In the comics industry, Mike Allred is a well respected artist. He manages to write in both the independent market and the mainstream superhero genre with no loss of credibility. Generally, when an independent artist "goes mainstream" by writing comics featuring Superman or the X-Men, the artist is considered to have sold out. At the same time, a mainstream artist who attempts to go independent is met with fierce resistance -- sort of like when a science fiction author tries to write mainstream literary fiction. Mike Allred has shown he can navigate both worlds with ease, though his mainstream work always has a bit of an independent edge to it.

Now, Mike Allred has moved into a genre many thought dead outside of the bizarre fundamentalist evangelical tracts of Jack T. Chick's "Chic comics" () -- religious comics. In the 80s and 90s there were some experiments with "Christian comics" by Marvel comics (with Nelson publishers), in the 70s and 80s there were "Spire comics" which told tales of interest to Christian audiences. And, of course, EC comics, creators of such gems as Vault of Horror, Tales from the Crypt and Shock SuspenTales (you know -- the gory horror comics that nearly got all comics banned in the 1950s) got its start as a comics company producing "Picture Stories from the Bible."

There have been other sporadic attempts to make religious comics that would appeal to the American market, but none have lasted very long. There is no current publisher that regularly publishes comics aimed at the religious audience, though many independent and mainstream comics borrow from Christianity in the same way they borrow from Greek mythology or Hinduism.

Of course, Mormons are quite underrepresented in comics - even with the rumors that Power Pack was an LDS super group. Mike Allred has now jumped into the fray, taking time off from his normal work in other comic books to, in essence, try and create a Mormon comic market.

Well, after that brief introduction, the question to ask is: How is it? The answer: Pretty darn good. Allred's art seems very well suited to the subject matter and the adaptation is fairly faithful.

Want specifics? Okay -- at first, Allred might seem to be the exact wrong artist to tackle this subject. His style is best described as cartoony and generic -- but that hardly says it at all. When I say his art is generic, I don't mean indistinguishable from the great mass of comic artists out there -- I mean it's not heavy on detail. Some comic artists revel in drawing each individual leaf on a tree, each wrinkle on a character's face and every ripple of muscle on a hero's well-chisled form. Allred's art style gives just enough background detail to suggest a forest, for example, without having to draw each individual tree. And while his characters' faces are distinct from each other, they are fairly neutral as to racial features or age markings. Clothing is fairly simple and lacking in detail. This is a good thing, though, because it lets the story shine through, rather than allowing the art to overwhelm the story.

There are places where Mike's artistic choices seem somewhat odd at first, but after some thought, I decided they were good choices. For example, when the angel appears while Laman and Lemuel are beating Nephi, it resembles some sort of scary apparition rather than the angels that appear elsewhere in the work. In fact, its appearance is rather frightening, like when the alien finally appears on screen in the movie Alien. However, once you realize that this is how Laman and Lemuel (and not Nephi and Sam) perceive the Angel, then the art makes sense.

The adaptation itself is fairly faithful. All the narration that appears in captions comes straight from the book of Mormon, as does most of the dialogue. What original dialogue Mike Allred supplies is generic enough that it doesn't date the work or add distracting anachronisms. For example, when Zoram discovers that the man he thought was Laban was really Nephi, he says "Please do not kill me!" to which Nephi replies: "You have nothing to fear from me." From there, the conversation uses text from the Book of Mormon ("as the Lord liveth, and as I live" etc.).

Special kudos should go to Laura Allred for her coloring job. Nearly half of this comic is focused on Lehi and Nephi's vision of the Tree of Life (this is nice because it also allows Mike a chance to show what the art in upcoming issues will look like, what with the vision Nephi has of his posterity). The coloring job on the fruit of the tree of life is amazing. Instead of just being white, it shines in a way that really makes it look like the most desirable of all fruits.

Also nice are the essays on the inside front and back covers where Mike Allred discusses why he is doing the adaptation and also talks about some of the research he did in order to make the look of his adaptation reflect the current state of scholarship regarding the Book of Mormon, the ancient Middle East and ancient Mesoamerica.

verall, this is a worthy adaptation, and it's done by one of the masters of the craft. Unlike many recent adaptations of the Book of Mormon, this one is not made by artists inflicting their painful journeyman's work on us. This Book of Mormon adaptation is made by someone who has spent time perfecting his craft.

The "most correct book" deserves nothing less, and in this case, it gets a lot more.

Ivan Angus Wolfe
January 11, 2005