By Dustin Cabeal

Well, this is a first for me. I think the idea of a graphic biography about a religious figure seemed different enough to me that I wanted to give it a read. I’m not opposed to graphic biographies, but I do find myself enjoying them less and less. A lot of that has to do with the presentation, which is definitely one of the things that Renegade: Martin Luther has going against it.

It’s also pretty pointless, to sum up, the story as it’s just the story of Martin Luther’s life. I’m not Wikipedia if you don’t know how Martin Luther is, go there and find out. What I will say is greatly disappointing about this story is that you can pretty much find all this out with some well-versed reading, online or offline. The only catch to this is the graphic novel aspect, which suffers from what I call “All tell, no show.”

There is narration running throughout the entire graphic novel, and of course, our narrator is third-person omniscient. The problem with this is that the narration then tells us everything we need to know and in a lot of cases what we’re going to be shown. It as if they set the stage and then the art shows up and is like, “here’s how that would have looked like.” Meaning the art never once drives the story or really tells the story. It accompanies the narration, and that frankly gets dull after just a few chapters.

The artwork is incredible which makes it a great shame never to see it leading or being at the forefront of the story. There’s no movement between the panels; there’s no sense of life to the characters. It’s all staged scenes because again, the narration is telling the story. There are a few glimmers here and there in which the art excels on its own, but it’s so rare that it hardly stands out.

When I read any comic or graphic novel, I ask how is this for? Who is the audience for this story? Because ultimately every story and form of art is looking for its audience. When I look at Renegade: Martin Luther, I can only find a very narrow audience of people that like historical biographies about religious figures… in comic book form. There’s no depth to the history, there’s hardly any characterization for Luther and worse, when he becomes beloved by the people, you’ll never understand or see why.

Having made it through Renegade: Martin Luther, it’s unlikely that I would dabble in this genre again. There’s no depth to the story, and the research feels shallow. You can have great art, but if the rest of it is dull, it’s hardly worth sitting through, and that’s exactly how Renegade left me feeling.

Score: 2/5

Renegade: Martin Luther – The Graphic Biography
Plough Publishing House