By Lilly Fowler
Religion News Service
Superman may have been able to leap tall buildings in a single bound, but for Christians, Jesus has always been the ultimate superhero.
After all, they say, only Jesus was able to bring salvation to the world through, of all things, his demise.
So maybe it’s no surprise that the comic book industry has decided to once again co-opt Jesus, this time “Manga” style in the tradition of Japanese comics that developed after World War II.
The recently released “Manga Bible” claims to be the “first ever Manga adaptation of the world’s bestselling book.” Illustrated by British-born Nigerian illustrator Ajibayo Akinsiku (otherwise known as Siku) and written by Akin Akinsiku, the books aims to capitalize on the Manga mania that has infiltrated America.
According to a recent article in Wired magazine, sales of Manga comics have tripled in the United States.
Last year, Tyndale House published the “Manga Messiah,” as well as its own version of the “Manga Bible” that spans more than 1,000 pages and includes the entire text of the New Living Translation Bible.
Siku’s edition of the Bible, however, is just over 200 pages and freely uses the vernacular. In one panel, for example, the prodigal son leaves his father with the words, “See ya! Don’t wait up.” In the next panel, he’s surrounded by women and booze.
To fans, Manga is an instantly recognizable art form characterized by sharp lines etched in black and white. Characters typically have large, intense eyes and small mouths, and many scenes have a high-energy, wind-swept feel to them.
“The Manga Bible” spends most of its time (136 pages) in the Old Testament, where the epic battles and colorful characters make for dramatic drawings. The Gospels span about 40 pages, while the mostly theological letters of the New Testament come and go in less than a dozen pages.
Siku says part of the reason he joined the project is because he believes it’s a valid way of communicating to a new generation. He has called the work “a fresh ‘non-religious’ take on Christ.”
But Siku also admits that trying to convey the message of the Bible in such a compressed format was a challenge, especially when the Gospels sometimes contain conflicting stories about Jesus.
Rather than get sidetracked by the inconsistencies, Siku says, he concentrated on the message of the books, and tried to describe the events in an order that makes sense.
“We strung the whole biblical narrative as a continuous story so that the ‘book-by-book’ division you may have seen in other projects is absent,” Siku said.
Christopher Sharrett, a professor of communication and film studies at Seton Hall University, says that although comic-style Bible stories are not necessarily new, what may surprise some is the association of the Bible with Manga — an art form typically connected with violence or erotica.
“The term Manga Bible seems somewhat incongruous,” Sharrett said.
“In very conservative parts of the country … it might be a touchy issue.”
Nathan Butler, president of Comix35, a nonprofit, nondenominational ministry that helps others use “the world’s most popular literature to tell the world’s most vital message,” says, however, that the problem with Siku’s version of the Bible is not that it is done in the tradition of Manga but that it isn’t Manga enough.
According to Butler, the pacing of the writing and the art found in the book just don’t live up to what Manga is all about. Siku is a “really wonderful guy,” Butler said, “but he’s not even close to a Manga artist.”

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