Religious Index Page
By Richard Bruce BA, MA, and PhC in Economics
Former Instructor St. John's University, New York City

Comics on Catholic Saints and other Catholic Heroes


This page covers a large collection of old Catholic comics you can view on line for free, some of the current Catholic comics, and older ones you maybe able to get. You can also read my web page on Bible comics by Protestants from a Catholic view point, and another web page on sophisticated long comics, called graphic novels, which support the Christian faith. There is also a Comics for Catholics index page, a page with successful letters which convinced librarians to add comic book Bibles and a page on getting Catholic and Christian comics, books, and other media into public libraries.

Lots of Free Old Catholic Comics on the Internet

Treasure Chest 1946-1972

Treasure Chest of Fact and Fun was a series of Catholic Comics that came out about 20 times a year. Each comic had between thirty and fourty pages. The comic ran from 1946 to 1972. The whole collection is now available from the Internet Archive and Catholic University of America.

You can access Treasure Chest through the Catholic University of America. Here is the link.. On the right side of your screen you will see of issues in volumes one to twenty seven. You click on the issue you want and then click on the button immediately to left that says go to file. It loads slowly so be patient. You should probably go to full screen and increase the size of the pictures with the zoom function so the print is large enough to read.

Alternatively you can go straight to the Internet Archive. The difficulty is the volumes are out of order. After the two summer volumes is volume one, volume 2 and 3 are on the second page, and volumes 4 through 9 are on the third page. All other volumes are in order. You can access the whole series of Treasure Chest here.

You can also find the earlier Treasure Chest comics, from 1946 to 1963 at Comic Book Plus which has a huge collection of old comics that are in the public domain. These comics are free and legal as are the other comic books on Comic Book Plus and or course the comics linked to on this page. Click here for the link to this collection of Treasure Chest of Fact and Fun. You may find that Comic Book Plus is easier to use and better organized. You may want to read the collection up to 1963 on Comic Book Plus and then read the later ones on the above mentioned sites.

Furthermore Comic Books Plus has other Catholic Comics that the Internet Archive does not. You can read a 28 comics ranging from 35 to 54 pages long in the With the title Catholic Comics.

Finally there are three other titles that only have a few issues on Comic Book Plus, even though many issues were published. They are Timeless Topix, the continuation of Timeless Topix under another name Topix Comics and different title Heroes All. All of these were published by the Catechitical Guild, which also published Treasure Chest.

In the earlier era before 1973 Catholics were much more active in the creation of comics that the Protestants. Since then things have been reversed. Church teaching tells us that we are to use all these media to evangelize and catechize. History affirms that this is what the Catholic Church did in the past, so there is no reason we should not do this now, particularly because the Internet allows us to distribute the comics at almost no cost.

Current Catholic Comics

Daughters of Saint Paul

The Daughters of Saint Paul have been perhaps the leading center for the publishing of Catholic Comics in the last few decades. However, they did not always provide Catholic Comics.

I sent them a letter or email in the 1990s suggesting that they do the lives of the Saints in comic book form. They sent me a nice letter back saying that it was a great idea but they could not do it. This is the only time I ever received a letter like that. Nevertheless, within a few months they came out with a series of comics based on the lives of the saints. The series was originally done in French, given the timing I suspect that the French effort was independent of my suggestion. But perhaps I gave the Daughter of Saint Paul a push to translate the comics into English. Furthermore, that seems to have establilshed a tradition among the Daughters of St. Paul that continues to this day.

The original set of comics they came out with in the 90s is out of print, and is discussed below in the section on Catholic Comics that are out of print, but not online.

But the Daughters of Saint Paul have an even larger collection of comics now. Check them out here.

Sophia Institute Press

Another leading publisher of Catholic Comics at this point is Sophia Institute Press. They have five volumes in their series Saints Chronicles Collection. This series was begun by Arcadius Press a small publisher set up to publish Catholic comics. I believe that company failed and now Sophia Institute Press has picked up their material. It seems to be doing well for them on Amazon.

Each volume is 120 papes. They sell for a little more than ten cents a page, about half the cost of secular comics, but considerably more than the most popular Bible comics that go for about two and a half cents per page.

Sophia Institute Press also have a graphic novel or comic on the Sacraments. The Sacraments in Action

This is slightly cheaper, 10 dollars, but not as long, 72 pages.

Catholic Answers

Catholic Answers the Catholic apologetics organization is also jumping into graphic novels. They have a series of three rather philosophical graphic novels about two friends Brendan and Erc who are discussing philosophy. In the first few pages that I could read on Amazon through the Look Inside feature Brendan was searching for meaning and Erc was saying that the purpose of life is to party.

The first volume is "The Truth is Out There", about 15 dollars and 120 pages. You can read the first few pages of volume one on Amazon for free, but not the later volumes.

The second and third volumes, "The Big Picture" and "Weapons of War" are about 18 dollars each and the second volume is 172 pages long, I have not been able to learn how long the third volume is. I have noted that the Catholic Answeres web site is selling them for less than Amazon though this maybe a temporary sale as of this writing.

Tan Books

This is a page on Catholic comic books about Catholic saints and heroes, but not Bible Comics. The Catholic press has avoided doing Bible Comics, leaving that to the Protestants. Finally there is an exception, Tan Books.

Tan has put out two graphic novels, The Catholic Comic Book Bible: Gospel of Luke and the other The Catholic Comic Book Bible: Acts of the Apostles. Luke costs about $12 and is 120 pages, Acts costs $15 and is 144 pages.

Tan has also published a comic on the Virgin of Guadalupe, Our Lady of Guadalupe: The Graphic Novel. It costs about $16 in hardcover and is 68 pages.

Factoid Press

The Big Book of Martyrs is a comic on the deaths of many Catholic martyrs. This book appeals to many devout Catholic men, I have never seen a woman who liked it. The comic, like its topic, is gruesome.

Like the other books in DC Comics Big Book series, there are many different artists, the cover says more than 50, each with there own unique style of drawing comics. I found the different styles interesting, but like most aspects of this book it appeals to rather mature tastes rather than children.

Most of the styles are properly respectful of the topic, but maybe five of the artists have styles that are not particularly respectful. As far as I know they did not go out of their way to be disrespectful. It is probably just the case that their style is not respectful and they did not change it, or change it enough, for this book. The writer, who put the whole thing together, is respectful of the Catholic faith. He ends by suggesting that we should aspire to be martyrs.

I read and reread this book and found it inspiring, but so far I have not become an Martyr. Nevertheless, it is not for women and children. In fact it says for mature audiences right on the cover. If your target is young men, however, this could be a useful.

The Big Book of Martyrs is 192 pages long and the pages are larger than normal size. The comics are in black and white. You can find The Big Book of Martyrs at comic book stores and Amazon.com. The list price is about 15 dollars, 11.66 at Amazon. This is a relatively good price, but not as good as some of the comic book Bibles.

Ignatius Press

Ignatius Press has a comic biography of German who secretly became a Catholic priest while in the German Army during World War 2. It is called The Shadow of His Wings.

StoryTel Press

Catechism of the Seven Sacraments is a comic book or graphic novel in the sense that it has word balloons, but the pictures are made with Legos and then photographed. So this is the Lego Catechism. They do not use the term Lego probably because they are not affiliated with Lego.

As some of you may know there is also a Lego Bible, titled The Brick Bible which has some objectionable stories. Normally the more adult stories are left out of children's Bibles. This is one you want to avoid, especially for children.

The Catechism of the Seven Sacraments according to the reviews in Amazon is free of this type of thing. It is about $35 for 290 pages.

Blind Prophet

I have just read the first part of the Blind Prophet in late 2016. I was impressed. The book has a character with a special power and is set in a Catholic universe. The writing had intelligent, logical, well-motivated characters. I found it a powerful story. A teen I showed it to said it was awesome.

The first episode of this graphic novel is 37 pages long and is free in the Kindle format eBook format and $5.99 in paper. Episodes 2,3, and 4 are slightly longer. The are free for those that subcribe to Kindle Unlimited, They cost $3.99 in Kindle format, and $5.99 in paper. This is a link to the first episode of The Blind Prophet on Amazon.

This could be a good opportunity to support an interesting initiative in its earliest stages.

Umbert The Unborn

Here is the web site of a pro life comic Umbert the unborn.

The Tautkus Studio

The Tautkus Studio is offering Catholic comics for sale with a significant collection of free on line samples so you will easily be able to evaluate the product. You have to scroll down to find the comics, including the free samples.

Tautkus also has many comics on line at Comic-Rocket. Once again the rest of Comic Rocket is problematic but the work of Tautkuss is very devout and very Catholic. The drawings are crude and ugly, but this maybe some type of sign of authenticity and sophistication. At any rate this is a large collection put together over almost a decade. Here is a link to Lives of the Saints and People Who Lived Saintly Lives. on Comic-Rocket.

I am no doubt missing things.

A lot of publishers, including big Catholic publishers are putting out comics and or graphic novels at this point. I have no doubt missed some, and I am not just talking about minor independent one man operarations. It is an exciting period in the field, but there is so much going on that it is getting hard to cover. Catholics are once again producing comics. The times they are a changing.

Out of Print and Going out of print Catholic Comics

Pauline Press

There are also several out of print Catholic comics that you maybe able to find. As mentioned above the Daughters of Saint Paul put out a series of comics on the famous saints. These were originally done in France in I believe 1994. In 1995 they came out in English. I think there were about nine in the series. They were about 2 dollars per comic, for about 30 pages. The pages were somewhat smaller than a normal comic book.

The Saints covered in the series are:

  1. St. Bernard of Clairvoux
  2. St. Bernadette
  3. St. Clare of Assisi
  4. St. Elizabeth
  5. St. Francis of Assisi
  6. St. Joan of Arc
  7. St. Martin
  8. St. Maximilian Kolbe
  9. St. Vincent de Paul
  10. The Little Flower

A mentioned above I sent a letter to the Daughters of Saint Paul in 1994 suggesting that they do the lives of the Saints in comic book form. They sent me a nice letter back saying that it was a great idea but they could not do it. Was my letter the stimulus for the French comic book series. Perhaps, but as both my letter and the French series were 1994 I would not be surprised if the French series was actually started before I sent the letter to the Daughters of Saint Paul. Did my letter stimulate the Daughters of Saint Paul to go looking for comics on the lives of the saints. Perhaps, but perhaps the Daughters of Saint Paul or some other Catholic publisher would have imported the French comics any way. I have frequently thought up ideas that I did not send to a company only to have the company come out with the product a few weeks or months later even though they could not possibly have gotten the idea from me, so it could all be coincidence.

I have tried to find a new publisher for the series, perhaps one who will combine all or most of the comics into one book. I have contacted three publishers, one is showing a little interest.

Arcadius Press

Arcadius Press put out a series of comics on the lives of the saints. They seem to have gone out of business but Sophia Institute Press has picked up their material, and now has four volumes on the lives of the saints. I covered this above.

Probably because this web page used to be ranked high on Google under the words Catholic comics, frequently it was number one, the company contacted me asking for advice. Actually, a number of businesses have asked me for my advice on the basis of this site. I have gladly done my best to help them.

Marvel Comics

Marvel comics came out with a series of three comics, on St Francis of Assisi, Pope John Paul ll and Mother Teresa. They sold a huge number of copies and you may well be able to find these if you keep your eyes open.

Topix and Heroes All

As mentioned above there are many issues of Topix and Heroes All that have not been put on the Internet.

A big thanks to the guy who left the note in the guest book informing me of Topix and Heroes All. Web pages have the potential to be cooperative, collecting information from many.

Here is a primitive web comic on Saints and the Angels.

Another Catholic is producing comics in the manga style to go with the weekly readings, check it out here. I think this is an interesting idea.

Other pages on Christian Comics

  1. Catholic Comics index page
  2. Often Protestant Bible Comics from a Catholic point of view. These are often much cheaper than Catholic comics.
  3. Quality graphic-novels that respect the Christian faith. Graphic-novels are long, often pretentious, comic books.
  4. Letters that convinced librarians to include in library collections religious comics, good evangelization
  5. My major interest is in getting the Catholic and more generally Christian message out not preventing others from getting their message out. An essay on objectionable comics and why we should avoid worrying them.
  6. Tips on how to evangelize by suggesting Catholic comics, books, movies, etc. to public libraries.

Pages on Christian Movies

  1. With the Passion now on VHS and DVD it is a good time to suggest The Passion and other religious movies to your public library.
  2. Librarians will usually add award winning movies so here are religious movies nominated for major Oscars. Find out which are recommended by the American Bishops and the Vatican. OK, no comics but it is a visual subject.
  3. Amazon Prime has a large collection of religious movies and television shows that are free for subscribers to Prime, which maybe half of all households. I have suggested some of the best.

Here is a link to my contact information..

Religious Comics Index Page

Religious Index Page

Page last updated October 22, 2019