Christian Manga Turns Bible Stories into Action Series
The Bible is jam-packed with action, villains and heroes – perfect ingredients for a manga action series, said the publisher of a Christian manga company.
Manga, or Japanese-style comics, is a way to get youths interested in Bible stories and the faith while also providing them clean entertainment, said Jonathan Lin, founder of Atiqtuq, which publishes Christian mangas.
Atiqtuq, founded earlier in 2010, has released a series on Apostle Paul and Judith, a young and beautiful widow who fights enemies invading her city. Judith is more popularly known among Catholics than Protestant believers.
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"I always wanted to start my own business and impact society in a positive way," said Lin. "Media is so important and it can be used to reach out to younger readers."
Lin grew up visiting his cousins living in Japan where he witnessed the frenzy over Japanese anime and manga. After coming out of the corporate business world, Lin felt like he could start a company that would combine the popularity of manga with Bible stories.
Most of his clients are from the United States, but there have been orders from as far away as Australia, Brazil, Germany, Great Britain, and Japan, he said. His readers are usually between the ages of eight and 13 years, which means parents are usually the ones ordering the books online for their children.
"For a long time I was caught between what the world expected me to be at a certain age or do at a certain point in my life rather than what I should be doing," Lin said, speaking about his journey in founding Atiqtuq. "It was not satisfying and not fulfilling [in the business world]."
"I never felt peace in other careers until now," he said, sharing that he started the company with his own savings and works long 14-hour days. "Even though the work is hard and I'm not making as much money as I used to, there is a sense of peace that this is where I should be."
The word Atiqtuq (ah tick took) is used by Canada's Inuits to describe the time when a baby polar bear leaves the den and follows its mother on their first journey to the Hudson Bay. The company says it wants to take the reader on a journey through great stories about real heroes and heroines.
The company plans to release series on Noah, David and Goliath, Jacob and Esther in 2011.
On the Web: http://atiqtuq.com/
