I’m a lapsed Catholic who loves reading about the history of the Catholic Church. For the past few days I’ve been reading “The Big Book of Martyrs,” a comic written by John Wagner (creator of Judge Dredd) in collaboration with over two dozen artists. Back in the 90s, it was published as part of a series of reference-lite comics under the “Factoid Books” label. The comic consists of about 50 biographies of Christian martyrs (the vast majority Catholic, with a few Orthodox mixed in), each only about 3-4 pages. Needless to say, these snippets can provide only the barest details, but the brevity is also a blessing. Reading 50 full-length biographies would be a time-consuming chore, especially if they were all written in the dry, indifferent manner of a reference book.
While “The Big Book of Martyrs” could never be seriously compared to a scholarly work of history, it did at least inspire me to do further research on a few obscure martyrs that I had never heard of before. And for all its limitations, the book serves as an adequate introduction to Christian martyrs, and the comic format makes it a quick and accessible read.
But I don’t intend to write a full review of the comic, at least not for this week. I’d rather talk about one of the more entertaining martyrs, St. Olaf of Norway (995 to 1030 AD).
Artwork by Rafael Kayanan