Picture Stories from the Bible the Old Testament

M. C. Gaines’s pioneering 1943 comic, Picture Stories from the Bible: The Old Testament, was a landmark effort to bring biblical narratives to the burgeoning comic-book medium with reverence and clarity. Published as a single issue by Bible Pictures, it featured classic Old Testament episodes, adapted with a sober, illustrative style that aimed to educate as well as entertain. This series is significant as an early, earnest attempt to treat comics as a vehicle for religious and moral instruction, predating the more famous biblical comics of the 1950s. Its enduring legacy lies in demonstrating that the comic form could handle serious, non-superhero subject matter with dignity.