Spire Christian Comics

*Archie's One Way*, a typical Spire comic book. Cover art by Al Hartley.

Spire Christian Comics was a line of comic books published by Fleming H. Revell starting in 1972.^[1]

In the 1980s, Barbour & Company, founded by Hugh Revell Barbour, acquired the rights to republish many of the titles in the Spire Christian Comics line under the New Barbour Christian Comics imprint, keeping the comics in print until 1988.^{[citation needed]}

History

Christian book publisher Fleming H. Revell had approached Al Hartley, about doing comic book adaptions of Christian-themed books that they were publishing. Hartley was working for Archie Comics at the time. In 1972, they launched Spire with two titles, God's Smuggler and The Cross and the Switchblade.^[1]

Hartley's connection with Archie comics publisher John Goldwater helped Spire license the Archie characters in a Christian-themed series, and in 1973 they launched the first of 19 Archie titles, Archie's One Way.^[2]^: 122

Other comics were based on true stories, Christian novels, or Christian movies. Examples of this type include those based on Charles Colson's Born Again, Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place, and a modernized version of Charles Sheldon's 1896 novel In His Steps.

A line of comics for very young children featured young Barney Bear, who lived with his parents in a cave in Yellowstone National Park.^[3]

The comics were created from 1972 and 1982 and kept in print for several years.

However, Spire's christian comics have been criticized as blatantly judgmental abd racist. For instance, in Archie's World, where Archie and his friends visit missionaries around the world, has been noted as having a brazen colonial mentality such as libeling contemporary Indian/Pakistani society for allowing the slave trade, African religions are dismissed as "pagan" while the characters claimed Christianity the real religion by comparison, while a parable claims that Confucianism and Buddhism are useless dealing with people in need, a blatant distortion of those religions.^[4] In the comic book, The Gospel Blimp, its semi-satirical theme of how human interaction is more effective spreading the Gospel than harassing publicity, is undercut by the fact that the original motivation is the Christian characters self-righteously condemning a neighbouring couple as not being Christians because they are peacefully playing cards while smoking and drinking at home on Sunday while not going to church regularly or attending church community events.^[5]

List of titles

Archie series

Archie and Big Ethel
Archie and Mr. Weatherbee
Archie Gets a Job
Archie's Car
Archie's Circus
Archie's Clean Slate
Archie's Date Book
Archie's Family Album
Archie's Festival
Archie's Love Scene
Archie's One Way
Archie's Parables
Archie's Roller Coaster
Archie's Something Else!
Archie's Sonshine
Archie's Sports Scene
Archie's World
Christmas with Archie
Jughead's Soul Food

Bible story adaptations

Adam & Eve (modernised story)
Alpha and Omega (modernised Adam and Eve/Jonah story)
Jesus (also published as He's the Greatest!)
Live It Up (also published as The Prodigal Son)
My Brother's Keeper (modernised story of Joseph)
Noah's Ark (modernised (somewhat) version of the story because God does destroy everything)
Paul: Close Encounter of a Real Kind (modernised story of Paul the Apostle)

Biographical and autobiographical

Attack! (Mitsuo Fuchida)
Born Again (Chuck Colson)
Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place
Crossfire
The Cross and the Switchblade (David Wilkerson)
God's Smuggler (Brother Andrew)
Hansi, the Girl who Loved the Swastika (Maria Anne Hirschmann)
Hello, I'm Johnny Cash
In the Presence of Mine Enemies (Howard Rutledge)
On the Road with Andrae Crouch
Through Gates of Splendor (Nate Saint and Jim Elliot)
Tom Landry and the Dallas Cowboys
Tom Skinner's Up from Harlem

Kiddies Christian Comics

Barney Bear: Family Tree
Barney Bear: Home Plate!
Barney Bear in Toyland
Barney Bear: Lost and Found
Barney Bear Out of the Woods
Barney Bear: Sunday School Picnic
Barney Bear: The Swamp Gang
Barney Bear Wakes Up!
God Is...

Other book/movie adaptations

Adventure with the Brothers: The Cult Escape
Adventure with the Brothers: Smashing the Smugglers' Ring
Adventure with the Brothers: Hang in There
Hal Lindsey's There's A New World Coming
In His Steps
Time to Run
Joseph T. Bayly's The Gospel Blimp

References

^ ^a ^b Sacks, Jason; Dallas, Keith (2014). American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1970s. TwoMorrows Publishing. p. 86. ISBN 978-1605490564.
^ Strömberg, Fredrik (2010). Comic art propaganda : a graphic history. Lewes, East Sussex: IIex. ISBN 978-1-905814-70-1. OCLC 535456843.
^ Barney Bear (1977) at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on August 27, 2015.
^ Masters, Brandon. "Spire Comics: The... Christian Adventures of Archie Andrews?". You Don't Read Comics. Retrieved 18 February 2025.
^ Schneider, Phil. "Social Media and the Gospel: Are We Flying a Blimp?". Churchmag. Churchmag. Retrieved 18 February 2025.

External links

Christian Comics International

[Chron-1] Sacks, Jason; Dallas, Keith (2014). American Comic Book Chronicles: The 1970s. TwoMorrows Publishing. p. 86. ISBN 978-1605490564.

[2] Strömberg, Fredrik (2010). Comic art propaganda : a graphic history. Lewes, East Sussex: IIex. ISBN 978-1-905814-70-1. OCLC 535456843.

[3] Barney Bear (1977) at Don Markstein's Toonopedia. Archived from the original on August 27, 2015.

[4] Masters, Brandon. "Spire Comics: The... Christian Adventures of Archie Andrews?". You Don't Read Comics. Retrieved 18 February 2025.

[5] Schneider, Phil. "Social Media and the Gospel: Are We Flying a Blimp?". Churchmag. Churchmag. Retrieved 18 February 2025.

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