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It’d be pretty neat to see some manga style icons.

I remember my introduction to St. Francis of Assisi was a comic book circa. early 1980’s. It was fairly high quality, I think possibly by Marvel or one of the other major publishers. I still have it somewhere.

After reading through the whole book, I do find the art style a cross between manga and disney like, its simplicity is something that kids can easily take notice and pick up to read, regardless whether they have read any graphic novel before. The story is simple yet strong and clear cut.

>”Just to let you know the mature name for this form of art is called graphic novel. ”
True. Honestly, though, the style here looks so derivative that I find it difficult to believe this is a mature artwork (I haven’t read the full comic, though, so I’m not passing any final judgement on it). Before the US can create great Christian graphic novels, it first needs to be able to create great graphic novels. Mimicing Japanese artists doesn’t cut it. Flannery O’Connor once pointed out that an artist’s first duty is to art. His faith will certainly influence the final product, but it needn’t be explicit.

She was speaking primarily of traditional novels. For comics, though there are certainly several bright spots, we’ve got a long way to go just to catch up with Japan (and possibly Europe, for that matter).

As a manga/anime nerd (those of us who are more engrossed in the nerd-dom call ourselves “otaku”–Japanese for “geek”), I will say that I’ve seen some Catholic undertones in some manga and anime. Specifically, a more obscure anime series called .hack//SIGN (pronounced “dot hack sign”). It has not-so-subtle pro-life undertones, which I find highly intriguing–a supposedly secular Japanese anime has a hidden pro-life message.