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I first came across these great color comics in the 1960s, when they were given out each Sunday during the summer session of our Sunday School program. Of course, today we would call them “graphic novels,” instead of just lowly “comics,” but the two are pretty much the same thing. Tullus was a young Christian man who travelled all over the ancient world in service to the early church. I think reading these must have given me my love for ancient history and the Roman Empire. In fact, in some of the comics, usually at the close of an extended story, there was factual information about the ancient times that had just figured in the narrative.
Skip ahead many years – somehow my mother had saved many of the original comics, printed on newsprint-like paper. Our children loved them and I re-learned to love them. Then I found a boxed set of small paperbacks, in which many of the Tullus adventures were reprinted in black and white. But they were still exciting! There are four books in this boxed set: Tullus and the Kidnapped Prince, Tullus and the Vandals of the North, Tullus in the Deadly Whirlpool, and Tullus and the Ransom Gold. I would say that they can be read independently. Each book is divided into separate episodes that are sometimes linked into larger narrative arcs. These four Tullus books cover adventures in ancient Rome, Carthage, Iberia (Spain), Britain (and Druids!), India, Egypt, Sicily, Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), the island of Crete, and Gaul (modern-day France). There are gladiators, persecutors, soldiers, kidnappings, chases, pirates, and much more. Upper elementary to middle school readers would enjoy these very much and would painlessly learn much about the ancient world and the early church in the first-century AD.
The four books do not list an author or artist, as is the case for comic books like Marvel or DC. They are only listed as published and copyrighted by David C. Cook Publishing Company, which is still publishing as of 2026.