Imagine someone who isn't a history buff saying "I'm going to make a comic about the founding of America, not because I'm interested in any particular part of it, but because I think America is important" or someone who isn't culturally fascinated with European fables saying "I'm doing a comic of Hansel & Gretel, no twist or anything, just the classic normal telling, as a comic." Those sound like they could be very boring! I feel like "Bible Stories" can fall into this, too -- just telling the same list of events again and not adding anything interesting to it.
I feel like there's a few different options, though:
- The Disney Option, where you embellish the story, flesh out your own version of the characters, or maybe do an entirely different take on the usual story, so that you can make it something fresh and interesting,
- Or, if you want to be more "true to the original," the Alexander Hamilton Option, where you seek out the elements of the story that have been left out or forgotten or overlooked in the usual tellings, find the humanity in these people/characters and the ways we can see ourselves in them.
As a Christian myself, I'm really partial to the Hamilton approach, since I feel like there IS a lot that tends to be overlooked! and a lot of tellings get weirdly simplified, sanitised, and boring when we turn them into "Bible Stories." The "Bible Story" version of Jonah is PRETTY DIFFERENT from the version of Jonah that actually is in the Bible (the one actually in the Bible is less about not being afraid to share your faith, and more about how being a self-righteous jerk who wants to see people they don't like get punished is not a great way to be).
David and Goliath has been told a thousand times, and you could probably still do stuff with that, but I still say you could make a really interesting narrative out of the rise of David after that -- on the run with a band of rebels but unwilling to kill the current king, while his unshakeably loyal but much more cynical second-in-command goes behind his back to do the murder and dirty work he knows his idealistic liege would never condone, to try to finally get him on the throne? There's some fascinating dynamics there.
There are complicated and interesting stories here, if you want to actually explore these people as people rather than just trying to Tell A Bible Story. I think you have to actually be interested in that, though, for it to ring true. If you're just making the story of Daniel and the Lion's Den for no reason other than because it's a Bible Story, and not because the people in it and the things that story has to say are interesting to you, it's more likely to just be like every other illustrated Bible Story already out there.
