Jack Chick

"Jack Thomas Chick (born April 13, 1924) is an American publisher, writer and comic book artist, and has been called the most published comic book author in the world. His company, Chick Publications, claims to have sold over 750 million comic-style tracts,known as Chick tracts, comic books, videos, books, and posters designed to promote Protestant evangelism from a fundamentalist point of view. Many of these are seen as controversial, as they target beliefs and cultures in what many perceive as a negative manner."

Last night I watched a documentary called: "God's Cartoonist: The Comic Crusade of Jack Chick". You may have found or seen Jack Chick's Tracts before. You will usually find them laying around in public places like in a public bathroom, on a park bench, in a restaraunt, or in a retail store. Growing up in west michigan, it is no surprise that I realized that I have found many of these. I just didn't know until now what I was looking at. A lady handed me one once when I was working at a Burger King drive through after I handed her a bag of burgers, fries, and chicken tenders. While I was working there I also found quite a few of them in the bathroom, and left on the tables.

" A tract is a literary work, and in current usage, usually religious in nature. The notion of what constitutes a tract has changed over time. By the early part of the twenty-first century, these meant small pamphlets used for religious and political purposes, though far more often the former. They are often either left for someone to find or handed out."
Chick's Tracts are small, and are in a comic book style form, and if you're still not sure if you've seen one, they look like this:

Chick's evangelical message is obvious, but also his tracts can be very controversial, targeting and condeming other religions like catholicism, islam, judaism, hinduism, buddhism, and mormonism as well as warning about the dangers of drugs, sex, homosexuality, rock and roll, witchcraft, and even halloween. These stories told in the tracts can often be told in a very simple, powerful, and scary manner. Some people and groups have deemed them as hate literature, and they have also been banned in many countries not including america.

I have to kind of admire Jack Chick a little bit. He isn't sugar-coating anything, and it's clear that he really believes in what he's doing. It takes a lot of guts to write and publish that stuff. I think the actual messages, and the content of the tracts to be kind of ridiculus and sometimes humorous, but the whole idea of it is kind of alluring. Leaving a little comic book at a bus stop knowing someone else will find it, or finding a little comic book in a public bathroom. It appears that christian book distributors, churches, and activists order these tracts for $0.15/tract and then hand them to people, or leave them in public places for people to find. I guess as far as religous pamphlets go, I would rather have someone put a chick tract in my hand then other religous pamphlets that i've been handed. At least the chick tract has some fucking cool illustrations to look at.

The Documentary is highly interesting, and I would recommend it to anyone who is interested. You can also check out jackchick.com to find out more about it.