Harry Polarity and the Sinister Sorcery
© Truth For Youth
Your Saviour in Manga
By: Nadia OxfordDate: Sunday, November 25, 2007
Comics are a powerful means by which to get a message across, and one of mankind's favourite messages throughout history has been "Accept my particular God or you're going to be sorry in this life, the next, or both."
If you live in North America, especially somewhere in the southern or Midwestern United States, you've doubtlessly come across a religious tract or two. What's a "tract?" It's a small pamphlet--usually Christian-themed, though other flavours do exist--that explains why you're on your way to Hell, and offers advice on how to stop your one-way journey. Most deliver warnings of the End Times as well, though the "final indicator" changes as one crisis fades and another heats up (unrest in the Middle East, youth obsession with Dungeons & Dragons, rock music, legal abortions, unrest in the Middle East, Y2K, SARS, avian flu, unrest in the Middle East).
For a long time, most tracts were merely single-page leaflets filled with Bible passages. They were admittedly boring; the unsaved usually gave them a quick glance before tossing them in the trash. It was Jack Chick, a half-anonymous independent Baptist, who caught on to the idea that people of any age still love pictures to accompany their text, so in the 1970s he began preaching Salvation through comic books and illustrated tracks (an idea that he, in turn, picked up from the Chinese Communist Party, which used the same means to spread their message to the peasantry). He's been publishing comics and tracts on a rough schedule of once per month, so he has quite a library built up.
Granted, Chick also has a tendency to repeat his themes, and some of his tracts have to make you...wonder about his state of being (note the well-toned, leather-clad men of Sodom and Gomorrah in Doom Town), but there's no denying the impact his comics have had; they've converted thousands of the "lost", individuals whose hearts and souls couldn't be accessed through the Scripture alone.
In response, religious figures, many of whom probably wrote off comics as secular kids' stuff, realised that getting their message across using that secular kids' stuff was better than getting no message across at all. More Christian comics were born in Chick's wake. Of particular note is Spire Christian Comics, famous for the published adventures of their Bizzaro Christian Archie.
Christian comics are still alive and well. The messages and warnings about the soul's well-being remain largely the same (and contain a lot of anti-Harry Potter propaganda laced with warnings about Satanism and witchcraft--as if fantasy novels only popped into existence on that fateful day JK Rowling sat down in a cold coffee shop), but the art style is going through an interesting transition. Some Christian comics and tracts are now being drawn in a manga style, albeit a little slowly.
It's not surprising, since anime and manga are enormously popular with kids today. Just as many children were no doubt suckered into buying Spire's Christian Comics because Archie Comics familiarised them with lead artist Al Hartley's work, the big eyes and punk hair seen with increasing frequency in Christian tracts are an instant draw for kids who are fond of Pokemon and Naruto.
Whether or not the message sticks, who can say. Online tract site Truth For Youth went as far as to re-draw their entire library of tracts, shifting from a nondescript American comic book style to (a pretty hideous) pseudo-manga style, so the influence must certainly be there. Sidenote: Check out Harry Polarity, a warning against the Harry Potter books. It's amusing.
Interestingly, not every instance of Christian manga comes from a non-Japanese imitator. Christianity isn't the religion of choice in Japan, but Christian manga-ka do exist, and manga versions of the Bible are available (Neon Genesis Evangelion doesn't count).
Christian blog Speculative Faith has an interesting entry about where manga and anime fits in the lives of Christian artists. Many still have the medium shelved in their minds as "dirty," probably referring to the piles of hentai, yaoi and yuri that can be found on the Internet. There's also the simple fact that manga and anime have always been a little looser with content: Sexual references and mild cussing can often be found in manga geared towards kids. It's not really anything that would permanently damage a child, but some people object to it.
Will more Christian artists adopt a manga style? Undoubtedly, but some are still afraid to do so because of the "adult" themes found so often in the medium. It's a little ironic to see artists shying away from the style for this reason. If there's any best-selling book out there with more instances of sex, violence, incest and genocide than the Bible, I haven't heard about it. Either way, it's interesting to see the art of religion change according to popular demand.
