Voices for Voices®

Superheroes & The Gospel: The Comic Book Connection | (Ep 272)

• Founder of Voices for Voices®, Justin Alan Hayes • Season 4 • Episode 272

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Superheroes & The Gospel: The Comic Book Connection | (Ep 272)

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Brian Bradley returns to share more about Kingdom Comics Online, a faith-based comic publisher bringing Christian values to the comic book world through engaging storytelling and character-driven narratives.

• Kingdom Comics has published numerous series including Anointed Seven, Quiver, Prodigal, and their newest 148-page graphic novel ZN
• Their newest graphic novel features 11 different artists and 4 writers bringing multiple storylines together
• The name "Kingdom Comics" came to Brian during a church business course in 1999
• Stories and characters often "write themselves" with popular characters sometimes earning their own series
• The team collaborates through group chats with writers knowing the overall direction of the Kingdom Comics universe
• Comic conventions serve as their mission field where they "shine light" amidst contrary content
• They've expanded to homeschool conferences and will appear at the Alive Music Festival in Ohio
• Recently launched apps for Google Play and Apple devices giving readers access to 130+ comics
• As a 501c3 nonprofit, they rely on donations to attend major conventions like San Diego and New York
• Their mission continues to grow through technology while maintaining their focus on representing Jesus Christ

Visit KingdomComicsOnline.com to explore their comics and download their new app featuring over 130 comics with new issues added monthly.

Chapter Markers

0:00 Recap and Website Tour

7:19 Behind the ZN Graphic Novel

10:42 Kingdom Comics Origins and Process

15:12 Comic Conventions as Mission Fields

21:20 Future Plans and App Highlights

26:14 Mission Work and Final Thoughts

#GospelMessage #KingdomComics #ComicBookCulture #FaithAndFiction #ChristianComics #GraphicNovelMinistry #BibleInComics #PopCultureFaith #ComicBooksAndChrist #CreativeFaithExpressions #ComicConChristianity #StorytellingWithPurpose #GeekyGospel #ArtOfFaith #HeroicFaith #TikTok #Instagram #VoicesforVoices #VoicesforVoicesPodcast #JustinAlanHayes #JustinHayes #help3billion

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Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

started. Hey everyone, welcome back to our part two of our conversation with Mr Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics Online. We had an awesome conversation in our first episode, so if you weren't able to catch that, it's, it's available. So, uh, I believe this will be episode uh 272 that we're on now, and so episode 271 will be, uh, the episode you'll want to go back to to catch our first, the first part of our conversation. Uh, to be able to hear about Brian's childhood and how comics and drawing and that really got started at an early age and as time went on, it came to be a possibility and then now it's a reality. So that's how we're going to, we're going to kick off this, this particular part two of our discussion. But before I introduce Brian, I am going to and I apologize to our listeners, but what we're, what I'm going to be doing, is pulling up a screen share, share my screen so our viewers are able to see Brian, his Kingdom Comics online website, and so let me actually go back here to the beginning. Here we go.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

That is our store, our online store. Ah, okay, so it's a little different than the actual website.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Okay, that's why it, that's why I was enchanted when I saw these. But yeah, so I guess, to get a big start, you can kind of see some of the characters that Brian and his comics have had throughout the years.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

You can actually see all the different titles that he published. You have up top. You have the Anointed Seven Kingdom Comics, Presents, Quiver, we Are Rifahim Bridge, Prodigal, Sir Caliburn, Votery, and that last one, ZN, is a graphic novel we just published earlier this year. It's got, oh gosh, 148 pages. Wow, 11 different artists, 4 different writers, and ZN was a graphic novel we published where we brought several different storylines. We brought them all together in one conclusion on the planet Mars. So that's it.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

That makes sense.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Yeah.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

I think that's incredible, that character.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Zonix. He's kind of like our version of Thanos. I tell people so to give you an idea of who Thanos was, we have Zonix.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Only similarity is that they kind of are the same shade, I guess, but otherwise he's a much different character. But he's in a similar role in the Kingdom Comics universe where he tries to judge and destroy the entire universe, but our heroes, along with the angelic hosts of heaven, stand against him in a final confrontation. So that's what that is. We got the entire Kingdom Comics crew, all the writers, all the artists, even a few guest writers and artists, all contributed and did this 148-page graphic novel.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

That's awesome. I saw that. I was curious on that because I've had a different look and feel for the other ones. Thank you for walking us through that. While I have the screen share up the app, am I able to get to the point where people can see it?

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

If you went to the website, would you be able to go to the website?

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, I can.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Okay, kingdomcomicsonlinecom.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Oh, here we go. Okay, this is our website. Yeah, so here is the website. Yeah, this is the website. We kind of did things a little bit reverse, but wanted to show this.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Scroll down just a little bit, okay. Ah, here we go. There, the apps are Okay. We have them for Google and for the Apple Store.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yep. And so anybody that has a smartphone has interest in comics. You can get all of the Kingdom comics previous episodes, previous comics, each new one dropped each month. Then that goes into that catalog and you're able to you know, as Ryan is mentioning able to have that at your fingertips. You're at home, if you're on the go, if you're in a dorm, on a train, in a subway, you have that ability, and that is just incredible to have that as an option, I guess. So first I'm gonna get back to our regular screen. How did Kingdom comic just that the name come up, come about? I know we talked about, you know, the importance of God and the Lord and faith. Is that what drove that name as the overall?

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Yeah, my church back in 1999, they had a business course. It was their first business course, so what I wanted to do was to learn how to actually run Kingdom Comics legitimately as a business. Right now it's a 501c3 nonprofit. So I took this course at my church and it just did the. I mean, the comic book thoughts were already there, but the name of the company, I guess I could just say it just kind of came to me. I just thought, hmm, kingdom Comics. Man, it's stuck. I just thought of it Kingdom Comics. And here we are.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, and I found the same thing with Voices for Voices. It was just one of those. Yeah, it's hard to really describe where you're thinking and it comes to the thought and it's like, oh okay, it's easy to think. Thought and it's like, oh okay, it's easy to think of. That's great to know that. What I definitely want to ask you about in our part two here is and I'm just assuming, and I shouldn't assume, that each new comic has a similar process, but what comes first? Is it the plot? Is it the character? Who's going to be the main character? How does that evolve? Somebody who's thinking where the main character, or how, how does that evolve? You know, somebody who's thinking like, well, where do? Where would I even start?

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

well, right now all of our series are ongoing series, so every new issue is just a continuation from the previous issue. What has happened over the years is some of the issues if there's a character that kind of pops out, uh, we will develop them and we have given them their own series, but they just kind of I mean, I tell people the story is kind of right themselves. You know they. Just you get into a flow with it and they tell you where they want to go. The characters tell you what they want to do and if the character is popular, they say, hey, I want my own series, that's and that's what the character gets Like.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

I said, we have different writers. So we all kind of work together and know pretty much each other's characters and we kind of, overall, know the direction of where everything is going. Like, for instance, the Zonics graphic novel that had several different comic books. We were all heading in that one direction. So, all the different writers, we all knew what the conclusion was going to be. So we all uniquely took those characters and brought them toward this one direction, which was finally confrontation. But we kind of know what each other's doing and all the characters. We know them.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Well enough now to where we kind of they kind of write themselves, like I said yeah, when you uh with, uh, I say with the pandemic and just with, you know things being shut down from from your perspective of kind of that, I think the, the, the leader, um, as far as bringing people you know from different states and different countries, you know, uh, that are part of the team at one time or another, uh, do you have like I don't think like a standing meeting you know each, each week, each month, or is it just an email chat or you know, just from like a communication standpoint of how, how, how you, how you manage that? You don't have to get like super specific, but just in general, like if somebody's like how do you work with somebody in this area and that area?

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

We actually have something as simple as a group chat on Facebook so we all communicate through the group chat. The pandemic didn't affect us at all as far as producing comic books. It did affect our appearances at comic book conventions, because every year we do several comic book conventions really all over the country. So that kind of hindered us from doing conventions. But it did not hinder us from publishing comic books With our subscribers. It didn't hinder us from still mailing them the monthly comic book. But as far as the conventions, yeah, it was kind of unfortunate we couldn't get out there like we normally would.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

It was kind of unfortunate we couldn't get out there like we normally would, yeah. So what's the dynamic like at a comic convention? I've never been at one. You love them.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Yeah, it's really cool. I mean, we're there as a representative of Jesus Christ, a representative of Jesus Christ and our neighbors and just the general atmosphere of the comic books and the stuff going on around us. We really are there to shine the light and it's obvious when you're there. And maybe over here you got images of the occult and over here you got nudity or partial nudity and there's all types of stuff going on. Yet there we are, right in the midst of it and it's enjoyable. We always are very successful as far as getting the books in the hands of the people. We sell a lot, and we always have, but they've been very successful. Being a fanboy geek myself, I just like being around comic books and all that.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, and you get to, like I said, you get to meet the people that are your subscribers, that already know you, whether they've met you at a previous convention or just like, oh, you know, I've been waiting, you know, to have an opportunity I've been a subscriber for quite a while and to really just, you know, have that, you know few seconds or a few minute, you know conversation.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

We've started doing homeschool conferences and yeah, they really the parents, really love us at the homeschool conferences and yeah, we do get kids that come up and remember us from previous years. We're about to do the alive music fest in two weeks in ohio yeah event and place parker. Yeah, yeah, they, the kids come back, or teenagers. They remember us excuse me from previous years and they look for us. They're happy to see us there. So that's in two weeks.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Looking forward to that okay, yeah, that's very, that's very close to where I grew up. I'm still in in the same state and a little bit maybe like an hour away, but yeah, that's, that's awesome because, yeah, I definitely remember the live fest, that uh that they have each year and and so that's the fifth year, the fifth year.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Okay, now how? How is it all like an outdoor thing, or is there an indoors, like I'm just thinking of, like weather, or like it's all outdoors, it's all outdoors, okay and, yes, sometimes it rains, but we're usually underneath a tent.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

First few years we had individual tents, but then there's a large tent as well that they had last year, where all the vendors are underneath one tent. So we've experienced a lot of rain, but we've gotten through it. Hopefully not this year.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, hopefully not, yeah, no, and that's also. This is a perfect plug, because this episode is going to go out, be available well ahead of that live festival. So do you have like a booth number, or how can people? Be sure that they can find you.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

They'll see me there, okay, I don't even know if they give booth numbers there.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

To tell you the truth, I didn't know either they do at conventions, at conical conventions or at home school conferences.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

But I don't think. No, alive does not give booth members, but if you go to the general vendor area, you'll run into us, you'll see us, we'll be there.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Okay, is so? I'm guessing you know, a banner of some sort, that of some sort?

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Kingdom Comics One, two, three banners will be out there.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Perfect. Now do you go to these by yourself or do you have others? I'm just thinking something like managing time. If you're having a conversation with somebody and another person comes over and they're like, oh, I want to buy this. That happens yeah.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

It may depend, sometimes by myself, oftentimes I have other Kingdom Commons people with me. My wife goes with me a lot. Yeah, that does happen. There are times, in fact, I used to get frustrated in previous years because I'd be talking to someone and someone else would come up to the table and I'd want to tell my partner okay, you need to go talk to that person, I'm over here, you need to talk to that person. That would happen. I've calmed down over the years. Okay, don't worry about it.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Here in a live there'll be maybe about four or five of us who will be manning the booth, so I won't have that problem.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Good good.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Yeah.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

From my time in corporate America. We've had different conventions over the years and that was one of the big. The big things to consider um is if you know somebody's in a conversation or they're talking to a customer and somebody comes because what we were trying to do is sell, uh, sell the product off of the, the gondolas, and so you know, call it the cash and carry. So at the end of the show we didn't want to have to ship, you know, all the products back. We wanted to have sales and so there were some pretty good discounts so we would get people that would purchase products just because it was at such a discount. But then they were responsible for taking that and that was that was one of the big things.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

That and I I didn't have any, I mean, I had my MBA and gone through project management. But to actually see that all these things in motion of somebody wants to have a conversation and and and really I had to just basically put like a color coded sheet together everybody's name and who's going to be aware when you know if somebody's at, somebody's at lunch and and they're, you know Petco comes, their big customer, like we need to be able to get in touch with that that rep, so they get back to where they need to be able to get in touch with that that rep, so they get back to where they need to be. And so we're not, you know, missing that opportunity, because some things are scheduled and some things are just they're, they're walking by and and so that's why I was just thinking about, uh well, you know, having having a booth and and having comics and kind of just yeah, the, the very call back.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

I've I've left the booth and I don't get a call on my phone, I'll say come back here. And I saw someone say ask you about this. So I'll have to come back sometimes and attend to the customer. No big deal.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, yeah, like you said now, now you're you're used to it, you kind of know what to expect and you're you're like I am, and as far as like, yeah, getting frustrated and you know, at the start for you, and like you know you're trying to, I'll say, please, everybody. But you're trying to make sure everybody gets taken care of in the. In the, however, they want to interact If they they want to make a purchase, if they want, if they want to download the app, they want to make a purchase, if they want to download the app. And they're like, hey, I have, you know, the Apple store open. You know how do I find it? And those obviously are helpful because they, you know, bring income into the organization and that's helpful.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

I don't want to say, like, what snags have you hit over the years? But just Can you go? Or just maybe, like in general of you know things happen and you've persisted, you've continued on, you'd follow that mission. That's in your heart, that it's the Lord's work. And and just how do you? Yeah, how you, you just persevered. Now, it's probably much easier than you know when any kind of got started, but you know everybody's going to run into roadblocks at some point.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Yeah, we, we, you know. We just hope to be able to do more conventions. You know, we're also, as I said earlier, we were on 501C3. So we also take donations.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Okay.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

And it was kind of as a saying goes, send us out, we get sent out. A lot of that has to do with, like I said, the donations Coming up. We have a live. We've actually done the San Diego convention, the big one. We've done that a couple of times. I'm hoping to be able to do New York this year. We will have a couple of things lined up. We'll just see how it goes, but we're moving forward.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, I would say it's an exciting time and to share your successes and the new projects that have come come along from you know, the, the very beginning and the see, you know now, yeah, you're, you have an app and it's just like it's not that you weren't in the 21st century, but it's like you're, you're able to meet the customer wherever they are, if they, if they choose to do so, and so I think that's, that's, that's huge, for, for any, anybody, any organization is, uh, you know, because, yeah, there's, you know, there's conventions, there's different times like that, but you want to be able to reach, you know, the masses, and the masses may, for one reason or not, you might not know about the convention, they might not have the funds, whatever that may be, and they're like, well, wow, if I, if I knew they had an app, you know, or that I know that they have an app, then I don't have to worry about that, because everything new is getting uploaded and I'm not going to miss anything. You know, if I want to start all the way back in the beginning and then work my way up, that now you can. Yeah, so we're at the end of our second episode. This one went, I think, even faster than the, than the first first one. Yeah, I mean, if you, can you give you know more plugs?

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Let me talk about a live, you know the dates. And I mean, can you give more plugs? Let me talk about Alive the dates and your team will be there and then talk about the app. A little bit Sure, yeah.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

There's a lot of information on our website, so I would definitely suggest you guys check out the website, and it's July 3rd it's still early in the summer we're going to do a live in two weeks and hopefully maybe we can do a couple more conventions going into the fall.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Um, we're very excited about the app. We just released it. We released the uh google one, I think late may and the apple one, uh, early june, so we're still very early in the release of those. Um, I hope you guys check them out. Some really, really, really good stuff on it, probably unprecedented. And the other thing out there you get 130 plus comic books that you can read at your leisure on your phone or your iPad or your Kindle or whatever. So you know. And then the last thing well, firstly, keep us in prayer, because we are out there in the mission field. As I tell people, you know what we do when we go to conventions in these places. That's the mission field that the Lord has given us. So keep us in prayer and thank you for taking the time to watch this.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Absolutely. Thank you for joining us for two parts, two shows. I've learned a ton.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

I hope everybody checks out the new app. If they're in the Northeast Ohio area, where the live festival is going to be held in a couple of weeks, that you go check that out. Uh, you know, look for kingdom comics. Uh, and and again, that app is you know everything you need right there. Uh, it's an, it can be in the palm of your, your hand. And then again, that's uh, it's unprecedented. And then again it's unprecedented, especially with how many versions, or how many comics that you have Over 130 in each month, that get added. That it's not an additional cost. It's like, okay, here's what the monthly cost is. And then you kind of just refresh and then, oh, the new one came out today for this month or something like

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

that yeah, so yeah, thank you, brian, thank you, kingdom Comics, thank you for your mission work, and I'm finding more and more with Voices for Voices and the work that we're doing and things we want to do.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

We can't do this alone, we can't do this all by ourselves, and so definitely have to have the faith, have to have that guidance and leadership from above, and so that's an extra reason why we wanted to have you on, because of that backing and being transparent about that, because sometimes different topics are, you know, touch and go, and so to be able to talk about that it's very important and we have nothing but respect for you and everything you do.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

We invite our listeners, our viewers, check out KingdomComicsOnlinecom, then you can get to the store, you can see everything that's going on with Kingdom Comics, the to the store. You can see everything that's going on with kingdom comics, and then you can download and find the way to get. You know the, the, the google play or the android store, uh, for the, the app or, if you like, like myself, have an apple device able to go to the. You know the apple Apple device able to go to the Apple store and download the Kingdom Comics app and never miss a beat. Get issue one all the way up to 44.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Yeah, which is just incredible. So, brian, thank you so much for joining us. We've really enjoyed our time together and maybe we'll have a chance to meet here later in the summer, if everything goes well with what we're expecting.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

Thank, you for having me. I enjoyed this. Thank you for having me.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

I enjoyed this Absolutely.

Brian Bradley, Kingdom Comics:

It made me think back to a few things and was going to the journey of my mind to the past to remember something, so I enjoyed it.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

Great and thanks to our viewers or listeners, check this episode. If you haven't, if you've checked out episode 2711, which is part one of our conversation, uh, we, uh, we want you to check out part two, which is 272, and that means we have 272 episodes, and and so, just as the kingdom comics has a lot of uh, a lot of comics that are available on the app and for purchase, we have a lot of other guests, other topics, we tackle hard topics and we just share that information and let you, the people, decide about it. But we have been, we are and we're going to continue to be voices for voices, and we just are thankful that you've been with us to keep us around for as long as we have, and so we greatly appreciate it and we will see you on our next episode. Until next time, we ask that, if you're able to, to be a voice for yourself in whatever that means and whatever way that is, or if there's somebody you know that is not able to share their voice, that if you're able to talk about a particular topic or situation, you can always reach out to us, and we would love to have you on the show and to march towards that huge goal that I had from kind of day one we want to help three billion people over the course of my lifetime and beyond. It's a crazy goal, but we have a mighty God and there's nothing that he can't do, and so we're going to, through bringing light to Kingman Comics and others that are on this journey together. We can't do it alone.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And again, I can't just say enough thank you that we're not only reaching people here in the United States and Northeast Ohio, we're reaching over 70 countries, 700 cities. Never would have thought that from day one I wanted to, I wanted, right, the 3 billion. That's not all here in the United States. Never would have thought that from day one I wanted to, I wanted, right, the 3 billion. That's not all here in the United States. But you know, to see the analytics like that, it's just really mind-blowing to be able to know that there's people outside of the United States that are tuning in or have tuned in from time to time. So we're very grateful.

Voices for Voices, Justin Alan Hayes:

And if you're in another, you're in another country you still can check out kingdom comics online. You can still download the app. You still can get all that same content that you know. Users here in the United States. All you need is you know your, your iPhone or your, your droid, and you can have that. So we invite you to help. We're more alike than we are different, and we will see you on our next episode. So until next time, I'm Justin Allen-Hays, founder of Voices, and thank you for joining us, and we'll talk to you on the next show. Bye-bye for now.

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