Action! Thrills! Suspense! Scripture!
By Samuel N. Harris for Christian Comic Arts Society
Imagine opening up a thick volume of full-color comic book art with pages packed full of action—except, instead of seeing several panels of Spider-Man pummeling a bunch of costumed criminals, you find a splash page illustration of David slinging stones at Goliath.
It might not be quite what you’re used to seeing in comic books and graphic novels, but that’s what you’ll find when you pick up a copy of The Action Bible, the newest work by longtime comics artist Sergio Cariello. As its name might suggest, The Action Bible is a graphic novel adaptation collecting many of the Bible’s greatest stories, filling 750 pages with familiar tales, timeless truths, and colorful, vibrant illustrations of the heroes of the Old and New Testaments in action.
The Action Bible is a newer and more action-packed version of The Picture Bible by David C Cook Publishing. Though Sergio fondly remembers reading The Picture Bible as a child in the 1970s, he probably had no idea back then that he would one day get the opportunity to illustrate The Action Bible. However, Sergio was brought onto The Action Bible project in 2006, after he took two pages which he had previously drawn for a Christian publication called Proverbs & Parables and entered them into a contest for the 1st International Christian Comics Competition in 2005. Sergio was voted as the winner on his birthday, April 23rd, and soon afterward, David C Cook Publishing asked him to draw the new Action Bible, to which he readily agreed. In the first week he submitted an inked page of David fighting Goliath and got chosen for the job.
For three years, Sergio worked diligently on the project, drawing whichever scenes and stories he was told to draw, and often doing as many as seven or eight pages a week while also managing to balance other projects, such as The Lone Ranger and Son of Samson for other companies. Working on The Action Bible kept him very busy, especially with his multi-step artwork process that always begins with looking through a script from the writer, continues on to loose pencil drawings of the action written in the script, and ends with inking his own pencils, erasing the pencil drawings (with which his wife sometimes helps), and touching up details with Photoshop. Sergio likes to alternate between working on several pages at once instead of just doing each one straight through from start to finish. He also makes sure to find helpful influences or references for the story before he begins drawing, such as buying an actual jawbone on the internet and getting the feel for it in order to accurately draw the jawbone with which Samson killed a thousand Philistines in the book of Judges. This scene with Samson was one of his favorites to draw for The Action Bible, as were the scenes of David and Goliath, Jonah and the big fish, and Moses parting the Red Sea.
Now that Sergio has finished working on The Action Bible, he's excited to work on other projects, such as his continuing series of The Lone Ranger. He also mentioned another upcoming project that he couldn't give many details about, except for that it is also Christian. Most of all, though, Sergio is just waiting to see what projects and jobs God will bring to him in the future, as he believes God is ultimately the one who decides what is best for him to work on.
Even before he began working on The Action Bible, Sergio was certainly no stranger to either the world of comics or the world of Christianity. As a child in his native country of Brazil, Sergio was raised in a Christian home, brought to church regularly by his parents, and taught all about Jesus and the stories of the Bible, but he also watched popular cartoons on television and filled up sketchbooks with his favorite characters and other drawings. At the young age of five, Sergio had informed his parents that he wanted to be a cartoonist when he grew up, and at eleven, he was writing and drawing an original comic strip called "Frederico the Detective", which was published in the children’s section of his local newspaper and was nominated as the best strip for his age group.
Despite his Christian upbringing, it wasn't until Sergio was sixteen at a Word of Life Christian camp in Brazil that he really felt Christ calling him personally. Sergio says, "That's when I really responded with commitment to follow Christ and allow Him to be my boss." From that point on, he began to get more involved in church, especially in church music; he learned how to play the guitar and often led worship for church services (in fact, Sergio is still the worship leader at his local church today).
Still an aspiring cartoonist, Sergio had set his sights on going to the Joe Kubert School of Cartoons and Graphic Arts in Dover, New Jersey after high school. He began to save up his money for college and to learn English in order to be able to get by in America. However, the director of Word of Life had offered Sergio a scholarship to study at one of their Bible Institutes instead. Sergio attended Bible college in Brazil for one year, followed by two years in upstate New York, which was how he first came to America in 1986. By the end of his time at Word of Life, he had been accepted to the Joe Kubert School, but didn't have the money to go until a pastor in Manhattan offered to pay for his schooling in exchange for Sergio’s services as a janitor.
While in school, Sergio took a job as artist on Dagon, the Worlds of H.P. Lovecraft, which prompted a few professors to excuse him from assignments. This was the first American comic book he had worked on. Sergio penciled, inked, and lettered the first issue by himself, but then hired some other students to help him on the second issue. He was later hired by Marvel Comics as a Bullpen Letterer, but once they recognized Sergio's drawing ability, he began to get penciling and inking jobs on several Marvel titles as well. Since then, Sergio has illustrated lots of titles for not only Marvel, but for DC, Darkhorse, Image and Crossgen as well, and featuring just about every major superhero character, including Spider-Man, Superman, Batman, Green Lantern, Wonder Woman, Captain America, the Hulk, Daredevil, and the Avengers. He also returned to the Joe Kubert School as a teacher for seven years while still balancing illustration jobs for popular superhero comics.
Being a Christian and trusting in God for everything really helps Sergio as he works in the very competitive industry of comics. He tries not to worry about having to find the best assignments because he knows that God will always lead him to the right ones. According to Sergio, every job he has gotten in the comics industry has been offered to him from places where he wasn't looking. He says, "I trust . . . that God opens the right doors for me . . . The jobs my God has for me will be mine . . . I understand that as long as I'm ready and alert for that opportunity He wants me to get." To support this viewpoint, Sergio quotes from Romans 12:2, about conforming oneself to God in order to receive God's good and perfect will, and mentions Psalm 139, which tells of God planning each of our lives with great care.
This attitude towards his illustration jobs seems to have worked well for Sergio so far, as he's been able to draw for so many well-known and successful titles in addition to The Action Bible. In fact, Sergio's advice to other aspiring artists springs from this attitude as well. He says that he often asks his drawing students if they believe in a creator God, because Sergio believes that God gives us the talents, goals, and dreams we have. "You have to work hard at getting things done, as if it depends on you, but trust God for the results, believing that you were created the way you are, with dreams and desires in your heart to be accomplished," Sergio says. "God put those dreams in your head, and it's up to you to make an effort to do what you can to fulfill those dreams, and at the same time, trust that if something doesn't work out the way you want, it probably was better for you not to get that job or goal, because you might need to learn a few things before you land on a job or it would not be the best fitting for you."
On the subject of his faith in a Creator, Sergio also says this: "We are eternal beings, and it is wise to think about that with the choices we make today. I believe that we were created. We did not come out of a Big Bang—we were created and designed, carefully thought out. If we are amazed at how men can construct a computer, we should be amazed at how God constructed the universe. The Earth is exactly in the right spot in relation to the sun and all the other elements in the universe. There's an order for everything. I would say to the world, seek your creator. He has something for you unlike anybody else. He is the only source that can make us live an abundant life, whether we have a lot or a little. Life here on Earth is short, but we are eternal. We don't cease from existence when we leave our body suits, so you'd better think about eternity."
Sergio makes it a point to acknowledge God's role in his work and his success as an artist and in all he does. When asked about how it feels to have made professional contributions to such famous and iconic characters as the ones listed earlier, Sergio said that it feels "like the grace of God fell upon me, fulfilling my dreams." He also adds that it's an honor and a privilege to be recognized professionally and to see his drawings of superheroes on merchandise such as T-shirts and watches. Batman is one of Sergio's favorite characters to draw, along with Superman, Wonder Woman, and Spider-Man. However, if given the choice to become any superhero or comic book character, Sergio would probably want to be Superman. He says, "I think it would be nice to be able to have superhuman, super-powerful strength, and be able to fly. I'd also enjoy being able to teleport myself to another place . . . so if you combine Superman with Star Trek, maybe that would be ideal.” Of course, Sergio also recognizes who the most powerful hero really is. He says, “If you think about it, though, the historical Jesus is way more powerful than the fictional Superman and all the heroes invented by men. Jesus has all power, all things are under His feet, He’s all knowing, he has all the answers, and He’s all present, multitask at its fullest. Better off to choose to become more like Jesus!”
So, even in the midst of all the fun and fantastical characters he's gotten to draw, Sergio knows that the characters and stories in The Action Bible are even more important. He says, "To me, [The Action Bible] is probably the most significant job of my life, of drawing history—God's Word in a comic book format, with the real iconic characters. Because Batman, Spider-Man, Superman, the Incredible Hulk—they're all fiction and will pass, but God's Word will never pass."
So next time you're reading a comic book about Batman cleaning up the streets of Gotham City, make sure to remember that as fun and exciting as those stories can be, the truly great stories and heroes are found in God's Word, the Holy Bible, and that now, with the release of The Action Bible, you can see those holy heroes of old jumping off the page in the form of action-packed drawings with brilliant colors and an eternally relevant message.
