Steve Thomason ’15 Ph.D. began creating biblical illustrations in 2002. It was shortly after he left a preaching position at a megachurch in Las Vegas to help start a house church. Thomason made cartoons that accompanied weekly devotional guides for the house church community. Since he was no longer preaching, these illustrations were a way he could continue to help others learn about the Bible.

From there, Thomason kept making biblical cartoons, eventually collecting his work into a website called A Cartoonist’s Guide to the Bible.

Thomason came into the Lutheran church as a pastor in 2010 and started using his cartoons in his sermons. “The congregation really responded positively to that. They fanned the flame of my creativity and encouraged me to keep doing this kind of work,” he said.

In 2017, he moved on to another church that turned out to be even more enthusiastic about his biblical cartoons, inspiring him to illustrate readings from
the Narrative Lectionary as if they were parts of a graphic novel. That work led Thomason to illustrate the entire Gospel of Matthew, which he then self- published as a book. He went on to create and self- publish graphic novels for the other three gospels, completing the last one, John, last summer.

Now, after joining Luther Seminary’s faculty in August 2022 as an associate professor of spiritual formation, Thomason continues to find new ways to teach with visuals. His illustrations have become a familiar sight to many members of the seminary community.

In a recent interview, Thomason shared insights into how he creates cartoons and why he feels that art is such an important teaching tool.

Q: Could you describe your process for creating your illustrations and graphic novels?
a: I always start by opening up my Bible software, and I do an exegetical study of the text—a wall of words. I study it like any Bible student would study the text, noticing things. But then, I start thinking about the visuals.

For instance, in the Gospel of John, geography matters. Where things take place matters. So, I would color-code—this happened in this place and this happened in that place, all that stuff. I just created a basic outline—trying to pull out themes, trying to pull out patterns—and from that, I mapped out pages.

Then, I started shifting to graphic novel mode. If I’m going to tell this in a graphic novel format, how do I design the pages to move through the story, to highlight those themes? For the Gospel of John, I decided to create color themes. And so, if you see a picture that has bright blue sky and full-color scenery, that’s Galilee. But if it’s got a red sky and darker colors and purples and blacks and reds, that’s Jerusalem because that was a very intense, negative space for Jesus to be in. He was speaking against those power structures, so it’s an ominous color scheme. That’s just one visual choice that I
made. I also chose to draw Jesus differently in each gospel because each gospel is a different portrait of Jesus.

To actually create the illustrations, I drew everything on my iPad. I went back and forth between an app called Comic Draw and illustrating in Procreate, which is an illustration app for the iPad. I’d lay out the pages in Comic Draw, and then I’d go into Procreate and actually do the artwork. Then, I’d bring it back into Comic Draw and lay it out and put the lettering in.

Once I got a page done, I would send it to my main desktop computer, and I’d bring it into Photoshop. I would take each image and format them for PowerPoint so that a preacher or a teacher could take my PowerPoints and use them to tell the story of the text. So, I was able to take the whole page and send it to the print world to be a book, but then I was able to take all those images and turn them into the presentation world for PowerPoint.

I’m not trying to do biblical interpretation. I mean, I know drawing is a form of interpretation, so I acknowledge that. But I’m not trying to say, “Here’s what the Bible means.” I’m trying to visually present what it says, but the story is the story.

Q: How is this illustrated format effective in helping people learn about the Bible?
a: I am a visual learner. I learn from seeing, and I think in pictures. In our society, we are visual people. If you have the gift of sight, you’re a visual thinker and a visual learner. And even people who can’t physically see still have their mind’s eye and the ability to imagine things.

So, we see in concepts and pictures, and I think—not to go a little bit deeply philosophical about it, but—language and words are for the privileged class. Think about that.
You’re not born with the ability to read. Language itself is an abstraction that we invent. We make up these sounds to communicate abstract ideas, and then we make up these arbitrary little symbols that we call letters to try to communicate the sounds. There’s a lot of decoding that has to go on, and it takes intense education to be able to read text.

When you open a book that’s just words—the more academic the book, the smaller the font. That’s a kind of elitism because you have to be educated to be able to process all of these letters. But when you draw it, even a person who can’t read can see what’s happening in that story. I just think it opens it up in a different way for people to access whatever the story is that you’re telling.

Q: How have people responded to your work?
a: Well, I’ll start with the negative. It’s interesting to me—social media is the blessing and the curse of our day. People can be savage on social media. Sometimes when I have posted my work, like in clergy groups on Facebook, I have had people attack me saying, “That is the most disrespectful, heretical, how dare you cartoon the Bible?” So, I’ve had religious people who have lambasted me because they think I’m disrespecting God and the Scripture by cartooning it. On the other hand, I’ve also had people who completely mock me and mock God, saying “Oh, it’s perfect that you’re doing the Bible as a cartoon because it’s all a joke anyway.” Really nasty, anti-religious kind of people attacking me. So, I’ve been attacked from both sides for cartooning the Bible.

Yet, I’ve had far more positive responses from people of all ages. It was really interesting as a pastor using cartoons as part of my regular preaching, because the people who loved it responded very verbally. I would have parents tell me, “When you get up and you start preaching, my kids actually pay attention.” Kids would come up to me afterwards, and they’d have their versions of my drawings that they were doing during the sermons. I would also have adults say for themselves, “Your visuals have opened up the Scripture for me in a way that I’ve never been able to access before.” That’s really cool when you hear that. And academically, from all of my colleagues at Luther Seminary—it’s why I’m here. It’s because they value it.

If you’re one of those people who thinks this is disrespectful of God and not appropriate: God bless you, and just know that that’s not my intent. Because from where I am, as a human being, this is how I honor God and how I honor Scripture. This is not me making fun of it or trivializing it, this is me honoring it deeply and studying it intensely because this is who I am.

Q: Do you have a favorite illustration that you’ve done?
a: My favorite illustration is the next one I’m going to do.