religious comics

Happy Easter

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Unfortunately, I have never seen the remaining comics in the “Jesus in Jerusalem” series. This year, Easter falls on April Fool’s Day, and my apologies if this seems like a(nother) prank — last year, I had a little fun. Since the Easter story is so well-known, I hope the illustration above will be an acceptable stand-in for the missing Bible Stories Comics. The “Jesus in Jerusalem” series had perhaps nine more episodes before the action switched back to the Old Testament, and a series about Moses began, which ran over the course of an entire year (Wow! How long was he lost in the desert?!)

The Bible Stories Comics I have seen came from two sources — the Kreigh Collins collection in the Grand Rapids Public Library, and my Uncle Kevin’s collection of his father’s artwork. However, I know of another person with access to these comics, reportedly the entire series! The plan is that his company will publish the “Mitzi McCoy” book, and then issue a second volume on the “Lost Art of Kreigh Collins” featuring the Bible Stories Comics. Please stay tuned!

For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.

 

The Darkest Hour

The next three “Bible Picture Story” comics show Jesus’ final hours. Confronted by an angry mob and at the mercy of an ineffective and conflicted administrator, he is stoic as his fate unfolds.

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Although the narrative of Jesus’ crucifixion is likely one of the most famous stories ever, there is one unfortunate surprise ahead — as far as “Bible Picture Stories” are concerned.

For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.

Prophecy Fulfilled

Even though the subject matter of these “Bible Picture Stories” does not fully engage me, I find everything else very interesting. “Jesus in Jerusalem No. 13” has expressive character illustrations, relatable colloquial language, and the final two panels are wonderful. The style is quite similar to the prototype comic Kreigh Collins developed for the NEA, which evolved into “Mitzi McCoy.” (No big surprise, as it was illustrated at about the same point in time as these Bible comics).

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To my eye, No. 14 doesn’t have quite the appeal of the previous comic, but the mood comes across very effectively, as Jesus’ fate hangs in the balance. No. 15 is another marvel. (“Insurrection!” and an raised eyebrow “AWK” — I love it!) It also features a nice variety of perspectives and facial expressions.

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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.

The Last Last Supper

For each episode of “Bible Picture Stories,” Kreigh Collins received a lengthy outline from writer M. C. Wilson. Collins’ first job was to distill the story into six or seven panels, keeping the message intact, a very difficult task. Making it visually interesting was less of a challenge, but still no mean feat. With the Bible as subject matter, the artist had a fine line to walk, so as not to upset his editors or audience. As correspondence between MPH editor Morgan Stinemetz and Collins shows, the artist consistently delivered the goods.

These comics were finished in late summer, 1946, when conversations were just beginning between Collins and his future employer, the NEA syndicate. They appeared in issues of Boys Today and Girls Today in the spring of 1947, during Lent.

The Last Supper was a rare case of the subject matter being spread over two weeks (possibly the only time this happened). Here is part two.

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The Easter story is very familiar, even to a lapsed Episcopalian such as myself. However, I don’t remember Peter’s attack on the guard. The action in the fourth panel foreshadows the swordplay of “Kevin the Bold.”

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For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.

Boys (and Girls) Today

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Mrs. Stephen Collins was Kreigh’s mother Nora. 

Before his comics career took off with the Newspaper Enterprise Association (NEA), Kreigh Collins spent about eight years freelancing for the Methodist Publishing House of Nashville, Tennessee. Collins got his start with the MPH writing and illustrating stories for the Sunday School publications Boys Today and Girls Today. As described in an earlier post, he was eventually asked to illustrate stories from the Bible in comic strip form, and this project became known as “Bible Picture Stories.”

Source material for these weekly Bible comics came from both the Old and New Testaments. The first few years featured extended sequences on Paul, Joseph, Mary, and John the Baptist. Two more sequences followed (Jesus in Galilee; Jesus Leaves Galilee), and then came one on Jesus in Jerusalem, which ran from December, 1946 until June, 1947.

The following comics are from the History & Special Collections Department of the Grand Rapids Public Library. Today, these comics are quite rare—even the library’s collection (given to the library by Collins’ widow, Therese) is incomplete. The sequence that follows starts with the third episode of “Jesus in Jerusalem.”

My understanding of the Bible is not very deep—maybe things would have turned out differently if these sweet comics were part of my Sunday School lessons! However, I do recall a certain villain named Judas…

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Besides the fine illustrations, aspects of the comics that appeal to me are the speech balloons, with Collins’ distinctive lettering, and the colloquial language, must have been relatable for the young reader. The small introductory illustrations at the tops of the comics are nice touch, too.  The fifth comic in the series opens with a large splash panel, as Jesus dramatically confronts the scribes and Pharisees.

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The story told in these comics may be familiar, but check back next week to see how it was told in these mid-1940s comics.

For more information on the career of Kreigh Collins, visit his page on Facebook.

The Song of the Angels

These Bible Picture Stories appeared in childrens’ Sunday school publications, and it is interesting to me that this age-old story shows the shepherds complaining about an age-old problem (i.e., This town is so boring!). I’m sure the target audience could relate. However, things soon change…

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“The Story of Mary” continues for several more weeks, but this seems like an appropriate time to end this sequence.

Merry Christmas!

The Story of Mary

Kreigh Collins had extensive experience with Biblical illustrations, and he used his expertise in the field on numerous occasions as a cartoonist. While the Christmas story never factored into an “Up Anchor!” sequence, it was featured in both of his other NEA-syndicated strips. However, it first appeared in his Bible Picture Stories for the Methodist Publishing House.

In advance of Christmas, here is a portion of “The Story of Mary,” from 1945.

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In the Beginning

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Before creating his NEA-syndicated comics, Kreigh Collins took all sorts of painting and illustration commissions; he also wrote and illustrated books. He found steady illustration work with religious publishers, including Pilgrim Press (“These Men Knew God,” from 1947), the Fideler Company (1948’s “Bible Days”) and The Graded Press (“The Story in the Bible,” 1949), among others. For Nashville’s Methodist Publishing House, he did comics which were reproduced in Sunday School brochures called “Boys Today” and “Girls Today.”

Comic-strip technique was being applied to religious stories in a new way in order to increase their appeal to children. The Methodist Church’s board of education declared this pictorial way of telling Bible stories a great success, and approximately 700,000 copies of the stories were circulated each week. Chapters often ended with suspense questions of the “what will happen next?” variety.

An item in the March 10, 1946 St. Louis Post-Dispatch (top) described the phenomenon and featured several of Kreigh’s comics. The blurb said that Collins had “visited the Holy Land to add authenticity to his work,” but it is more likely the authenticity was provided by hundreds of hours spend doing research at local libraries.

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These early comics showed examples of Kreigh’s style and devices he would employ throughout his career. Note the distinctive lettering, the use of descriptive inset illustrations (above, a phylactery; below, a quintain), and even Jesus’s pose, as he leapfrogs the vase (compare to Brett, at bottom, from a 1955 Kevin).

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