I have been slowly reviewing Allegories of the Way by Todd Melchizedek over the last week and have to admit that this has been an interesting journey into many things I don’t know about. I am not an expert on Angels, the Fallen Angels, or many of the issues that Todd explores in his graphic novels. Overall it would be easy for me to say that “oh it is a Christian Comic” and simply dismiss it, but Allegories of the way simply will not let a reader dismiss it at all. Rather you are drawn into the complex mix of what is it really like to be an impatient angel, the banality and commonality of our sins, and how that can lead to frustration, as we are all guilty of something.
Published by the small press Weapons Press with a small portion of the proceeds going to ministries and support services for Christians this series feels deeply personal. I have no idea of Todd’s background, but the entire series feels like an internal journey into the issues that beset people regardless of religious background. We all struggle, we all are impatient, we all want good things to happen, we all want to do something, we all question.
What is surprising to me that there are so few good Christian comics that explore the commonality of the human condition. That is where Todd’s series fits in, you don’t have to be a Christian to get this, you don’t have to have secret insider information to understand the impatience and the stories in the book. You simply have to be you living a normal human existence to get this. I truly wish more religious comic books worked from this same premise. The comic is solidly reminiscent of comic books like the “Golden Plates” series that caters to the Mormon belief, approachable by all, not too preachy, and not filled with imagery that will not make sense to people who are not of the particular religion that the comic comes from.
This raises the question, is there room for religion in comics? From my vantage point religious comics are rare, and will most likely cater to a small subset of a small subset of believers. Independent comics are more likely to explore religious themes than mainstream comics, but even Marvel has been known to push out religious based comic book series. From what I understand they have yet failed to penetrate the markets in any noticeable way. So what is it about religious comics that make them so unmarketable to a more massive audience? Maybe Todd’s approach will work here, while overtly Christian, the book is readable and understandable by anyone. The stories are human stories even if they are in the guise of Angels, we all have been there.
It will be interesting to see where this story line ends up, and I do plan on following up with Todd as he explores this character set and the story lines. Like most human stories, there is no end, only possibilities. Maybe that is what religious based comic book series needs, more human elements, with a bit of higher power supervision to go along with that story line.
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I’m sure the market for Christian themed comic books are rauther high, with the rise of metal, punk, even hip-hop themed Christian music its clear that they have figured out that keeping the attention of the youth requires more up to date forms of media than the same old hymns covered for the 300th time in the exact same style. Recently I have noticed a influx of Christian themed horror films being producted as well.
Interesting – my exposure to anything religious themed is pretty minimal. What christian horror movies are being made? That would be interesting to see.
Off the top of my head there was a film called “House” not to be confused with the 80′s comedy horror I believe this one was released in 2009, and there is also the flicks “‘The Message” and “The Familiar”. We get press releases time to time for Christian themed horror films we just don’t cover them because they just don’t work for our target reader base. Some of them are done decent but a lot of them are very cheesy and alienate any non religious viewer which really limits their ability at any sort of mainstream success.