Terry Baucom knows comics.

She sells them; however, she regrettably no longer has the time to read them because she's enslaved to her store, B&D Comic Shop, at 802 Elm Ave. S.W. in Roanoke. The Roanoke Times dropped by with some "Archangels" (which she used to sell) and "Hero" comics and asked her what she thought about them and the Christian comic genre in general.

Q: What are your initial thoughts after reading some of these comics?

A: The theme of good versus evil in Christian comics can be seen in almost any comic. ... It's your basic story that most everybody is familiar with. So unless they take a new approach to it or a new slant, I don't know how much different the story is gonna be. I mean, it's more action in here than you would have gotten from a Bible story or something like that, but pretty much it's still the same story. So, unless you're interested in reading those again, I would say, "OK, what's different?"

Q: Any criticisms?

A: Comics are by nature melodramatic. These seem to be very, very overly dramatic and melodramatic. I suppose that it's necessary in this type of book to get this message across, but that part reminds me of the '60s Marvels where each cover had a blurb that was something like, "THE STORY YOU MUST READ THIS YEAR!" or, you know, if you're in your face about it all the time then it gets ignored. If it's boom, boom, boom all the time then it ceases to become different. And that's kind of the way I feel looking at this. It seems like panel after panel after panel of very similar things. There's no up and down to it.

Q: Some comic experts have said there's been a big surge in Christian comic books in recent years -- perhaps as many as 50 titles nationally or more. B&D sells a few of them. Have you noticed more of these books recently?

A: That's interesting because through the mainstream channels where my comics come from, I've not been made aware that there were that many titles ... If they would make themselves available through regular channels I'm sure that they would sell more copies. But you have to admit that any genre such as Christian comics, you know, each niche is going to be smaller than the whole. A small publisher doesn't have the resources, the funding to get their message out there that they even exist to the public, which is what they must to do to sell mass amounts of comics like the regular publishers.

Q: Would you read these?

A: If I had time to read comics anymore -- one thing I don't recommend to anybody: Don't make a hobby a business because I don't have time to read anything anymore. So they look very interesting. I would like to read them, but I don't even have time to read books. I see comics come through the store, they look really good, and they go right back out of the store and I depend on customers to tell me what's going on in the story and keep me up to date.

--Jonathan Cribbs