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.
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.
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
Here is the web site of a pro life comic Umbert the unborn.
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.
The Saints covered in the series are:
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.
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.
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.
Page last updated October 22, 2019
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