Quarterbin Follies #40: Chronicles of Faith–A Review

Now, it is pretty rare for me to use my column inches to review new comics, ESPECIALLY because the whole point of this series is old books–QuarterBin books. But when Brannon Hollingsworth asked me to chime in on this book–well maybe flattery got the best of me.

Anybody who has spent any amount of time reading, listening, or talking to me, is probably aware that I am a pretty big fan of religion. I think the Bible is true from Genesis to revelation, and I think it’s the single most important piece of literature in the history of mankind. That said, we have had a pretty low bar for Christian art for the last 50 to 70 years.

Now, to be completely frank, most art is not that good. Humans as a race are wildly creative, but not everybody that shoots for the stars gets there. but for some reason that I could not begin to guess, this trend seems more pronounced in current day western Christendom. With fair accusations of cheap, inauthentic cheese, there is a stigma that goes along with creating art based on the Bible.

This regrettable trend is thoroughly bucked in Brainy Pixel and Mercy Ways new comic Chronicles of Faith: David. I recently got the chance to look over a sneak peek for the zero issue, available now. The art quality is top-notch and created by Ivan Anaya and his Ecuadorian Mercy Ways team. The American partner, Brainy Pixel, and their COO/Creative Director Brannon Hollingsworth, came alongside to assist in translation and to produce for the English-speaking market. 

The preview begins with an unknown narrator starting the famous tale of David and Goliath. It’s a beautiful and engaging, but pretty straightforward adaptation of the biblical story when suddenly the story is interrupted by the audience. This has all been a tale told by David himself to his boy Solomon. Solomon demands to hear the rest of the story–the story nobody talks about, and this sets up the rest of the series. I’m really excited to see where they take this. While several of David’s adventures have become storybook standards, taken as a whole David’s life serves as a remarkable human drama–both in victory and in tragedy, success and failure. And this series promises to follow through on that with quality writing that is both biblically accurate and free of saccharin white-washing; and a level of art at the very top of the game. Based on what I’ve seen, I expect great things from Chronicles of Faith.