Christmas Library 2020: Building An Al Hartley Christian Comics Collection

"Christmas With Archie" by Al Hartley, 1974 Spire Christian Comics.

Al Hartley (1921 - 2003) was a longtime cartoonist & writer for the Archie Comics company who famously used the teenage characters for Christian stories in the 1970s and 1980s. Hartley was a very versatile talent whose work is still distinguishable from most Archie artists with very colorful visual gags, character responses, and Christian inspired sentiment. His comics were very successful and are still sought after by collectors. After dedicating his life to Christ in the late 1960s, Christian messages began appearing in his Archie stories, Christmas tales in particular. 

When he was asked to tone down his messages, Hartley got permission to use the Archie characters for Christian comic books published by Spire Publishing, later Barbour Christian Comics.

One of Hartley's best titles was "Christmas With Archie" (1974). Full of inspiring stories, puzzles and and beautiful artwork it is a treasure of my "Christmas Library". As far as I know, this comic was not reprinted by Barbour publishing in the 1980s so it is one of Hartley's rarest books along with "Archie's Circus (1984) and his testimonial paperback book "Come Meet My Friend" (1977).

It would be great if a full reprinting of all of Hartley's Spire Barbour comics were released again one day. In the meantime, God has blessed me with a growing Hartley Collection of original comics including many biographies & book adaptations, children's books and a book by his son Fred that he illustrated.

I am finding not only the life and testimony of Al Hartley very inspiring but also his unique artistic and storytelling style. I will post more about Hartley in future posts, and like Jack Hamm, God willing I would also do a series for his 100th birthday next October.