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Jack Chick

www.chick.com

Despite the amusing URL, Chick's site is completely safe for work. Assuming you don't mind your IT guy thinking you're a total nutbar, anyway. Jack Chick is pretty much the big kahuna of Wacky Evangelical Christianity. He's the guy repsonsible for all those little comic book tracts lying around – the ones that get handed out in front of public schools from the sidewalk sometimes. There's a ton of tracts for your perusal – most of which are pretty amusing, due to Chick's hatred of the gays, the Catholics, the atheists, Muslims, Buddhists, Halloween, the Masons, evolutionists, rock music, Dungeons and Dragons, and especially the Jerk of Jerks, Satan hisself!

Of course, Chick knows that to reach the kids, you've got to stay hip! Hence, the handful of Blaxploitation tracts, like Soul Story!

In 2003 Robert Ito wrote a lengthy feature on Chick for the Los Angeles Weekly. Ito noted that: "With more than 500 million copies of his 142 books in print, including translations in more than 100 languages, Chick is the world's most published living author…Last year his 35-employee company made nearly $3 million in sales, mostly to churches, youth groups, and evangelically inclined individuals. His books have been displayed at the Smithsonian, parodied in National Lampoon, and praised by underground comic artists like Daniel Clowes and Robert Crumb."

Chick is most famous for his small rectangular tracts, but he was also responsible for a series of full-color comics in the 1970s called The Crusaders. These followed the adventures of Tim Clark and James Carter, two missionaries who do battle against Communists and evolutionists (many of whom had obviously Semitic features), and eventually they linked up with a former Jesuit turned anti-Catholic whistleblower named Alberto Riveria. Riveria was real person, although his claims to have been a priest have been denied by the Catholic Church. Chick Publications also produced the book Prepare for War by Rebecca Brown; Chick provided the illustrations for her fascinating stories of encounters with demons, angels, and Satanists.

Chick himself is Howard Hughes-like in protecting his privacy - he does not even go to church, fearing that he would make any place of worship a target for the Satanists he has exposed. He was born in Oklahoma in 1923, and served in WW2 before Charles E. Fuller's Old-Fashioned Revival Hour converted him to Christianity. He worked as a technical illustrator in Los Angeles before finding his true vocation. An account of a rare encounter with Chick can be read here.

The Jack Chick Museum of Fine Art is a great place to look for information on the tracts, including out-of-print tracts and great commentaries. Also, WebSnark is doing an occasional series on Chick which should be seen. In 2001 a guide to Chick's works was published: World of Chick? by Robert Fowler.

In the early 2000s, SubGenius Father Papa Joe Mama undertook extensive research into the infamous Chick tracts, and he produced two published works that are essential must-have items for affictionadoes of Chick's work:

Anyway, how can you not love someone who made something called The Death Cookie?

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