EDUCATIONAL COMICS 163
In China, the Communist victory in 1949 led to a big increase in propaganda comic
books (small booklets with one illustrated panel per page), and these comics became
important tools for educating the Chinese people about communism. By 1963, more
than 560 million copies had been circulated.
Religion
Hearing about the communist Chinese cartoon-format propaganda booklets inspired
Southern Californian Jack T. Chick to use cartoon tracts for evangelical purposes. Chick
published his fi rst tract in 1960. Chick Publications has produced a few full-sized
comic books and many small-format, giveaway tracts, such as Th is was your Life. He has
distributed over 750 million copies in over one-hundred languages.
Catholics began publishing and distributing their own comic books for distribution
through Catholic schools in 1942 with Timeless Topix (later shortened to To p i x). Tre a -
sure Chest followed, beginning in 1946. Cold War anticommunist comic books began
with Is Th is Tomorrow?, published by the Catechetical Guild in 1947, which demon-
strates the overlap between religious and political comics publishing.
In 2009, the Unitarian Universalist Association of Congregations’ 155-year-old
publishing arm, Beacon Press, announced plans to publish a line of graphic novels that
pertain to its mission of promoting social justice through liberal political activism. Th e
fi rst would be a graphic novel adaptation of Octavia Butler’s novel Kindred, followed by
several nonfi ction graphic novels.
Th e Indian publisher Amar Chitra Katha has published hundreds of comic books
based on Hindu and Buddhist religious traditions, mythology, history, and folklore.
After a slow start in 1967, the circulation of Amar Chitra Katha comic books
eventually surpassed 100 million copies in more than 20 languages. Th e founder
of this series, Anant Pai, was inspired to create this series when he noticed a young
Indian television game show contestant was more familiar with Greek mythology
than Indian mythology, and then saw that his nephews and nieces made up stories
about children in England, like those in the British books in India’s libraries, rather
than stories about Indian children.
Recently, under new ownership, Amar Chitra Katha has announced plans to move
into television animation and to distribute their comics by subscription to mobile
phone users. Th ey have also begun a new series of comics telling the life stories of
famous living persons of India, starting with N. R. Narayana Murthy, a founder of
Infosys Technologies.
Comics are also used to promote Islam. In the Arab world, successful comics often
exist as features in governmental or quasi-governmental children’s magazines, and so
their pedagogical functions (either religious or secular) are frequently prominent. In the
1990s, nongovernmental Islamic organizations expanded their publication of children’s
magazines, Since 2006, Dr. Naif Abdulrahman Al-Mutawa’s Teshkeel Media Group
in Kuwait has produced a comics series called Th e 99 based on Islamic archetypes and
designed as “edutainment” to promote multicultural understanding.
