Jack Chick

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This panel from a Chick Tract makes even less sense in context.
(It really does, check if you don't believe us.)

Jack Chick is an American Christian fundamentalist well known for Chick Publications. His tracts cover various aspects of the Christian faith, including the principles of tolerance and love as well as the Catholics' satanist conspiracy to overthrow God's reign on earth or something.[1] His claims about the Jesuits, for instance, include that they were responsible for the creation of the Qur'an, they tutored Karl Marx, started the Soviet Union, controlled the Gestapo and were responsible for the holocaust, and that all this is being deliberately withheld from the American people because of the influence of the Catholic Church on the media.

Contents

[edit] Tracts

Chick publishes small tracts in comic book style as well as full size comic books. Most of his full size comic books are part of the Crusader series. The smaller tracts are sold cheaply in bulk for you to leave everywhere you go in phone booths, tables, laundromats, school lockers, car windshields, etc., which is also known as littering. The larger comics featured a heavy dose of sensationalist Satanic Panic and demonic possession themes until around 1980 when Chick discovered King James Only and anti-Catholicism and published several more Crusader comics blaming the Catholic Church for everything from the Communists to Satanism and human sacrifice to the American Civil War to the assassination of Abraham Lincoln to the Holocaust (also the fault of the evolutionists). Whatever.

Chick writes all of his tracts, although some draw heavily from other like-minded sources. Chick also drew some, particularly the older tracts, but many have been drawn by others. Fred Carter is the usual other artist — you can spot Carter's work by the realism in contrast to Chick's cartoony style, and by the blatant homo-erotica in just about every one of Carter's tracts.

[edit] Content

Jack Chick likes to portray sinners as very hairy, smelly, and repulsive. This one looks like it was probably drawn by Fred Carter.

Most of his work follows a standard formula generally involving a highly caricatured straw man version of an Atheist, homosexual or some other "sinner", often with "stereotypically Jewish" features, or a person who is completely ignorant of the basic tenets of Christianity despite living in the western world who then gets pwned by a clean-cut white kid who just fell out of pretty much any 1950s sitcom. The sinner then either repents, generally losing whatever worldly position they had as a result, or fails to and ends up in the Lake of Fire, while the little WASP kid goes on to eternal salvation. Occasionally he presents a "historical" tract, but the aforementioned crackers (whoops!) characters are still often used to introduce the story/rant.

The dialogue in his tracts often lapses into incoherent attempts at using slang or sounding hip:

  • "Haw haw — hey guys, this is the dirtiest story I've ever heard!"[2]
  • "Adam blew it! Temptation came and we all went down the tubes."[3]
  • "The environment will go crazy."[4]
  • "Talk about dumb. That was it!" [5].
  • "Hey friend, remember all those things you told me? You were wrong — you goofed!"[6]
  • Hey! there's an old nut outside-preaching the gospel! Let's go give him the Business. Haw! Haw! Haw![7]

Chick routinely places heavy emphasis on the importance of accepting the Holy Spirit in contrast to worldly actions such as charity, benevolence and hospitality, usually resulting in situations where the most noble and honorable fellows end up being flung to Hell for eternity, while murderers, rapists and other convicts are rewarded with entry to heaven,[8][9] or are miraculously allowed to live.[10]

Jack Chick also feels aroused by naked bodies being thrown into lakes of fire by angels.

Occasionally, the tracts will feature "spiritual warfare", where angels and demons manipulate real world events to battle over people's souls.[11] In an effort to stay biblically accurate, Chick draws Satan with stereotypical devil horns and a pitchfork. According to Chick, Satan's hobbies include murdering teenagers with chainsaws[12] and watching corny sitcoms[13]. Also, Satan knows very little about biblical prophecy.[14]

Chick apparently also believes in creepy Caribbean voodoo-style magic, since he can use it to bash Catholics.[15]

WHO WILL BE EATEN FIRST?

Several Chick comics dealing with rock music, witchcraft, or Dungeons & Dragons end with a book burning during which the new convert burns their D&D materials, astrology books, Ouija boards, rock music, and Satanic books ("including Tolkien and C.S. Lewis".)

[edit] Parodies

The recognizable style of Chick's comics has invited a number of parodies, including the one pictured at right involving H.P. Lovecraft's god Cthulhu.

[edit] Most popular

Sikhs, Satanists, North Koreans, Witches, Asian Secularists and Anthropologists. They all want you dead.[16]

The all time best seller of these is This Was Your Life, in which an upscale man of about mid-1960s vintage who looks like he is the epitome of Playboy Magazine's target audience dies and finds his entire life played back to him on judgment day. Adultery! Fornication! Foul language! Drinking! Disbelief in Jesus! God then casts this sinner into the Lake of Fire.

Jack Chick's sickest tract is arguably "Lisa", distributed in the mid-1990s. It is now unavailable in print and isn't on chick.com either, for some reason. However, we have a scanned copy of it for perusal: pages (1), (2), (3), (4). You have to read this thing to believe it. Remember: raping your children is fine as long as you accept Jesus as your personal savior! And it only takes 10 minutes!

Oh, and the incredibly incoherent and paranoid The Last Generation features black helicopters, free drugs, torture, implanted microchips, a New Age teacher coming to public school dressed in something that looks like a cross between a wetsuit and a KKK uniform, a Soylent Green-like food supply scenario, and more! Not to be missed! Even for Jack Chick, this one is waaaay out there.

[edit] Prime Targets

[edit] Conspicuously missing from that list

  • Scientology. One would think he would have done an anti-Scientology tract by now, but surprise!, he has not. Oh well, it's probably a good thing, since he would most likely claim Scientology like everything else is an invention of the Roman Catholic Church. Still, it's quite odd he hasn't touched that subject at all. Maybe he fears a lawlsuit from the CO$... that they could win.
  • Eastern Orthodoxy. Although Russians and Greeks are mentioned now and then, their denomination is never brought into consideration, although their customs and traditions are the same as of the "pagan" Catholic church: gradual salvation, rituals, priests, monks, mass, sacraments, "idolatry" icons, "worship" of Mary and Saints, Inspired Holy Church fathers etc. One would think that Orthodoxy belongs to the Roman Catholic system (no mention to the Great Schism is ever made) but on the other hand they are also an enemy of the Catholic Church, so better leave them out.
  • Japanese Animation and Manga. Considering his contempt for non-western cultures, you would think this narrow minded brute would have attacked two of the current most globally influential (and politically liberal, by Western standards anyways) Eastern media by now.
  • Lighthouses. Just as phallic as obelisks. Where is Chick on the phallic lighthouse menace?
  • Shrimp. Surely Chick could find the time to alert the world to the fact that God hates shrimp.
  • Despite the use of computers, Jack Chick has yet create a tract attacking video games, particularly the ones similar to Dungeons & Dragons' genre such as World of Warcraft and Guild Wars (that's probably a good thing as well since he would do some sort of Satanic conspiracy theory on video games)[39].

[edit] Questionable source material

Jack Chick is notorious for using questionable "testimonies" as source material, and continues to publish his tracts and comics based on their fraudulent testimonies long after these people have been exposed as frauds:

[edit] Books and tapes

Jack Chick also publishes a bunch of books, some of them written by himself and some of them by other authors. He reprinted a bunch of old out of print anti-Catholic books by Avro Manhattan[40] and Charles Chiniquy, two books allegedly about "Satanism" by Rebecca Brown, and is the main publisher of fringe anti-rock & roll crusader Jeff Godwin, who is so extreme he even thinks Christian Rock is Satanic.

Chick's self-authored books include: The Next Step: For Growing Christians, The Last Call: A Revival Handbook, the anti-Catholic rant Smokescreens, and the long out of print collector's item A Solution To...The Marriage Mess. All the books by Chick are in the same cartoon style as his tracts and comic books.

He also released a few cassette tapes. One of them was "Let's Take A Stand", where you get to hear Jack Chick's actual voice rambling on about the "whore of Babylon". The other was "Closet Witches", featuring Rebecca Brown and "Elaine" exposing the witchcraft conspiracy to infiltrate your local First Baptist Church, and what good Christians can do to spot and root out these dangerous infiltrators.

Chick publishes on his website an essay (in addition to many more works) by ex-Satanist/Witch/Mormon/Mason/Catholic/Druid/Vampire[41][42] William Schnoebelen, in which Schnoebelen explains why Dungeons and Dragons is demonic, and claims that the Necronomicon and Cthulhu mythos are both real.[43]

[edit] Fandom

Some Jack Chick fandom publications exist from people who generally enjoy the art and surreal fantasy of Jack Chick's tracts and comics. Kurt Kuersteiner has published a book on Chick and produced a movie ("God's Cartoonist"). Chick tracts and comics are also sold and distributed by comic fans for enjoyment, as well as by the fundamentalists who distribute the tracts for evangelism.

On a happier note, Tvtropes.org lists this article as our Crowning Moment of Funny.

[edit] Jack Chick gallery

An easy mistake to make.[16]

You're on candid camera. All the @!!!**!ing time.[44]

Margaret Thatcher proudly presents a gimp from the KKK New Age Healer.[45]

The truth that science won't tell you: your heart actually looks like this.[46]

It turns out that Harry Potter is actually Satan.[14]

. . . And he really likes watching corny sixties sitcom Bewitched.[13]

. . . And running amok and attacking Ron Jeremy with a chainsaw and pumpkin mask.[12]

Angels use dirty tricks too.[11]

What really happened to the dinosaurs.[47]

Trust me! [48]

Can YOU feel it? [9]

Your MOTHER! [44]

All the hard times of old England.

Chick tries to make it look like Christianity is older than Buddhism but relies on Christian myth to do it.[17]

Let's BURN anything written by that noted Christian apologist Satanist, C.S. Lewis!

Because, as we all know, only evil witches play Dungeons & Dragons.

[edit] External links

[edit] Pro

[edit] Anti

[edit] Footnotes

  1. ↑ Here He Comes!.
  2. ↑ This Was Your Life.
  3. ↑ Angel of Light.
  4. ↑ The Great Escape.
  5. ↑ That Old Devil, 1989, out of print.
  6. ↑ Somebody Goofed.
  7. ↑ The Beast.
  8. ↑ Flight 144.
  9. ↑ 9.0 9.1 Gun Slinger.
  10. ↑ The Hit.
  11. ↑ 11.0 11.1 The Assignment.
  12. ↑ 12.0 12.1 12.2 Boo!.
  13. ↑ 13.0 13.1 Bewitched
  14. ↑ 14.0 14.1 Where Did They Go?.
  15. ↑ "Evil Eyes"
  16. ↑ 16.0 16.1 16.2 Fairy Tales.
  17. ↑ 17.0 17.1 The Tycoon
  18. ↑ Pretty much every tract you can get your hands on.
  19. ↑ Jews get some sort of mixed treatment, they usually receive compliments as God's chosen people and even thinks everything that has gone bad with a government was because they crossed the Jews, but also often are the only targets of blame for Jesus' crucifixion, and of course, they aren't chosen enough to escape God's wrath.
  20. ↑ The Death Cookie.
  21. ↑ Allah Had No Son.
  22. ↑ Birds And The Bees.
  23. ↑ Gladys.
  24. ↑ The Poor Little Witch.
  25. ↑ God With Us.
  26. ↑ Angels.
  27. ↑ Here Kitty Kitty!; The Trick; The Devil's Night.
  28. ↑ Dark Dungeons.
  29. ↑ The Nervous Witch.
  30. ↑ Dark Dungeons, 1984. Chick had apparently been duped by John Todd into thinking that J.R.R. Tolkien and Lewis were both satanic authors. Recent editions excise the mention of Lewis; the original can be viewed here.
  31. ↑ Who Murdered Clarice?.
  32. ↑ 32.0 32.1 Big Daddy?.
  33. ↑ Who Is He?.
  34. ↑ The Attack
  35. ↑ Moving on up!
  36. ↑ The Curse of Baphomet
  37. ↑ Crazy Wolf
  38. ↑ The True Path
  39. ↑ In fact, search "World of Warcraft" and "Guild Wars" in Chick's website search engine, you'll get zero results
  40. ↑ Avro Manhattan, who wrote exposés against the Catholic Church, was apparently an atheist. Before Chick discovered him and reprinted a bunch of his books, his books had previously been published by Arno Press' Atheist Viewpoint series. Apparently the Catholic Church is enemy #1 to Chick, even more so than atheism.
  41. ↑ Bill Schnoebelen Interview with an Ex Vampire
  42. ↑ Interview with Ex 90 Degree Free Mason Bill William Schnoebelen
  43. ↑ Should a Christian Play Dungeons & Dragons?
  44. ↑ 44.0 44.1 The Execution.
  45. ↑ The Last Generation.
  46. ↑ Heart Trouble.
  47. ↑ There Go The Dinosaurs.
  48. ↑ Trust Me!.
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