Jack Chick Does Fundamentalist Propaganda

While cavorting merrily at this year's prom, a friend and I were sitting in the lobby, trying to escape the damnable chords of the phenomenon we call "pop music", when we came across something very odd stuffed between two of the sofa cushions. It was apparently a small comic book, illustrated in an old-skool "Batman" format. Upon reading it, neither of us could figure out what its point was; it certainly wasn't funny, and seemed to lack the "Thwack!" and "Biff!" intonations of really cheesy action comics. It centered around one individual, "The Bull", who is imprisoned at a local penal institution, and runs the place by terror tactics. He generally kicks ass and takes names, until halfway through the booklet, when he is thrown into solitary confinement--and given a Bible.

My friend and I came across this line at about the same time, and just looked at each other, before bursting out laughing.

We had, you see, been the victims of a Chick Tract--though we didn't know it at the time. We finished the booklet, unable to last more than 10 seconds at a time without laughing hysterically at such precious gems as "And there will be no more rape, because God hates sodomy!" (uttered by The Bull himself, after his miraculous conversion), and I pocketed the thing, planning on framing it to hang up in my room. The next Monday in school, another friend and wound up on the topic, where the ideal of the Chick Tract at last became clear to me.

It seems that Jack Chick is the Fundamentalist Christian's Fundamentalist Christian. He's been in business for nigh onto 30 years, distributing his pamphlets by the thousand, to be left in bus terminals, porn theaters, and seat cushions the world over, in 90-some-odd languages. This, ladies and gentlemen, in one highly motivated individual. However, there seem to be some disparities in his great and illustrious works. He hates Roman Catholics; it seems the Pope is nothing but a front for Satan's footsoldiers (see http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0071/0071_01.asp). He also has an affinity for the Jewish faith, which seems a bit odd, seeing as how every one of his tracts preaches the same message: it don't matter if you're Pope Pious III, living your life in blissfully sin-free serenity, helping those poor people and fighting the legions of Satan: if you don't accept Christ right the hell now, it's straight to Hell for you now, mister. This seems rather counterintuitive to a Judaic affinity, but it just gets weirder. For instance, in one panel (shown below), we clearly see that Jesus did in fact come straight from Heaven--only, Heaven is actually located on a moon of Jupiter. Also, if you observe closely, you'll notice the dotted arrow narrowly misses an amorphous blod in Earth's atmosphere. The hardcore gamer among us will recognize it as the Vorticon mothership from Commander Keen, which opens a whole new freaking book of questions.



Seriously, though, I would highly recommend reading as many of these tracts as you can, over at www.chick.com/catalog/tractlist.asp. Some real gems include "No Fear?", in which we see that it's little black-and-white animated demons who lead to teen suicide, and "Doom Town", which explains to all of us the inherent evil of homosexuality. In the meantime... we at learuirka have taken a few of Jack's tracts, linked to the online versions over at chick.com, and given our play-by-play analysis of two of them. So, without further ado: Chick Tracts!


"Baby Talk", or a teenager learns abortion is murder and Jesus is the only solution. (I am DEAD serious; that's the title over at chick.com)

"Big Daddy?", or a student proves evolution is full of holes.

--Erik, obviously damned to hell, 7/10/01