Word for Word Bible Comic Brings Scriptures To Life For A New Generation Of Christians
Despite being the bestselling book of all time, the Bible is certainly not the most read. Some find the Christian scriptures intimidating and confusing, while others don’t see the value of daily Bible reading. As a result, Bible engagement has reached an all-time low in many parts of the West.
Seeking to counter this decline, the Word for Word Bible Comic is on a mission to bring the Bible to life like never before. The innovative graphic novel series is the brainchild of British illustrator Simon Amadeus Pillario, who is transforming each book of the Bible into a dynamic, visually engaging comic aimed at adults and older teens.
Pillario was brought up attending church and became a committed Christian in his 20s. Reading the Bible for himself as an adult, he noticed many stories that he’d never come across before. These gripping episodes — filled with political intrigue, power struggles, ruthless betrayals and other mature themes — would never make the cut for a children’s Bible comic.
Why, then, he wondered, hadn’t unabridged versions of these stories been produced as an animated TV series, a movie, or, indeed, a graphic novel for adults? The more he pondered, the more he realised that this was a project he needed to take on himself.
“When I started the comic I wasn’t sure if it would work,” he said.
But he soon found that the biblical text lends itself surprisingly well to a graphic novel format.
“The Bible has very little in the way of description; it doesn’t spend pages setting the scene or describing people and places in the way a novel like ‘The Lord of The Rings’ does. It’s much more direct,” he added.
The Word for Word Bible Comic is not trying to reinvent the Bible. Rather, it is a genuine attempt to represent the scriptures as accurately and as faithfully as possible for a new generation of readers for whom images hold the key to a greater understanding and appreciation of the world’s best-selling book.
Of course, this is not the first project that has transformed the Christian scriptures into a comic. But unlike its predecessors, the Word for Word Bible Comic has some unique aspects.
First, as the title suggests, it is completely unabridged, with every single word of the scriptures included. Descriptive phrases and words rendered redundant by the illustrations, such as “he said” are still included, placed inconspicuously between the panels, leaving each page looking slick and uncluttered.
“It’s important for the comic to be word-for-word because when things are removed from scripture, you risk misrepresenting the text,” Pillario said. “Children’s Bibles re-write the stories but often end up subverting the message by becoming moralistic tales instead of Gospel ones.”
Illustrations courtesy of Word for Word Bible Comic
Second, the comics are historically accurate, utilizing the best available scholarship and archaeological evidence to ensure that the ancient settings are represented with precision, from the architecture and clothing, to the plants, pottery and weapons. Landscapes are based on real locations across the Middle East, while period-specific maps help pinpoint the action geographically.
In the Book of Judges, the armor and chariots of the Philistines is authentically depicted right down to the documented colors. The comic even shows the shift from four-spoked chariot wheels to six-spoked wheels that occurred between the late Bronze Age and early Iron Age. This incredible attention to detail immerses readers into the stories in a far more immediate way than text alone.
Finally, the project is untamed, refusing to shy away from the Bible’s mature and complex adult themes, such as war, murder, rape and even infanticide. The comics are therefore not child-friendly, with some titles carrying a 12+ or 15+ age rating. That’s not to say they are gratuitous or unnecessarily explicit — evil is not glamorized or unduly dwelt on — but there is certainly no sugar coating. The comic thus bridges the gap between simplified children’s Bibles and the often shocking events of the full, unadulterated text.
“There are people who don’t believe and would like to read the Bible but find it intimidating, and there are people who have come to faith but find the Bible too dense and hard going,” Pillario said.
Accessibility is therefore a key aspect of the project, which not only aims to help believers engage more deeply with the scriptures but seeks to reach those who might not otherwise pick up a regular Bible.
“There’s a lot of barriers for people when it comes to Bible reading, especially those who are neurodiverse or have a low attention span,” Pillario said. “The text is tiny and in columns, it’s got little numbers and letters like a reference book, and its more than a thousand pages long. I’m dyslexic myself so reading large blocks of text isn’t easy. But this can all be overcome with a comic.”
Research by 3M Corporation and the University of Minnesota found that the human brain processes images 60,000 times faster than text. The same study showed that the use of visuals improved learning by up to 400%. In the Word for Word Bible Comic, cultural, historical and geographical information that would take Bible commentaries many pages to explain can be conveyed in an instant, not to mention details about ethnicity and the emotions behind the words. Much of the story of Esther, for instance, is conveyed through the characters’ facial expressions.
As author and biblical scholar Rev. Dr. Christopher R. Smith has suggested: “One might argue that the Word for Word Bible Comic is actually a more authentic presentation of the Bible than our bare printed texts, which invite us to fill a visual vacuum by supplying pictures in our own imagination.”
Every image in the comic is hand drawn by Pillario. Utilizing Photoshop, he adds shading and text before the pages are sent to his colorists who bring them to life. Pillario also works with historical and theological advisors who make corrections and suggest amendments.
“Sometimes this can mean having to make extensive changes to the drawings,” he said. “A significant example is from the Book of Acts, where I drew Paul’s ship based on the pictures of Roman merchant vessels found in the commentaries that I consulted. However, it was brought to my attention that this type of ship would have been too small to accommodate the 276 people mentioned in Acts 27:37.”
Paul’s vessel would most likely have been an Alexandrian grain ship, but due to the lack of any extant images, Pillario ended up basing his design on period descriptions.
The real challenge though is deciding how to represent passages where the meaning is ambiguous and scholarly opinion is divided. A prime example is the vow of Jephthah in Judges 11. In verse 30, he vows that if Yahweh gives him victory in the battle against the Ammonites, he will sacrifice whatever comes out of the door of his home on his return. When his daughter emerges from the house first, he is distraught, but the text simply states that “he did to her as he had vowed” (v39).
“Some scholars argue that Jephthah sacrificed his daughter in order to fulfil his vow,” Pillario said. “Others say that he dedicated her to the Lord’s service and a life of celibacy.”
With this conundrum, he chose to depict a priest taking Jephthah’s daughter by the hand followed by the words of verse 39 in a black panel with no illustration.
“When the scholastic interpretation doesn’t agree, the comic’s pictures are as ambiguous as the text,” he said.
Conversely, the comic’s illustrations can provide new insights into Biblical texts. Who realized that the prophet Jonah spoke at least three languages or that the pole on which Haman was impaled in the book of Esther was an enormous 75 feet high? They can also bring clarification.
“If you read Song of Songs it can get very confusing because it’s not always clear who is speaking or what the context is,” Pillario said. “But with the comic, when you add the visual element and show the individual characters, the story becomes much easier to follow.”
Another element that Pillario has worked hard to get right is the ethnicities of the characters.
“Everyone knows what a Roman looked like but what about an Ammonite, an Amorite or an Amalekite?” he said. “All too often we expect the characters to look or act like people from our own culture; we forget that this is, for the most part, a Middle Eastern account, so it’s important to show people correctly.”
He added: “When it came to portraying Jesus in the Gospels, he obviously wasn’t going to be white but neither was he going to have long hair because of 1 Corinthians 11:14. I did a lot of character development to get the face shape, skin color and hair length right. A lot of people today don’t even realize that Jesus and all of the apostles were Jewish, which is something that the comic makes clear.”
Since launching with the Kickstarter-backed Book of Judges in 2015, the Word for Word Bible Comic has published another nine books, including Joshua, Ruth, Matthew, Mark, Luke, Acts, Song of Songs, Jonah and Esther, as well as a special Christmas Nativity book, which cleverly harmonizes the Gospel accounts of Christ’s birth. Several books have been translated into Spanish with more languages being prepared.
Pillario has also secured a U.S. distributor and, in the U.K., he has been working with the charity Junction 42 to get the books into the hands of prisoners. But is the comic actually helping with Bible engagement?
Pillario answered in the affirmative, relaying numerous stories of people who normally struggle to read the Bible but have happily consumed the comics cover to cover, often in one sitting.
“I recently had a message from a teacher in a Christian school. He took the comics into class and gave them to the children to read,” Pillario recalled. “The two boys who read them most avidly were the ones who never usually pay attention to anything. But now they are now hungry to read more.”
Visit the Word for Word Bible Comic website for more information, or visit Kickstarter to back the latest books in the series.
David Trigg is a writer and art historian based in the U.K. He is the author of “Money in Art” (HENI). You can find him on Instagram @davidtriggwriter.