CHILDRENS BOOKS
CHILDRENS BOOKS

Artful Catechesis

by Noah S. Lett, Jr.

The Light of the World
6 vol. Catechetical Series
by David Fielding
Bright Star Publishing
724/864-6819

    Is this publication by Bright Star Publishing a magazine, a comic book or a developing combination of both? Regardless of which it is the publication’s art, catechetical essays, academic exercises, and devotional information have many good qualities. When you look at the six comic books from Bright Star publications the artwork catches your eye. The colors of the panels are bright and complement one another; the figures are drawn with the right amount of detail, liveliness, and expression. The dialogue, the panel angles and pacing of the story are easy to follow. Also many elements in each story are rendered historically, as when the Pharisees are shown with phylacteries on their heads in book No. 3, page 4, the bottom left panel.
The catechetical essays that accompany each illustrated story of the gospel or acts are simple and direct. The essays are short, the vocabulary is not technical and yet each essay accurately summarizes the various topics from the Catechism. If the imprimatur and nihil Obstat do not convince you, comparing any essay with the Catechism of the Catholic Church will. The author’s writing skill is also evident by the careful way he resists interpreting some biblical passages and instead leaves their meaning in God’s hands. For example, in book No. 1 page 7, writing about the fruit that Adam and Eve ate he says, “We will not know, until we get to Heaven what that thing was.” The author is to be congratulated for his accurate summaries and his restraint and moderation in interpreting Scripture.

    The maps, charts, devotional information and academic exercises for each chapter are varied and generally well thought out. The academic exercise fall into three types: quizzes, crossword puzzles, and scripture readings. An example of devotional information can be found in publication No. 2 page 11, the panel “To Learn: The Sign of the Cross” discusses how, when and why we make the sign of the cross is, and on page 5 there is a map of the Holy Land. However, as a teacher, I wish the answer keys, spread throughout the chapters, were all on one page so that they could be easily removed, if necessary.
Despite the careful rendering of the art, the cautious writing of the catechetical essays, and the thoughtful composition of the various helps and academic exercises the publication does not successfully combine the comic book form with the essay form. You can read the illustrated life of Christ without referring to the essays, and the essays can be read without reference to the stories. Publications 1-4 state that the life of Jesus is presented to explain the Creed and the Sacraments, yet it sometimes seems that the catechism is explaining the life of Jesus, or that both only generally deal with the same topic. As in book No. 6 pages 6 and 7, where the gospel story only vaguely relates to the given subtitle: “The Apostles’ Respect for Jesus and His Holy Name: The Second Command.” These perplexities occur because the author intends to use the short essays as the primary means of telling us about the catechetical topics and the artwork is meant only to illustrate and not significantly add to the mostly self-contained essays. This makes the publication more like a magazine and less like a comic book; but being more like a comic book, would further broaden its appeal among its young audience.

    In present day comic books or books that rely mostly on the comic book form, the words and the pictures go hand and hand to convey an idea neither could alone. Excellent examples are books like Understanding Comics, by Scoot McCloud, or Will Eisner’s, Comics and Sequential Art. These books successfully combine all prose, no matter how philosophical or didactic, within the frame of each panel or picture strip. The inclusion of the “essay” within the art panel requires the reader to pay attention to both the art and the prose of the didactic material. The art and the words could become more interdependent, by putting the words of the essay within the frame of the panels so that the prose and pictures are unified within the same medium not and separated into didactic essays and comic book art.

    The publication is successful in its parts but not totally successful in its unity because the comic book art is only used as a sugar to mask the catechetical medicine, rather then as a utensil to both show the life of Christ and tell the catechetical ideas. Nevertheless, the effort is admirable and I would recommend it to the teachers and parents at St. Michael the Archangel Academy.

Noah S. Lett, Jr. is a Catholic educator.