I guess my mother was distressed at all the violence and scantily clad women she saw in the comics I read. Or maybe she was trying to broaden my horizons? I don’t know, but on occasion she’d bring home comics for me. Something with a message. They were books with a strongly Christian theme published by Spire Christian Comics.

She picked them up at the local Christian bookstore.

I was dubious at first. Not even 12 years old, I wasn’t at all interested in reading comics without superheroes or monsters or outer space aliens. But eventually a dry spell hit between new comics on the spin rack and I’d read them.

There were some really good books that mom brought home such as the adaptation of David Wilikerson’s best-selling novel The Cross and the Switch Blade and bio-stories of Tom Landry and Johnny Cash. What really got me going was Corrie ten Boom’s The Hiding Place. Excellent story and scary villains.

Freakin’ nazis.

The books were put out by Spire Christian Comics between 1972 and 1981. Al Hartley of Archie Comics fame wrote and drew most of them.

I suspect that my mom’s hope was to educate me on matters spiritual, but what I took away from those books was that comics were more than just people in capes. They could tell stories from any point in time from any point of view.

It really opened up my mind about the medium.

I’m in Christian bookstores from time-to-time. I can’t say I have seen a comic book there in years.

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