My Luminaus super hero comic

© O. Douglas Jennings. All rights reserved.

 

The Luminaus (pronounced LOO meh naws) comic story was a feature I created that appeared in the Christian outreach newspaper, Issues & Answers from 1979 until 1991. I based the name on the word "luminous" and would roughly translate it as "light bearer" to symbolize the Christian concept of revealing the light of Truth to a dark world.

In keeping with that newspaper’s goal of presenting the Bible and its teachings through a variety of subjects, I wrote Luminaus to reflect a Christian world-view within a super-hero story.

In many of the episodes, Larry expresses his inner spiritual life and faith in Jesus Christ. Looking back on my work with Luminaus, I realize now that the writing was often too preachy. But overall, I'm pleased with much of the art-work and pacing of the stories. I did the writing and art as well as much of the lettering in the later episodes. My friend and artist Bruce Bernhardt did the lettering for several pages as well.

In 1984 The Caleb Campaign, parent company of Issues & Answers, published a comic book of the Luminaus Origin Story. I was told they at least broke even and were able to pay back their underwriters with the profits from the book.

Cover of the 1984 Luminaus Comic book which collected the first retelling of the origin story.

In the late 80s I retold the origin story and re-drew much of the art. The original art work for much of that revision is all that has survived the discontinuation of Issues & Answers newspaper and several relocations on my part.

I reprinted the Luminaus origin story over several issues of my Tigrikorn zine in the late 90s.

Shadow Knight was the Arch-Enemy of the comic seen in this Late 90s art.

I had a lot of fun with the character over those years and I think I learned a lot about comic story telling. Check out more Luminaus Art on my Flickr site.

Also, I have a Facebook page dedicated to Luminaus.

I had fun drawing this anime-style version of Luminaus!  © O. Douglas Jennings