Holiday Reading Room PICTURE STORIES FROM THE BIBLE: NEW TESTAMENT "Story of Jesus: Part One"

The origin tale of Jesus Christ has, usually, been presented tastefully, even reverently!

Here's the most-reprinted comic book version of all...

The story continues with a caption mentioning that Mary and Joseph escaped and then takes up with Jesus as a 'tween.

Originally published by All-American Comics under the DC Comics logo in 1942, later editions were done by EC Comics after publisher MC Gaines sold his rights to most of the All-American line to National Allied Publications who combined the two groups into National Periodical Publications.

(National Allied and All-American had been marketing and distributing their books together, usually using the DC Comics logo, which was the result of an earlier buyout of Detective Comics Inc by National!)

Retaining the rights to the Picture Stories series, Gaines used it as the cornerstone of his new EC Comics imprint.

Note: EC Comics, now famous (or infamous) for its horror/sci-fi titles and MAD was originally conceived as Educational Comics with lots of wholesome, young-kid oriented material like Tiny Tots Comics and Land of the Lost!

Don't remember them?
Their sales (except for the Picture Stories of the Bible) were pitiful.

That's why "Educational" Comics became "Entertaining" Comics, though they continued reprinting Picture Stories (but without the EC logo on the front after the whole "Seduction of the Innocent" scare...)

Note: the entire Picture Stories series (including this tale) was written by Montgomery Mulford & Edward Wertheim and illustrated by Don Cameron!

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Picture Stories from The Bible
The New Testament in full-color comic strip form
(The Complete EC Mini-Series)
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Comics About the Guy Christmas is Named After!

It's the Sunday before Christmas, an appropriate time to look at comic book stories about...

...the birth of Jesus Christ, the one and only!

BTW, your eyes do not deceive you!

Marvel Comics published a one-shot about the origin of Christ!

You can read that long out-of-print story by clicking on these links...

Part 1

Part 2

Conclusion

But there's more!

Here's a shorter, never-reprinted version from Marvel's 1950s predecessor, Atlas Comics...

Bible Tales for Young Folks

From a small publisher who did only a half-dozen comics, all based on Christian themes...

Life of Christ Visualized

Fiction House, noted for really-fun series like Planet Comics and Sheena: Queen of the Jungle took a somewhat more sensationalistic approach to telling the story of the Nativity....using 3-D!

Part 1

Conclusion

and Finally...

EC Comics, aka Entertaining Comics, the guys who later gave the world graphic horror in Tales from the Crypt, Vault of Horror, and Haunt of Fear began as Educational Comics, publishing wholesome material like Picture Stories from Science, Picture Stories from American History, Picture Stories from World History, and Picture Stories from the Bible...which ran material based on the Old Testament!
They added a second series of Bible tales, this time from the New Testament, kicking off with Christ's birth!
Suprisingly, as you'll see, the gave very little attention to the actual event, covering the whole thing in only 1 1/2pages!

Picture Stories from the Bible: New Testament Edition

Monday Madness / Thanksgiving Turkey TINY TOT COMICS "Dunny the Flying Donkey on Christmas Eve!"

Before EC Comics Became Entertaining Comics and Did Xmas Tales Like This...

...they were known as Educational Comics, and told Xmas tales like this never-reprinted story from EC's Tiny Tot Comics #10 (1947) that qualifies as our "Thanksgiving Turkey" for 2024!

Dunny the Flying Donkey was one of several ongoing strips in Tiny Tot Comics created, written, and illustrated by Burton Geller.

When EC changed direction and cancelled all its' humor and funny animal titles, Geller moved on to other publishers, patricularly Pflaum's Treasure Chest of Fun and Fact, where he remained until he retired in 1963.

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Great Treasury of Christmas Comic Book Stories
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Friday Fascist Fun UNQUOTABLE TRUMP "Trump SuspenStories"

From Now Until Election Day, We'll Be Presenting Examples of How Creatives See Don da Con...

With his current demonizing of legal immigrants...who just happen to be Black, Don da Con returns to his, dare I say, roots!

Interesting to note the Klan leader in the original Wally Wood-illustrated cover from EC's Shock SuspenStories #6 (1952-53)...

...had a red hood!

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Drawn & Quarterly Special Edition

Unquotable Trump

by R. Sikoryak

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Celebrate D-Day...by Reading Comics/Graphic Novels!

It's the anniversary of D-Day, when the Allies, led by America, invaded Fortress Europa...

...and we at Atomic Kommie Comics had our "brother-in-arms" RetroBlog War: Past Present and Future post numerous graphic tales of that epic day, beginning with Marvel's Sgt. Fury and His Howling Commandos hitting the beach on D-Day!

Yes, it was reprinted in a Marvel Masterworks over a decade ago, but those are extremely-expensive and didn't sell very well, so most of you have never seen this tale from over a half century ago!

We gave equal time to Fury's DC counterpart, Sgt. Rock, presenting his never-reprinted D-Day adventure...which was also the final story illustrated by his co-creator Joe Kubert!

It was really crowded at Normandy on June 6th, 1944 since Blackhawk and his team were also there, so it's only fair we present their never-reprinted D-Day adventure...which also doubles as their previously-unrevealed origin...at Hero Histories!

The EC Comics crew, best known for sci-fi and horror, also did a story about D-Day...by three ex-military personnel as seen HERE!

And one of their crew, who served in the Merchant Marine before becoming a paratrooper, did this tale  about our paratroopers on D-Day...

We here at the "parent" RetroBlog joined in with both a brief three-pager...

...and a multi-part retelling courtesy of Gilberton, the publisher behind Classics Illustrated and World Around Us!

Enjoy, and if you have a friend or family member who's a D-Day veteran, tell him "Thank You" for us!

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Essential Sgt Fury and His Howling Commandos

by Stan Lee, Jack Kirby, Dick Ayers and others

And

Showcase Presents Sgt Rock

by Robert Kanigher, Joe Kubert and others

Space Hero Saturdays WEIRD FANTASY "Judgement Day!"

Not every Space Hero uses a ray gun to save the day!

Sometimes, simply talking, the way Tarleton does, is the most effective way!

As Rod Serling, Gene Roddenberry, and Al Feldstein (who wrote this story) could tell you, one of the best aspects of science fiction is the opportunity to present commentary on social issues that you couldn't otherwise show due to censorship.
Most of this blog's audience is too young to know, first-hand, that the societal conditions shown on Cybrinia were, in fact, the way society in most of America was structured up to the mid-1960s.
(And there are aspects that continue to this day!)

This story originally-appeared in EC's Weird Fantasy #18 (1951) to mostly-positive feedback.

But that was pre-Comics Code!

When it was scheduled to be reprinted in Incredible Science-Fiction #33 (1956) it had to be submitted to the newly-created Comics Code Authority.

As explained in the superb book Tales from the Crypt: the Official Archives by Digby Diehl...

This really made ‘em go bananas in the Code czar’s office. 

“Judge [Charles] Murphy was off his nut. He was really out to get us”, recalls [EC editor Al] Feldstein. “I went in there with this story and Murphy says, “It can’t be a Black man”. 

But … but that’s the whole point of the story!” Feldstein sputtered.

When Murphy continued to insist that the Black man had to go, Feldstein put it on the line.

“Listen”, he told Murphy, “you’ve been riding us and making it impossible to put out anything at all because you guys just want us out of business”.

[Feldstein] reported the results of his audience with the czar to [EC publisher Bill] Gaines, who was furious [and] immediately picked up the phone and called Murphy.

“This is ridiculous!” he bellowed.

“I’m going to call a press conference on this. You have no grounds, no basis, to do this. I’ll sue you”.

Murphy made what he surely thought was a gracious concession.

“All right. Just take off the beads of sweat”.

At that, Gaines and Feldstein both went ballistic.

“Fuck you!” they shouted into the telephone in unison.

Murphy hung up on them, but the story ran in its original form.

It was the final color comic book EC Comics published.

MAD was converted into a b/w magazine, removing it from Comics Code approval, and reprints of EC's comics (including this story)...

...in Tales of the Incredible (1965). were published in standard paperback format by Ballantine Books also exempting them from the Code.
EC tried a line of four magazine-sized b/w titles known as "Picto-Fiction" with a more adult approach to storytelling, like pulp magazines, but with more illustrations.
Like MAD, their magazine format bypassed the Code's restrictions, but none of them got past the second issues.

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Tales from the Crypt

Official Archives

(which covers a lot of EC Comics history, not just the horror titles!)

Space Hero Saturdays MARVEL PREVIEW "Good Lord!"

A very kool tribute to EC's Weird Science and Weird Fantasy (& Weird Science-Fantasy)...

...which often combined sci-fi space hero adventure with horror elements!

There's an especially-ironic note to this EC tribute tale...the "Crusty Bunkers" inker ensemble, who like EC's "Fleagle Gang", who would help each other out with tight deadlines in the 1950s!
The Fleagles consisted of Al Williamson, Angelo Torres, Frank Frazetta, and Roy Krenkel with occasional assistance by Russ Heath, Wally Wood and Joe Orlando.

Their projects were often last-minute art "jams" with people doing anything from a figure or backgrounds in a panel to full pages at a shot.

The 1970s/80s equivalent was "The Crusty Bunkers", and consisted of artists based at Neal Adams' Continuity Associates art studio.

On this particular tale from the b/w magazine Marvel Preview #1 (1975), written by Marv Wolfman and penciled by Dave Cockrum, they were...(in alphabetical order) Neal Adams, Terry Austin, Pat Broderick, Russ Heath, and Joe Rubenstein.

And, like the Fleagles, they inked the story piecemeal, so you can see several different artists' styles on various pages, and even individual panels!

Penciler Dave Cockrum himself was at an artistic peak, having recently-finished his run on DC's Legion of Super-Heroes and was working on Marvel's then-recently-revived X-Men series that would make Marvel's mutants marketable again!
(Say that five times fast!)

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Taylor Illustrated History

Science Fiction Comics