Executive Summary: In a bold initiative to bring yesterday’s literature to tomorrow’s readers, the Voice Agency Comics editorial board has announced plans to republish twenty of the most beloved Real Live Preacher essays and stories. In an equally momentous development, the company intends to reunite Gordon Atkinson’s writing with the distinctive illustrations of Brother Stephen Erspamer, restoring one of the great artistic associations of the early internet.
By Chet Masterson, Senior International Correspondent, Voice Agency News
HOUSTON, TEXAS — The international literary community received two extraordinary announcements today as the Voice Agency Comics editorial board unveiled an ambitious program to bring significant works of the early twenty-first century to new life as comics.
The first announcement concerns Real Live Preacher, the once-popular internet writer whose essays and stories attracted a devoted readership during the formative years of online literature. Voice Agency officials have confirmed plans to select twenty of the most popular works from the Real Live Preacher era for republication as Voice Agency Comics issues.
The decision represents a significant undertaking, requiring the editorial board to revisit hundreds of essays, identify those most deserving of renewed public attention, and marshal the proper graphic design resources to create the RLP issues.
But the second announcement may prove equally consequential.
The remarkable artwork of Brother Stephen Erspamer is returning to Real Live Preacher.
During the original eight-year publishing run, Atkinson paired hundreds of his essays with illustrations by Erspamer, whose extraordinary religious imagery had been discovered in a San Antonio liturgical store. Atkinson purchased reproduction rights to the artwork and subsequently developed an unusual editorial practice: he would finish an essay, browse Erspamer’s illustrations, and select whichever image seemed most appropriate.
The arrangement produced hundreds of literary and visual pairings, establishing an association between the two men’s work that remains inseparable in the memories of longtime readers. The new Voice Agency Comics series will restore that relationship, bringing the original literary works and Erspamer’s illustrations together in a new collectible format.
Industry observers have praised the publisher’s innovative approach, which combines the considerable expense of modern production technology with the revolutionary idea of publishing material that readers have already demonstrated they enjoy.
No publication schedule has been announced. Nevertheless, Voice Agency officials expressed unqualified confidence in the project, describing it as a bold advance into the organization’s own past.
Chet Masterson, reporting for Voice Agency News.