Central Florida-based Kingstone Media is expanding its reach into countries that are hard to reach with the gospel, including Yemen, Saudi Arabia and Indonesia.

“At last count, with the current licensing agreements and app downloads, we will be in 93 countries,” said Kingstone Media CEO Art Ayris. “And we predict that number will expand as word about the Kingstone Comics app spreads and new products emerge from the Kingstone art studios.” 

Ayris said he had a “Columbus and the New World moment” the first week after the company’s mobile sales app launched—and he saw six downloads from Saudi Arabia. In addition to speaking the language of young male readers in the United States, Ayris believes that comics can more easily reach the millions of illiterate and semi-literate people worldwide.

The company recently launched Eternity, the first graphic novel from New York Times best-selling Christian author Randy Alcorn. The book quickly landed a Spanish translation deal with the Assemblies of God international publishing arm, and requests have come in from around the world for additional translation and licensing agreements. 

“This summer our first-round international partners came back to us and said, ‘This stuff is selling like mad,’ ” Ayris said. “Within two months, new publishing and licensing partnerships had sprung up for Russian, French, Burmese, Finnish, Hungarian, Tamil, Tagalog, Indonesian, Italian, Japanese, Korean, Malaysian, Belgian, Polish and Romanian languages as well as partnerships into Malaysia, Nigeria, Kenya and Papua New Guinea.”

Wilson Pereira Jr., 100% Cristão executive, president of the Christian Stores Association in Brazil and an early Kingstone co-publisher, is building Kingstone Brasil. After a successful first run, 100% Cristão licensed all Kingstone Comics products for Portuguese worldwide for print and digital.

“Biblical stories and principles are universal and the beautiful images in Kingstone products communicate to anyone anywhere,” Pereira said. “Now, we make these publications even more powerful by translating them.”

CLC International, one of the largest Christian literature ministries in the world, also is partnering with Kingstone to expand internationally. CLC was an early adopter of the Kingstone vision in utilizing comics and graphic novels as a next-gen tool to communicate God’s truth across cultural borders. Working with its network of national partners, CLC is translating and providing cultural context of Kingstone comic products into additional new language clusters and markets. 

“Comics and graphic novels offer an exciting new tool to communicate God’s truth across cultural borders,” said Gary Chamberlin, director of CLC Europe. “We believe these contextually translated products will speak into the hearts and minds of many across Europe and Asia.”

Next year will see the completion of the 12-volume Kingstone Bible, the most comprehensive graphic adaptation of the Bible ever made. 

ComiXology, the leading digital comics marketplace, recently added Kingstone Comics to its headliner lineup, as did iVerse Media, the leading provider of digital material to libraries nationwide. 

Click here to see a complete list of 93 new nations touched by Kingstone Comics.

• Prev
• Next