Christian history by comic book

Graphic Novelist Completes 8 Year Mission

DALLAS, June 23 — With the release of the fourth and final volume of his award-winning Eye Witness graphic novel series coming in July, author/illustrator Robert James Luedke’s, Unknown God, will complete a passion-driven mission to share the story behind the birth of the Christian Faith, which he began eight years ago.

In a literary format which has grown over 400% over the last ten years, but is largely dominated by overly muscled men dressed in leather and spandex, scantily clad women and zombies, Luedke’s time-hopping Biblical based action-adventure story has truly stood out from the crowd!

Through years of research, he has effectively (in a fictional sense) filled in the gaps in the Biblical narrative from the Passion week through the Book of Acts and combined it with a compelling and nail biting modern day action-thriller. “Think of Eye Witness as a marriage between Indiana Jones and Eugene Peterson’s Message Bible,” stated David Crumm on his Readthespirit.com, website.

Luedke made the commitment to begin the Eye Witness series in 2002, simply as a way to share the spiritual, historical and dramatic nature of the Passion Story, in a way that would draw the attention of readers of comics and graphic novels…especially those who may have never read a Bible or attended church. But one volume soon became three, which eventually grew to four, as the author’s desire to tell the “entire story” behind the birth of the faith developed and ended up consuming his life.

Doing a comic style Bible adaptation was not groundbreaking in itself, but using the Biblical narrative as the foundation of a modern day action-thriller, most certainly was! “I intentionally designed Eye Witness’ unique mixture of the Bible and modern day thriller to make the New Testament as exciting, attractive and fun as possible for today’s readers,” states Luedke. “My goal was treat the Book of Acts like Cecil B. DeMille treated the book of Exodus in his Ten Commandments film…by adding characterization, dramatization and connecting the dots for those not familiar with the original narrative.” According to veteran DC & Marvel comics writer/editor, Brian Augustyn, “Luedke started this series as a gifted cartoonist with a vision and ends the series as an evangelist of the paneled page. This is a terrific new way of seeing the greatest story ever told.”

The third volume in the series (Rise of the Apostle) was awarded a gold medal in the category of graphic novels at the 2009 National Best Book Awards, sponsored by USABooknews.com and was named a finalist in the FOREWORD Magazine book of the year awards. The second volume (Acts of the Spirit) was honored as the best comic/graphic novel at the 2007 Hollywood Book Festival. It also took a silver medal at the 2007 Independent Publisher Magazine Awards, as well as being named a finalist in the FOREWORD Magazine book of the year awards.

All the Eye Witness books are available through most major book retailers online order systems, as well as at: www.headpress.info.


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