I stumbled across the first two issues of this at the local Comic Book Store, and had to pick it up:
http://deseretnews.com/dn/view/0,1249,595101472,00.html
http://www.aaapop.com/main.html
I am amazed. I shouldn’t be – I grew up with “Stories from the Bible” in my issues of Treasure Chest (of Fun and Fact), and they’ve already had animated adaptations of these stories (with scripts by Orson Scott Card, no less) for years, but this is the first time I’ve seen a Graphic Novel adaptation of the BoM.
Interesting stuff, especially because BoM heroes seem to come off as beefy superheroes in Arnold Friberg’s Visitor Center paintings (“Moroni the Barbarian”, I think Calvin Grondahl called them in one of his cartoons).
They are done by one of my favorite comic artists, Mike Allred, who has done more mainstream superhero work with his own characters Madman and the Atomics, and X-Force and X-Statix over at Marvel Comics. He also did the pages of “Bluntman and Chronic” and “Chasing Amy” that Ben Affleck’s comic artists character supposedly drew for the Chasing Amy movie.
I love Mike Allred’s work, but his pre-release discussions of The Golden Plates - in which he said that it was “all true” and he “intended to prove it” - killed my interest in the project at the time.
How likely is it that an open-minded non-Mormon would enjoy it?
I doubt that any non-LDS people would be all that interested. He’ll stick close to the text, so unless you’re into comic-book Bible stories… (Well, the BoM is filled with war. Do you like war stories?)
Looks like he’s going to stick with the beefy superhero look; notice how in the bottom image of the first article, it shows Moroni with his Friberg-invented Viking helmet. I don’t know if anyone cares for a little history, but the LDS Church took a long time to warm up to the idea of having pictures of scripture stories, and especially of Jesus Christ. Friberg was the first to be asked to do it sometime in the 50’s, and AFAICT used his imagination a lot. He was not allowed to portray Christ except from very far off, and did 2 or 3 paintings of that subject later on. Only since the 80’s have Mormons started to have frequent portrayals of Jesus Christ. So I guess it’s not strange that it took so long to get a comic book, though the cartoons have been around for 10 years or so.*
Mormons know that the Friberg paintings are wildly unrealistic, but hey, we’re fond of 'em. Or something. I find it a little weird myself that illustrations almost invariably use them as templates, so that our kiddie board books show nearly the same costumes as he came up with…I theorize that it may be our oddball version of the old Catholic method of always showing saints with the proper symbolic instruments, so you know who you’re looking at. A guy with a Viking helmet, everyone knows, is going to be Moroni, though he didn’t have one any more than Peter carried huge keys everywhere.
*That company has two divisions; one produces Bible and hero stories as well. Oddly enough, I understand that Ed Decker, author of The Godmakers, a famous anti-Mormon film, is on the board of that side and checks for Biblical accuracy.
Friberg’s stuff fascnates me. He was one of the conceptualizers for the 1956 Cecil B. DeMille film The Ten Commandments (if you look, you can see his name in the credits), so there’s similarity between the loo of that film and the paintings in the LDS Visitor Center that still gets to me. His paintings also illustrte a 1960s vintage BoM that I have.
Cal, if you really like the Golden Plates comics, Mike Allred has a message board of his own where he often posts and answers fans’ questions, or just gives updates on his life or insights into his creative process. Here’s his board:
http://www.comicscommunity.com/boards/allred/
And his most recent posting: http://www.comicscommunity.com/boards/allred/?read=12951