics, books featuring heroic versions of Oral Roberts and Billy Graham, and special religious-themed editions of Archie. But it also considers how popular mainstream comics like Daredevil, The Sandman, Ghost Rider, and Batman are infused with Christian themes and imagery.

Comics scholar Blair Davis pays special attention to how the medium’s unique use of panels, word balloons, captions, and serialized storytelling have provided vehicles for telling familiar biblical tales in new ways. Spanning the Golden Age of comics to the present day, this book charts how comics have both reflected and influenced Americans’ changing attitudes towards religion.

Christianity and Comics is an impressively encyclopedic overview of how U.S. comics have engaged with Christianity over the course of eight decades. Davis writes in a lucid and welcoming style, showing us how comics have promoted Christianity, have critiqued it, and have fused Christian motifs and themes into the larger tapestry of comics storytelling.'
Lee Konstantinou, author of The Last Samurai Reread

BLAIR DAVIS is a Professor in the College of Communication at DePaul University in Chicago. His books include Comic Book Women, as well as The Battle for the Bs, Movie Comics: Page to Screen/Screen to Page, and Comic Book Movies, all from Rutgers University Press.

Introduction

1          The 1940s: From Superheroes to Picture Stories from the Bible
2          The 1950s/1960s: Sunday Schools, Secularism and the Seduction of the Innocent
3          The 1970s: Comix, Jack Chick, Archie and Spire Christian Comics
4          The 1970s/1980s: Marvel, DC, Saints and Sinners
5          The 1990s: Vertigo, Hellboy and Marvel’s Illuminator
6          The 2000s: Genres and Auteurs

Acknowledgments

Notes

Index

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