Last year I posted on the Manga Messiah series put out by NEXT Manga.

Last month I bought a copy of Manga Jesus for my reading on the 24-hour train trip from Hong Kong to Beijing.
The first thing that I can say is that these two Manga retellings of the gospels are markedly different.
Manga Messiah is Japanese-produced manga, aimed primarily at an Asian teenaged audience, whereas Manga Jesus is produced by Siku, a British artist who has worked on Judge Dredd and similar comics, mainly for a British teenaged audience.

In that sense, Manga Jesus is not really manga per se, as it is not drawn in the style of Japanese manga, but more in a graphic novel style. A bit more along the lines of Frank Miller (300, Sin City) than Japanese manga. It also includes quite a few British pop culture references (eg Ali G, Ricky Gervais) that British teens would get, but that would pass over the heads of teenagers from other cultures.

I found that the storytelling of Manga Jesus was superb. The story does not start off with the birth of Jesus, or the beginning of Jesus ministry, which are the two most common jumping off points for a story about Jesus, but instead with the insurrections and suppressed revolts that preceded Jesus return from Egypt. This sets the violent tone for the rest of the story, where Judea is a land in turmoil, and you can feel the conflict escalating throughout the story. Within this the characterization of John the Baptist and Herod especially are great. There is a real spark in the dialogue between the characters, and a grittiness to the whole feel of the story.

On the down side, the style and the pop culture references mean that this will not translate as easily as Manga Messiah (which has already been translated from Japanese into English, Chinese, Spanish and several other languages). However, for native English speakers, this is a very fresh and thought-provoking retelling of the gospel.