and the Word became flesh
May 1, 2003 7:30 PM   Subscribe

Jack T. Chick. When Clowes, whose screenplay for the indie film Ghost World received an Academy Award nomination, was in college, he read 80 Chick tracts in one sitting. "By the end of the night I was convinced I was going to hell," he says. link by bb.
posted by the fire you left me (26 comments total)
 
Jack Chick is a strange man.

That is all.
posted by punishinglemur at 7:51 PM on May 1, 2003


Hilarious.

Chick Tracts?

More like Bigot Wank.

Still hilarious, though. I love the way he justifies his world view, by drawing whatever suits his world-view, as if it made it true.

Hilarious (and a little sad.)
posted by Blue Stone at 7:59 PM on May 1, 2003


what's strange is i was reading "ghost world" just before logging on. i remember having these all over the place when i was a kid. they scared me, some of them. i always wished i still had them all.
posted by protocool at 8:01 PM on May 1, 2003


RUN! Crappy music!
posted by ColdChef at 8:01 PM on May 1, 2003


Chick tracts used to frighten the hell (no pun intended) when I was a kid. My father was a sometimes Assembly of God minister, so those things were everywhere: churches, religious schools, Christian bookstores. Scarier than the existence of the Chick Tracts is the number people who believe they are an effective way of "spreading the gospel." Now I get a real kick out of them. When I was going through my Masonic Conspiracy phase, my favorite one was "The Curse of Baphomet," which explained how the Masons are
Satanists. Also high on my list of favorites are "Are Roman Catholics Christian?" (self explanatory) and "The Death Cookie"(Eucharist is a Satanic/pagan ritual).
posted by spartacusroosevelt at 8:04 PM on May 1, 2003


I read that article in LA Magazine this month. I found it funny that the reporter was nearly stalking Chick.

Also: previously on MetaFilter.
posted by eyeballkid at 8:14 PM on May 1, 2003


Mmmmmm... Death Cookies. Goes great with the blood of Christian babies.
posted by slipperywhenwet at 8:15 PM on May 1, 2003


Thanks for the link. I'll read it tomorrow at work. Ten years ago I sent away for a one-of-each deal of Chick's booklets. I don't know what happened to them. I know my wife thought it was strange that I coveted such strange Christian kitsch.
posted by kozad at 8:32 PM on May 1, 2003


There's lots of churches that will send you a complete set of Chick tracts, in an attractive box, for next to nothing. It's a good deal, and you won't believe the deluge of bizarre mail that will come as a result of your order.

Chick doing Bible stories is pretty boring; I prefer the tracts that take on various social ills such as Islam, abortion, alcoholism, Judeaism, Roman Catholicism and generally being a badass.
posted by psychoticreaction at 8:49 PM on May 1, 2003


Dark Dungeon is my personal favourite.
posted by Stuart_R at 9:12 PM on May 1, 2003


I don't want to Elfstar anymore, I want to be Debbie!
posted by mr_roboto at 9:22 PM on May 1, 2003


Wow, Chick actually believes that the necronomicon is real...what a strange place the world must be to someone like him.

(I just read through his written diatribe against d&d, which is kind of obscurely fascinating)
posted by advil at 10:30 PM on May 1, 2003


I hope somewhere in his dozens of little mags, Chick notes that COMICS ROT YOUR MIND.
posted by scarabic at 10:45 PM on May 1, 2003


Ahhh, such fond memories of LSD and Jack Chick comics. I miss college. Thanks, _fire_.
posted by Ignatius J. Reilly at 10:46 PM on May 1, 2003


jesus christ i'm glad i read that, stuart_r!
i mean, i've always wondered if a christian should play dungeons and dragons (new updated research).
posted by _sirmissalot_ at 11:27 PM on May 1, 2003


I truly wonder how many souls that Chick had saved through his tracts. Do they really work, or is just about everyone in on the joke by now?
posted by Down10 at 11:40 PM on May 1, 2003


You can get the whole enchilada (or at least 95 tracts) for $12.95USD!

And there are testimonials, too. Some days I despair for the human race. Just about every day I visit MeFi, actually.
posted by kaibutsu at 2:23 AM on May 2, 2003


I'm a believer, but every time I read one of Chick tracts I'm rolling my eyes in exasperation by the third frame or so. They're just so friggin' lame. Christianity is about love, not being control freaks and pod people.

I remember a Cheech & Chong skit where the guys are downtown and meet a proselytizer who professes, in a brain-damaged monotone, that "I was all messed up on drugs, but now I am all messed up on the Lord." Indeed, every time I've had one of these tracts inflicted on me, it's been been courtesy of a disturbed-seeming individual.

And...is it me, or is there some really weird, creepy ambience to the artwork???
posted by alumshubby at 4:30 AM on May 2, 2003


Chick on evolution, my personal favorite. It's always easy to discredit something when you're variously making up, changing, and ignoring information, and then getting it from disreputable sources. But hey, if god says it's okay...
posted by The Michael The at 6:03 AM on May 2, 2003


Professor: "Do you believe in evolution?"

Class in chorus: "We do!"

Religious guy: "Evolution is bogus."

Class in chorus: "He's got a point!"

Jack Chick is the living stereotype. He transcribes the wet dreams of the creationists and the bigots.
posted by Eloquence at 6:21 AM on May 2, 2003


"I don't want to ridicule Chick, but I don't buy into him. One thing I will say is that his image of God is just stupid." According to the East Bay Express, Bob Fowler's The World of Chick? is the definitive guide all that is Chick, including "the classically nervous, sweating, blasphemous bald men who populate Chick's universe."

Also, I found a picture of KISS reading Chick.
posted by kirkaracha at 6:42 AM on May 2, 2003


hehe... from _sirmissalot_'s link..

For example, there is now a whole line of materials based on the hellish H.P. Lovecraft Cthulhu mythos... the Necronomicon and the Cthulhu mythos are quite real.

yeeeeeah... just as real as Lord of the Rings, Ghostbusters I and II, and a jackalope. The leaps of reality fundie's make is amazing.
posted by oninochuck at 7:22 AM on May 2, 2003


I want Jack Chick to write a comic about ME!!! Any ideas on how I can make this dream come true?
posted by orange swan at 9:45 AM on May 2, 2003


Every morning on the way to work I stop at a particular newspaper box and pick up a USAToday. Now it hasn't happened lately, but for about two or three years the odds were better than even that the paper I grabbed would also have a JTC tract shoved into its folds. I got quite a chuckle out of reading them whilst waiting for the bus; after awhile I actually looked forward to finding it and was disappointed when it was one I had already read.

I just read the link to the D&D issue (which I also hadn't read); the players at the table are really lame. Don't they know about resurrection spells?
posted by deadcowdan at 12:08 PM on May 2, 2003


Don't they know about resurrection spells?

Isn't that a Christian thing?
posted by kirkaracha at 6:29 PM on May 2, 2003


Maybe resurrection spells are a Christian thing, but Marvel Comics perfected the idea.

Chick's a chump. Still, I found the tracts entertaining back when I was in elementary school. Reading them would pass the time on Sunday mornings, waiting for the church service to be over.
posted by ZachsMind at 7:18 PM on May 2, 2003


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