The Manga Bible aims to pass on the biblical message to the 15-25 age group and has already sold 30,000 copies in Britain, becoming the best-selling manga novel in the country. It attempts to illustrate the whole Bible, from Genesis and the Old Testament to the Book of Revelation and the New Testament, in 200 pages. The novel is meant to be a starting guide for new readers of the Bible. Every few pages, a small tab refers readers to the biblical verses that the scenes cover. The book’s author is a man named Siku, who is of Nigerian descent, was born in London and spent half of his 42 years in Nigeria. As is clear from his work, his art was influenced by the kung fu and samurai films of the 1960s and ’70s. During his career, Siku has prepared drawings for numerous comic books and computer games, but he said he always wanted to illustrate the Bible in comic book form.

For more info on Siku and see a gallery of some of his works, check him out on his site at www.themangabible.com

Remember Jesus

Remember Jesus; That’s the simple message of UK based Graffiti artist, Lovepusher. You may not be able to read it, but those who are hip to the graffiti scene get the message loud and clear. Read below how his life and art were affected once Jesus became real in his life.

I have been painting consecutively since late 1995, but in 2003 there was a major shift in my consciousness and graffiti style. In a time of hardship and sadness I found God and was brought from darkness into light. At the time I was completely lost with no sense of direction, so I turned to Jesus and began to read more of the Bible. Within the course of a few months my life had turned around for the better. I began to experience more love and happiness, not only in me but also my friends and family. My life had changed so positively, that I wanted to say a personal “thank you” to Jesus.

I thought of how I could do this and remembered my favourite music producer from the U.S, Todd Edwards. Also a fellow Christian his music is based on cut up sampling of sounds, voices and other elements to create his musical style. What I found amazing about his music was if you listened closely, you could actually hear messages about Christ, love and salvation. Therefore in a way similar to Todd Edwards I wanted to say thank you to Jesus, by using the ability I was given by God to paint graffiti.  My old tag/name was Fued, but I decided to change it to Lovepusher because it had more of a personal meaning for me. The Love represented Jesus in my life and pusher represented me as an individual trying to spread the message of Jesus. I couldn’t paint every passage in the Bible, so I thought of an important message instead and that was to “Remember Jesus”.

I also changed my style to coincide with my spiritual rebirth. I was painting a London based style constantly for 8 years, I didn’t want to look back in 10 years and still be doing the same thing. So I tapped into an area I had previously disregarded.  At the time mind set was purely bombing, steel and trackside’s, until in 2003 I saw an international wall painted in South London. The wall consisted of artists such as Darco FBI, Shime, Solo1, Astek and Totem2. I remembered walking along the path where the wall was painted and for some reason something stood out. It was a piece by the artist Insa painted using the 3dimensional technique, pioneered in Europe by artists such as Delta, Daim, Toast and Loomit.

After seeing that piece I knew that I wanted to create a new style and render it using the 3dimensional technique. At first it was quite hard but after 2 years of constantly developing and having faith I managed to create my own 3d style. My style is based on taking 3dimensional shapes (Real and impossible) to create letters, as opposed to taking standard letter forms and making them 3D. At first glance you may not see the Lord’s name, but if you take your time and analyse the shapes you will see the name and overall message “Remember Jesus”.

Lovepusher.

Check out more at www.LovePusher.com or http://www.flickr.com/photos/lovepusher