Exclusive Preview: Apocrypha Now By Mark Russell and Shannon Wheeler

Top Shelf has provided ComicBook.com with an exclusive preview of Apocrypha Now, the second coming of Mark Russell (Prez, The Flintstones) and two-time Eisner award winning New Yorker cartoonist Shannon Wheeler (Too Much Coffee Man, Villain House).

The publisher describes Apocrypha Now as a faithful-yet-irreverent take on the best bits left out of the canonical Bible. Apocrypha Now tells the stories of the Midrash, the Apocrypha, Gnostic Gospels, and more, in prose and cartoons, just like its predecessor, Russell and Wheeler's best-selling, tongue-in-cheek rewrite of the Bible, God is Disappointed In You. Apocrypha Now, destined for the nightstand drawers of hipster hotels worldwide, tells you what the Bible didn't -- and there's more to the story than you can imagine.

"The stories of the Bible underpin history and our communal artistic and literary heritage, regardless of our religious affiliations, so Shannon and I created God is Disappointed In You because we thought it was important to make those stories accessible to, and entertaining for, a modern audience," said writer Mark Russell. "Then we discovered that, like every best seller, the Bible has a sequel -- the Apocrypha -- so, of course, we had to tell these more obscure stories in our tongue-in-cheek way, and Apocrypha Now was born."

"We expected a lot of backlash from the religious community over God is Disappointed In You, but we were pleasantly surprised that the new, more liberal Christian community embraced it along with a mainstream audience," said artist Shannon Wheeler, whose indie classic Too Much Coffee Man celebrates its 25th anniversary this year. "These books are fresh and modern and truly funny, but they aren't satire or parody. It's great that ministers bought God is Disappointed In You to help teach the Bible, and we hope an equally diverse crowd will discover whole new stories in Apocrypha Now."

You can check out the preview pages, featuring "The Quaint and Sexist Wisdom of Solomon," below.