Spire Christian Comics was a line of comic books published by Fleming H. Revell starting in 1972. In the 1980s, Barbour & Company, founded by Hugh Revell Barbour, acquired the rights to republish many of the titles in the Spire Christian Comics line under the New Barbour Christian Comics imprint, keeping the comics in print until 1988.

History

Christian book publisher Fleming H. Revell had approached Al Hartley, about doing comic book adaptions of Christian-themed books that they were publishing. Hartley was working for Archie Comics at the time. In 1972, they launched Spire with two titles, God's Smuggler and The Cross and the Switchblade. Hartley's connection with Archie comics publisher John Goldwater helped Spire license the Archie characters in a Christian-themed series, and in 1973 they launched the first of 19 Archie titles, Archie's One Way. Other comics were based on true stories, Christian novels, or Christian movies. Examples of this type include those based on Charles Colson's Born Again, Corrie ten Boom's The Hiding Place, and a modernized version of Charles Sheldon's 1896 novel In His Steps. A line of comics for very young children featured young Barney Bear, who lived with his parents in a cave in Yellowstone National Park. The comics were created from 1972 and 1982 and kept in print for several years.

List of titles

Archie series

Bible story adaptations

Biographical and autobiographical

Kiddies Christian Comics

Other book/movie adaptations