November 29, 2000

2:14 PM

Free Jack Chick comics onlineI only post this because I am always surprised how many people have never heard of the man. There is only one way to salvation, and Jack wants to show you. Some favorites are Bewitched and the discontinued anti-D&D classic Dark Dungeons. The Poor Little Witch" will twist your brain too. Did you know Roman Catholics are not Christian, and that Christian Scientists cannot get into heaven?
posted by thirteen (34 comments total)

Don't I wish I'd never heard of this hatemonger. I got exposed to his poison at a very early age.
posted by harmful at 2:21 PM on November 29, 2000

I generally avoid any and all lit'rature handed out on the street, so I'll be first to admit I never heard of him.

Kind of like a really screwed-up bible-thumping version of Gil Thorp, as if he wasn't square enough*.

* I read the strip regularly. I don't know why.
posted by ethmar at 2:22 PM on November 29, 2000

RE: "Dark Dungeons", I remember trying to commit suicide when my Drow Elf bought the farm. Oh the pain.
posted by ethmar at 2:25 PM on November 29, 2000

More fun facts from the Jack Chick archive:

The Holocaust was hatched by the Vatican!

Demons and really evil people laugh by saying "Haw! Haw!"

When you are cast into the Lake of Fire, chances are you will let out a hearty "Yaaaaaaahh!"

(My grandmother had a ton of these tracts, and I read nearly all of them as a kid in the 70s. Want to screw up your children real good? Feed them a healthy dose of apocalyptic literature!)

posted by Dirjy at 2:26 PM on November 29, 2000

These stories are so singleminded and repetitive that they force you to examine your beliefs in the face of such confidence. I discovered these about 15 years ago, and was already a fully realized atheist. A friend had a large collection that I read in one sitting, and got twisted up for a whole week. I love reading them, and they all make me laugh, the more hateful the better. There is a great one that features a dystopian future where kids all dress like Hitler, and the planet is run by the UN. UN officers wear skin tight leather uniforms and have tall pointy hats.
I think he might be right about the UN.
posted by thirteen at 2:30 PM on November 29, 2000

Disinfo's dossier on Chick publications. By the way, if you think the tracts are twisted, you should check out his full-sized Crusaders comics. The depictions of the tortures the satanist world government plans to inflict on True Christians during the End Times are not for the faint of heart. Like Dirjy, I got an unhealthy dose of eschatology from my grandmother when I was too young to deal with it.
posted by harmful at 2:30 PM on November 29, 2000

Ethmar: You played a Drow? You ARE evil!
posted by thirteen at 2:31 PM on November 29, 2000

LOL, oh, man, that is some funny shit! Keeripes! "Mandy is murdered by the satanists..." oh, lawdy, I haven't laughed this hard in a long time...
They really distribute this stuff still?
...
(I'm still laughing about ten minutes later)
posted by sonofsamiam at 2:33 PM on November 29, 2000

He's a regular target of online bashing and now even Metafilter bashes him. What a guy. Makes you cry. And I did.
posted by john at 2:37 PM on November 29, 2000

For the record: My Drow was neutral. I worked it out with the DM that in order to break with flat-out evil tradition, I had to forfeit a couple elf advantages. Oh well, it was fun while it lasted.

But once I got the ability from my Black Arts friends who taught me how to cast real spells, what good was D&D anymore?
posted by ethmar at 2:45 PM on November 29, 2000

If you can find it, Dan Raeburn's The Imp #2 is a well-researched discussion of Jack Chick's psychotic life's work.
posted by waxpancake at 2:48 PM on November 29, 2000

What Jack Chick fails to mention is that baby blood is rich in Vitamin A and Beta Carotene.

John, you RULE!

(for posting the 2nd link there, which contained that wonderful line, which resulted in beverage regurgitation while reading)
posted by ethmar at 3:00 PM on November 29, 2000

Never saw this great anti-suicide tract. I second the recommendation of the Imp#2.
posted by thirteen at 3:04 PM on November 29, 2000

From the aforemetioned anti-suicide tract:

YAAAAAAAAAHH

Didn't Porkins say that when he got blown up over the Death Star™??
posted by ethmar at 3:22 PM on November 29, 2000

Mystery Science Theater meets Jack Chick's "Dark Dungeons."
posted by kindall at 3:34 PM on November 29, 2000

The Imp Nos. 1 and 3 are pretty good, too.

Thirteen, the tract you're thinking of -- the n'est plus ultra of Chick tracts and the source for a lot of punk rock poster art in Providence, RI, in the mid-90s (the other big source being D&D books, amusingly enough) -- is The Last Generation. Read it or burn in Hell! Haw haw!
posted by snarkout at 3:37 PM on November 29, 2000

Heh, that one was pretty good..how does "inserting microchips" increase the pain?
posted by sonofsamiam at 3:45 PM on November 29, 2000

I owe many a childhood nightmare to Mr. Chick and his posse of demented scribes. My absolute favorite is "This Was Your Life".

Now that I think about it, there is probably a direct causitive link between my early access to Chick Tracts and my adolescent fascination with Stephen Kings' writing.
posted by Optamystic at 3:50 PM on November 29, 2000

"To meet Jesus in the air, you must:"

1. Call the Heaven's Gate gang a "cult", for believing that they'll meet a UFO in the tail of a comet!

2. Do it without irony!
posted by ethmar at 3:56 PM on November 29, 2000

I would imagine they inserted the microchips without anesthetic. That would have to smart, right?
posted by snarkout at 4:04 PM on November 29, 2000

Better a microchip than an electro capacitor, those suckers can really give you a shock.
The Last Generation made my day, thanks.
Dark Dungeons/MST3K worked surprisingly well.
Lastly, D&D 3E players, Rangers are killing machines. I urge you all to play rangers. Killing MACHINES!
posted by thirteen at 4:20 PM on November 29, 2000

Did anyone check out non-english versions of the tracts? I just finished looking at some, mainly just different variations of 'This Was Your Life,' since that appears to be the only one that they made a widespread translation of. The funniest thing, if you look at them, is that they only made four different variations, and just changed the language bubbles. There's a white version , an asian version, a black version, and a middle eastern version (which is really just the white version with lotsa stubble and a mustache)...Is anyone else just a bit disturbed by the way the different ethnic groups are protrayed?

I'm not at all surprised. But it does scare me ever so much...
posted by rklawler at 4:24 PM on November 29, 2000

I've never seen these. I thought the whole thing was a joke until I started reading the comments. I can't believe these comics are actually printed.

I can't imagine being exposed to these at a young age...ugh
posted by chiXy at 5:12 PM on November 29, 2000

This one is great. It features an iMac, and claims the Earth is 6000 years old. Photographs "prove" Men and Dinosaurs shared the earth at the same time.
No, Jason! There was nothing "prehistoric." That word was created to brainwash us.
posted by thirteen at 5:41 PM on November 29, 2000

chiXy be extremely grateful. I read all of those tracts when I was very young. Last year, I read them again (after studying about political psychology and propaganda at university), I must say they are extremely effective. Looking back at it now, it is difficult to think why I (or anyone else) could read and believe them so easily, but then again I was child.

Anyone read anything by Alberto Rivera. I actually meet him once in Australia and have read all of the Alberto Chick comics. This is the 'Chick' opinion of Catholicism. I also saw some videos about the rapture, but they don't seem to be listed on the Chick site and to think these people allow children to watch them yet believe Rock music warps the mind.

When I was young, the only thing I was always curious about was why the 'fundamentailsts' (yes, fundamentalists, I went to a church where the pastor came directly from Jerry Falwell's church) attacked all these other religions and used books to denounce them yet these same books also denounced everything that the church believed them.
posted by jay at 6:11 PM on November 29, 2000

I love the little check boxes at the end. (they're not on all of them, check out this classic on mormonism for an example)

You'd think god would move away from the check-box style salvation and try something like punch cards (-:

I found two of these comics in a plastic zip lock bag one morning. Anonymous ministry, at it's best.
posted by alan at 6:39 PM on November 29, 2000

Wow! After just reading a few of these comics, I'm ready now to accept Jesus Christ as my Lord and Savior!

Thanks, thirteen!!!
posted by lagado at 7:09 PM on November 29, 2000

The last Chick comic I saw was the one about the evils of Halloween in a hospital bathroom toilet stall of all places.I just hate living in the Bible Belt!
posted by Mr. skullhead at 7:35 PM on November 29, 2000

I went with a bunch of people to the Hollywood Bowl, and as we were getting on the shuttle buses to leave some guy was handing them out. My brother and I got one called "Titanic," which is about... the Titanic. It features a man screaming "I hate her and her Jesus!" I guess someone else's Jesus would have been better.

Andy and I were so amused by the thing that we read it out loud on the bus. You should have heard the cheers when the driver turned off the lights.
posted by dogwelder at 7:53 PM on November 29, 2000

Antlers of the Damned is another Chick parody. Not for the easily offended.
posted by D.C. at 9:33 PM on November 29, 2000

I'd just like to nominate this MeFi thread as the best one since election day.
posted by ZachsMind at 3:50 AM on November 30, 2000

After reading these I don't know what to do first, convert to Mormonism, Roman Catholicism, or just take up Dungeons and Dragons.
posted by jennyb at 10:03 AM on November 30, 2000

The scariest thing about these comics is that somewhere out there, there is somebody who converted to Chick's obnoxiously dull-witted brand of Christianity after reading one.

-Mars
posted by Mars Saxman at 12:07 PM on November 30, 2000

The Islam one is pretty intense as well. And for some reason the one where the Rabbi goes to hell for not becoming a Christian is out of print for some reason...
posted by Mocata at 4:45 AM on December 1, 2000