Kevin Frank’s Heaven’s Love Thrift Shop continues to get attention from around the country for creating a faith based comic strip this time in a write up John Leland of the New York Times. The NYT interviewed Frank, Brian Walker, and King Feature’s Jay Kennedy and focused on the uniqueness of the feature on the comics page.
From the New York Times:
?Religion has always been a bit of a taboo subject, because you?re writing a strip for the largest mass audience,? said Brian Walker, a cartoonist who has also written several books about the history of comics. ?In a conventional strip, you?re afraid that if you even mention a Christian holiday, people are going to complain that you don?t mention Muslim holidays.?
I can understand some of the reasoning why newspaper’s would shy away from running a faith-based feature such as Heaven’s Love, but at the same time – in a nation that is still largely Christian, I am surprised that a faith-based feature didn’t come along sooner.
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There have been other faith-based comics. Two that come to mind are the excellent, all too short-lived Wildwood (originally Bobo’s Progress) and the soap strip David Crane. Of course Peanuts often expressed glimpses into faith, as did Dooley’s World. Then there’s Kudzu, with the Rev. Will B. Dunn. A number of creators often bring faith into their strips, from Dennis the Menace to One Big Happy.