Some of you may be aware that in the 'hippie era' Zap Comix was an "adults only" underground comic book featuring cartooning by Robert Crumb, Gilbert Shelton, and many other famed creators of the underground comix movement of the '60s - '70s. The stories in there are designed to shock in their casual use of profanity, drug references, sexual immorality, etc. Perhaps most shocking of all is that one artist in the midst of all that, Rick Griffin, came to the saving knowledge of Jesus Christ, and that he was given carte blanche to draw whatever he wished in the four pages allotted to him in Zap Comix #7. Below are low res files of what he did (the only 'all ages' story in the book):
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In 1972 Craig Yoe put together a Christian comic book called Jesus Loves You which was published by Zondervan. Rick Griffin's painting "Rock of Ages" was used as the cover illustration:
And here's another one from The Gospel of John:
This Griffin piece was called "The Killing of God":
As Nate Butler shared in his bio of Rick Griffin for the Christian Comics Pioneers website (courtesy of COMIX35), Rick drew a "Murphy" strip for (the secular) Surfer magazine #3 in August, 1971 in which the titular character surrenders his life to Christ (see bio for the transcript of that beautiful prayer of salvation). Below is a small file of the first page of that story (sorry, couldn't find a larger one) and a larger one of page two. Remarkable content for a secular surfing mag! God can use anyone and anything, and at any time.
This is a billboard that Rick was commissioned to do for his local Baptist church in California in the '70s:
A few more illustrations from The Gospel of John:
Finally, here's a bio of Rick, courtesy of COMIX35:
http://www.christiancomicsinternational.org/griffin_pioneer.html
1985 album cover art for the Maranatha! label:
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