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Parable
PARABLE is a collection of modern parables from some of the world's best independent animators, web artists and comic creators. From personal introspectives to fantastic fictions, each short tale provides its own unique glimpse of the elusive (and eternal) truths of life. The result is a rich volume full of faith, love, grace and beautiful sequential art. Featuring a foreword by Doug TenNapel and stories by: Ben Avery, Bryan Ballinger, Tim Baron, Tor Harald Blom, Monika Brozda, Paul Conrad, Rob Corley, Michelle Gorski, Ben Hatke, C Hill, Mike Laughead, Mike Maihack, James Mar, Stephen McCranie, Sarah Mensinga, Caleb Monroe, Caroline Parkinson, Dean Rankine, Jeremy Vanhoozer, and Rob Woodrum. Bringing you some of the finest inspirational Graphic Novels. Stories that will intrigue you. Art that will astound you. Punchlines that will make you laugh. Comics that will edify your life ONLY FROM LAMP POST
218 pages, Paperback
First published November 15, 2010
111 people want to read
About the author
Mike Maihack
47 books165 followersMIKE MAIHACK is the creator of the Cleopatra in Space graphic novels published by Scholastic/Graphix. The six-book series has earned him a Florida Book Award, a YALSA Quick Pick for Reluctant Young Adult Readers selection, a starred review from School Library Journal, and a wealth of sharable knowledge about sequential storytelling. Cleopatra in Space was also produced as a children’s animated series by DreamWorks Television with episodes currently airing worldwide and on both NBCUniversal’s new streaming service, Peacock and HULU. Currently he is working on a series of Spider-Man young reader books in collaboration with Marvel and Abrams Books.
Mike lives in Land O Lakes, Florida with his wife, two boys, and one extraordinarily fluffy cat. More of his work can be found online at operationspacecat.com.
Mike lives in Land O Lakes, Florida with his wife, two boys, and one extraordinarily fluffy cat. More of his work can be found online at operationspacecat.com.
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Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews
December 26, 2018
Don’t waste your money or your time.
For a book of parables, there sure weren’t many parables in this book. I counted three out of the 17 stories; and two were just graphic adaptations of parables of Jesus. It’s semantics, to be sure, but some of these stories are fables rather than the closely-related parable. But a lot of the others are just stories with religious messages, some extremely overt. And extremely specific.
As the forward says, parables are stories with a moral that is deliberately hidden. Many of these stories don’t even hide their moral. Normally, I wouldn’t necessarily bicker about semantics like this, but some of these stories are so bad, and attempt to deliberately hit you over the head with questionable religious messages that they remind me of the fundamentalist upbringing I narrowly escaped.
The first one, A Stylite Story is by the amazingly talented Ben Hatke, and I’m disappointed that his stellar contribution is part of this poorly curated collection of chronicles. It’s not a parable, but as described by Mr. Hatke, loosely based on an early Christian saint and an (odd) early Christian tradition. This might be one of the best stories in the book. But I was trying to figure out what the heck the moral was when I was reading it. But being (loosely) based on real events, I don’t think it was intended to have a moral.
The second one, Mamaw and Bigfoot is a story with a moral - but the moral is really obvious and stated in the story. Hardly hidden. Hardly allegory. But the moral was a good one - be kind to people who might not be like you.
But then there was the third story. A Dreamin’ Jennie Holiday Special This wasn’t anywhere near a parable. Just a really, really bad story intended to hit you over the head with the idea that people are waging an anti-Jesus war on Christmas. Which is propaganda that FOXNews made up to get ratings and stir up their base. This story set the tone for the rest of the book for my intrepid partner and she quit after reading it. Understandably so, since it’s so terrible. These types of stories indicate that any attempt to be inclusive - which Jesus strove to do if you read about him - is an attempt to destroy whatever the majority seems to be about at the time. It’s fear-mongering. So, basically, the moral of this story is that Christians are persecuted in this country, and if you are one, you should constantly force your religion on other people. Which is complete and total crap. This may be the worst story in the lot.
I don’t know what that Captain Clod was even about. And it made even less sense when I read in the appendix in the back that it had something to do with Jacob and Esau.
And finally, with the fifth story, Heaven is for Trailer Trash, we have a parable! It’s a really odd re-telling of Jesus’s parable of the Great Feast. Which is that God’s Kingdom isn’t necessarily for the people who are in the majority - it’s for the lost and forgotten. Maybe Jennie from the second story should read it and get a clue.
Nehemiah is a retelling of a Bible story - not a parable, just an Old Testament story. It’s the story of Nehemiah from his dog’s perspective.
I have a couple interpretations of One Leg Left. The first, knowing the belief system of the church I grew up in, is that it doesn’t matter what you actually do in this life - whether you hurt yourself or other people; what matters is that you follow religious rules with a cult-like belief so that you can take advantage of whatever afterlife your particular brand of religion advertises. The second, having known my broad-minded, magnanimous, intrepid partner for a few years, could be that a belief system is important and can give you great happiness and comfort in this life; and sticking with it through some difficult times may not be a bad idea. On reflection, because of the specificity and literalness of the story itself, I think it’s probably the former. It’s about someone getting baptized even though they are in danger of losing one of their legs if it gets wet. It gets wet, and the person is still happy - they have “one leg left” but their soul is saved because they get to go to whatever reward the people who wrote this story think people get if they get baptized. Many fundamentalist churches believe that if you don’t follow this type of specific rule (immerse yourself in water to show people you want to follow Jesus) you have no hope in getting the reward of an afterlife. I can’t think of a more narrow view of God.
The Sparrow seemed more of a fable than a parable. But I did like the message. If you show kindness, you’ll get back in kind.
Abovewas more of a fable, too - I think it meant be happy with what you have. If you’re greedy and want more, someone more greedy will come and take that from you.
Windblown Wanderer was a nice story, but, again, basically told the meaning of the story within itself.
In Uncommon, the message is obvious - don’t be an asshole. Be kind to people. But it just tells the story of someone being nice to someone else. There’s not really a lesson here. A parable normally indicates a why.
Noah’s Torment had another horrible message that is so common in evangelical circles. This story uses Noah to share the idea that we should always have blind faith in a god even when he murders innocent children. This is sooooo cult-like thinking. Never, ever question. In this story, Noah realized he was wrong for questioning and so taught his granddaughter to have blind faith in God. Which basically teaches us to have blind faith in (fallible, corruptible) religious leaders. Ugh.
The Little Debtor is a graphic adaptation of Jesus’s parable of the Unmerciful Servant.
Was Dr. Dastardly and the Kid about not fighting with your siblings? (It was about two brothers who were playing together, then fought, then played together again. Also, a tad obvious.)
The Picnic was a nice (if over-simplified) story about sharing.
Illuminated lost me in this collection. It’s a short graphic visualization of some of the things Jesus said. Kinda cool. But unexpected here.
Finally, EvangeLOST was also a parable. A parable for religious people who believe they have the job to convert people to their way of thinking, but a parable nonetheless.
Overall, not recommended.
For a book of parables, there sure weren’t many parables in this book. I counted three out of the 17 stories; and two were just graphic adaptations of parables of Jesus. It’s semantics, to be sure, but some of these stories are fables rather than the closely-related parable. But a lot of the others are just stories with religious messages, some extremely overt. And extremely specific.
As the forward says, parables are stories with a moral that is deliberately hidden. Many of these stories don’t even hide their moral. Normally, I wouldn’t necessarily bicker about semantics like this, but some of these stories are so bad, and attempt to deliberately hit you over the head with questionable religious messages that they remind me of the fundamentalist upbringing I narrowly escaped.
The first one, A Stylite Story is by the amazingly talented Ben Hatke, and I’m disappointed that his stellar contribution is part of this poorly curated collection of chronicles. It’s not a parable, but as described by Mr. Hatke, loosely based on an early Christian saint and an (odd) early Christian tradition. This might be one of the best stories in the book. But I was trying to figure out what the heck the moral was when I was reading it. But being (loosely) based on real events, I don’t think it was intended to have a moral.
The second one, Mamaw and Bigfoot is a story with a moral - but the moral is really obvious and stated in the story. Hardly hidden. Hardly allegory. But the moral was a good one - be kind to people who might not be like you.
But then there was the third story. A Dreamin’ Jennie Holiday Special This wasn’t anywhere near a parable. Just a really, really bad story intended to hit you over the head with the idea that people are waging an anti-Jesus war on Christmas. Which is propaganda that FOXNews made up to get ratings and stir up their base. This story set the tone for the rest of the book for my intrepid partner and she quit after reading it. Understandably so, since it’s so terrible. These types of stories indicate that any attempt to be inclusive - which Jesus strove to do if you read about him - is an attempt to destroy whatever the majority seems to be about at the time. It’s fear-mongering. So, basically, the moral of this story is that Christians are persecuted in this country, and if you are one, you should constantly force your religion on other people. Which is complete and total crap. This may be the worst story in the lot.
I don’t know what that Captain Clod was even about. And it made even less sense when I read in the appendix in the back that it had something to do with Jacob and Esau.
And finally, with the fifth story, Heaven is for Trailer Trash, we have a parable! It’s a really odd re-telling of Jesus’s parable of the Great Feast. Which is that God’s Kingdom isn’t necessarily for the people who are in the majority - it’s for the lost and forgotten. Maybe Jennie from the second story should read it and get a clue.
Nehemiah is a retelling of a Bible story - not a parable, just an Old Testament story. It’s the story of Nehemiah from his dog’s perspective.
I have a couple interpretations of One Leg Left. The first, knowing the belief system of the church I grew up in, is that it doesn’t matter what you actually do in this life - whether you hurt yourself or other people; what matters is that you follow religious rules with a cult-like belief so that you can take advantage of whatever afterlife your particular brand of religion advertises. The second, having known my broad-minded, magnanimous, intrepid partner for a few years, could be that a belief system is important and can give you great happiness and comfort in this life; and sticking with it through some difficult times may not be a bad idea. On reflection, because of the specificity and literalness of the story itself, I think it’s probably the former. It’s about someone getting baptized even though they are in danger of losing one of their legs if it gets wet. It gets wet, and the person is still happy - they have “one leg left” but their soul is saved because they get to go to whatever reward the people who wrote this story think people get if they get baptized. Many fundamentalist churches believe that if you don’t follow this type of specific rule (immerse yourself in water to show people you want to follow Jesus) you have no hope in getting the reward of an afterlife. I can’t think of a more narrow view of God.
The Sparrow seemed more of a fable than a parable. But I did like the message. If you show kindness, you’ll get back in kind.
Abovewas more of a fable, too - I think it meant be happy with what you have. If you’re greedy and want more, someone more greedy will come and take that from you.
Windblown Wanderer was a nice story, but, again, basically told the meaning of the story within itself.
In Uncommon, the message is obvious - don’t be an asshole. Be kind to people. But it just tells the story of someone being nice to someone else. There’s not really a lesson here. A parable normally indicates a why.
Noah’s Torment had another horrible message that is so common in evangelical circles. This story uses Noah to share the idea that we should always have blind faith in a god even when he murders innocent children. This is sooooo cult-like thinking. Never, ever question. In this story, Noah realized he was wrong for questioning and so taught his granddaughter to have blind faith in God. Which basically teaches us to have blind faith in (fallible, corruptible) religious leaders. Ugh.
The Little Debtor is a graphic adaptation of Jesus’s parable of the Unmerciful Servant.
Was Dr. Dastardly and the Kid about not fighting with your siblings? (It was about two brothers who were playing together, then fought, then played together again. Also, a tad obvious.)
The Picnic was a nice (if over-simplified) story about sharing.
Illuminated lost me in this collection. It’s a short graphic visualization of some of the things Jesus said. Kinda cool. But unexpected here.
Finally, EvangeLOST was also a parable. A parable for religious people who believe they have the job to convert people to their way of thinking, but a parable nonetheless.
Overall, not recommended.
January 17, 2018
As far as something that can cause more in depth discussion with my kids I really liked this book. It was interesting to see stories and teachings from the Bible in a different view. Still beautiful and poignant story telling in many respects. There are even commentary on today's society. And of course there are one or two that I don't fully understand -- even with some explanation from the appendix in the back.
Like the Forward in the this book addressed, sometimes parables (stories with a moral) need to be revisited several times. This is a book that I have no problem with my child (currently 9) looking at over and over and wrestling with what is being hashed out. However, there are some things that I wasn't quite prepared for, "Mom, what are 'hookers'?" (From the story of inviting all the marginalized to the wedding feast after the Master's friends have all declined Luke 14:16-29) But, let's be honest, we see prostitutes in the the Bible. If your kids are reading the bible there's nothing new here. :) Just new words.
Like the Forward in the this book addressed, sometimes parables (stories with a moral) need to be revisited several times. This is a book that I have no problem with my child (currently 9) looking at over and over and wrestling with what is being hashed out. However, there are some things that I wasn't quite prepared for, "Mom, what are 'hookers'?" (From the story of inviting all the marginalized to the wedding feast after the Master's friends have all declined Luke 14:16-29) But, let's be honest, we see prostitutes in the the Bible. If your kids are reading the bible there's nothing new here. :) Just new words.
July 9, 2025
My first entree into a graphic novel but I thought that having this one as my first might align with my interests.
Not for me, I'm afraid; it didn't even take me back to the comics of my childhood, it just didn't resonate at all, which is not to say that this isn't a good book.
Not for me, I'm afraid; it didn't even take me back to the comics of my childhood, it just didn't resonate at all, which is not to say that this isn't a good book.
August 17, 2018
Interesting mix of religious and regular parables. Some of my favorite illustrators are featured and some I had not read anything by before. Quite an interesting collection of graphic stories.
August 3, 2011
Like most graphic compilations this is a mixed bag of storytelling and art. I bought it for the Ben Hatke and Stephen McCranie stories and wasn't disappointed by them. I had no expectations concerning the other artists/writers but have found a few whose work I'd be willing to seek out.
May 24, 2016
The cover is gorgeous, I just wish most of the stories were on par with it.
I enjoyed several of the stories but most fell short and left me wanting more.
I enjoyed several of the stories but most fell short and left me wanting more.
Displaying 1 - 6 of 6 reviews