Gospel Blimp, and Other Christian Comics

What do Johnny Cash, nazis, jive-talking pimps, and blimps have in common? Not much, but they made great fodder for christian comic books back in the '70s. Below are four complete, great/awful Spire comic books in PDF format, download away, sinners.

Hello, I'm Johnny Cash - 1976 (8.5 MB, PDF)

Read about how June Carter and God helped Johnny dump that nasty pill habit and eventually film a gospel movie. And just for fun, check out this early video of a gum-smacking Johnny Cash performing "Folsom Prison Blues" back in 1959 (youtube, thanks Ken).

 

Gospel Blimp - 1974 (4 MB, PDF)

Upstanding christian Herm gets a brilliant idea for effectively spreading the gospel to his drinking, gambling neighbors: a blimp that drops bible verses. When blimps speak, people listen.

 

Up From Harlem - 1975 (4 MB, PDF)

NYC televangelist Tom Skinner reminds gang members and prostitutes that God is neither white nor black, and that you have to convert The Man in order to stick it to him. This one pushes the modern PC meter far, far into the red.

Hansi - 1976 (4 MB, PDF)

This gem is subtitled "The Girl Who Loved the Swastika," and the storyline becomes increasingly twisted as the pages turn. Hansi wins a Hitler Youth competition, works for the Nazi party, falls in love with a soldier who's out of her league, gets shipped to a Russian labor camp after the war, escapes, is reunited with her lover, they move to America to start a new life, and yet something is missing. You guessed it... Jesus!

For more famously horrible Spire comics, visit this page (they have an Archie dept, and SO much more). Thanks to Andy for sending me the link.

Other comic delights previously featured on Beware of the Blog:
- All about WFMU's Comic Page
- Listen to Marvel's "The Curse of the Werewolf"
- Superhero comics gone homo
- Comic books and H.P. Lovecraft
- Nick Bertozzi's comics and graphic novels
- Search for your favorite comic book characters in the Picture of Everything

If you really want to be saved, check out Sinner's Crossroads with Kevin Nutt on WFMU every Monday evening. The show is even available as a podcast (info here), for those who prefer their salvation to go.

Comments

[David]

As a little kid, those Spire comics creeped me out. Even though I didn't fully know why. My Dad once accidentally brought some home for me, thinking he had bought regular Archie mags. I ended up putting them in the garbage. They left a bad taste in my 6-year old mouth.

[Andrew]

I understand that some of the artists with the actual Archie comic books occasionally worked on the Spire Archie comics as well, one reason the Christian comics are virtually indistinguishable from the regular ones.

[ResidentClinton]

And I thought those Christian Archie comics were just fever dreams. No, they were real! Yikes.

There was so much Johnny Cash Christian tie-in stuff with Gospel Road. But they always seemed to leave out his brother's death - ripped in half by a band saw. Now there's an image that would really scare young comics readers to Christ.

[jon raasch]

check out http://www.theophilus.org/ for some bizarre modern christian comics