Chick Dissection | Somebody Loves Me
Beaten and alone, a child dies. But Jesus cares.
He doesn’t care enough to keep the kid from getting beaten to death, I guess. Hell, I’d stop a kid from getting beaten to death, and I’m just a regular ol’ human.
A particularly depressing, ugly turd of a Tract. Way to go, Jack!
That’s not a somebody, that’s a flower. Get a real friend.
Lightning crashes, a new mother cries. Her placenta falls to the floor.
Man, Wario’s home life is really fuckin’ bleak.
He’s so drunk that he’s not even actually hiccuping but rather thinking about hiccuping.
So, why striped puddles?
“Talk to the hand, kid. The extremely-unnaturally-bent-to-a-90-degree-angle-and-twisted-grotesquely-behind-my-back hand.” Seriously, try doing that. It hurts.
The lightning’s so goofy and cartoonish it’s like it’s not even real lightning but a plane flying overhead carrying a bunch of The Flash memorabilia and having to drop some of it because they’re running out of fuel.
Also, there don’t appear to be any segments in the roads or sidewalks. It’s like everyone’s walking around on the same huge slab of concrete.
Which I guess all creates a setting that fits well with the entirely unrealistic premise as well: A tiny lone child standing in the rain without any shoes and very little clothing begging for money, and not a single person finds that at all suspicious or troubling. “Should I call the police or maybe child protective services? Nah, I don’t want to get my cell phone wet.”
It appears to be only a penny with its “1¢” marking, but its gravity-defying properties make it worth millions.
More inexplicably striped puddles for some reason. It’s like someone steamrolled a tabby cat.
The building behind the kid looks like just one big concrete slab as well. Maybe they should stop striping their puddles and use some of it to decorate the formless shapes that make up the nightmarishly bland cityscape around them.
The same lightning bolt from the first panel is still there, just hanging around.
I like how even the hills here look like big lumps of concrete.
Oh wait, that’s not Wario at all — it’s Ian McShane! (And now I want to see a live-action Wario movie starring Ian McShane. Dammit, Chick!)
Even the palm of his hand is a near-featureless concrete slab.
“I’m so mad I put on my lion wig! And you know what that means!”
You know, if he returned a few of the bottles lying around the place or even brought them to a recycling center he’d get a lot more than a penny.
Then again, his long-term business plan seems to be to send his apparent only means of income (his begging child) out into the rain to catch hypothermia for a penny, so it’s not like he’s a brilliant financial strategist or anything.
“Check it out — I pooped this!” “NO WAAAY!”
(Cue Yakety Sax…)
@!!!**
Another ideated-but-not-actually-expressed “hic”, for some reason. I don’t know, maybe the father is supposed to be thinking that the kid is a “hick” but Jack didn’t know how to spell it?
He’s hitting the kid so hard he’s glowing. Stick must be irradiated or something.
You moron — you’re supposed to put the siding on the outside of the house!
Okay, so I was wrong: His financial strategy is actually to beat his child to death.
The stick is bloody but the kid isn’t. ‘Cause that’d be too violent, I guess.
Same lightning bolt, just hanging around watching the whole thing play out. “Holy crap! If I could use a phone without completely frying its circuits I’d call the police!”
The only objects in this house are bottles, a cup, a penny, a table, a shot glass and a cudgel. Here’s a tip for all you kids who might be reading this: If those are the only items in your home, run the fuck away.
“Alley-oop!”
“Well, at least I landed on dad’s lion wig.”
Lightning bolt comes over all “Dude! Dude, holy shit! Are… are you okay? Should I… should I try to get someone or something?”
Another flattened tabby cat, for some reason.
Lightning bolt: “Okay, well, I’m gonna go try to get an ambulance for you but I’ll probably just end up electrocuting a bunch of people. Wish me luck!”
This is where someone tried to make a sidewalk on the giant concrete slab, but got about ten feet and decided “fuck it”.
More flattened striped animals.
And our premise gets even less believable: “Oh, hey, that kid looks like it’s either really sick or really hurt or maybe on some kind of bender. But you know, I’m sure they’ve got everything worked out. Not my concern!”
And now there’s a woman standing behind the kid just repeatedly kicking him. Come on, Jack — people can be cruel, sure, but usually not that cruel.
Ah, I can see now why they flatten all the animals. Look at those fucking things. Gyah.
Why didn’t the kid just move here in the first place? Oh, right, because children are supposed to unquestionably “honor [their] father[s] and mother[s]“. Had he run away instead of getting beaten and kicked out, then it would’ve been a sin!
I’m a leaf on the wind… I’m a leaf on the wind… I’m a leaf on the wind…
This sort of feels like Jack trying to make himself and his followers feel good about people throwing their pamphlets and tracts away or on the floor or whatever whenever they hand them out. “No no, see, it’s great that everyone just throws our pamphlets away! That way they can blow in the wind and maybe end up in the hands of people who really need them!”
So the sound of a piece of paper blowing against the side of a wood crate is enough to wake him up. “Whoa, did someone just touch a q-tip to a cotton ball? Ow, my ears!”
Yeah, no point expending the negligible amount of effort required to get out of or onto the crate to sit up — just squeeze yourself with it by lodging yourself inside in an obviously uncomfortable fashion that crushes the top of your already bruised and beaten skull. Good job, kid!
This girl is the only person who even notices him. Is this some kind of horrible future where humans have evolved to only see within three feet of their heads? Anything below about thigh level is invisible?
And considering how apathetic and awful everyone in this city seems to be, should a young girl be walking through an alleyway alone?
So did she say “JESUS LOVES YOU!” or did that just sort of… blast out from thin air or something? It’s not in a speech bubble or anything.
He’s still giving off radiation from that beating he took earlier.
Wait, but…
…but the concept is meaningless. How does he even know who Jesus is? She could’ve said “LARRY LOVES YOU!” or “EGON LOVES YOU!” or “TODD LOVES CARROTS!” and it’d have just as much significance.
I mean, what Jack is saying here, basically, is that you only have to accept the name. You don’t even have to know anything about Jesus, as long as you accept “Jesus”. Which isn’t too far a stretch, I guess, from the frequently-used message that regardless of how awful or good a life you’ve lived all you have to do is accept Jesus in the very last moments of it and you’ll be a-okay. Fuck actual meaning, right? Just say the magic word, even if you don’t know its definition!
And it turns out it was POISONED! 
Does anyone else see the dog hidden on the side of the crate?
“Welp, this looks like as good a place as any to throw up. *urrgkk* Oh wait, there’s a dead kid in here. Sorry, kid.”
And suddenly he’s a toddler.
Man, it’s a good thing the kid got the shit beaten out of him and then kicked out of his house by his abusive asshole of a father, huh? Otherwise he’d never have found THE LORD!
Jabberwock
July 20th, 2009 at 6:28 pm
I like the parody I once saw about this one. Where the dad is a fundie that makes the kid preach on the street and beats him to drive out a ‘demon’ (because the kid questions him and the street preaching.) and thinks he killed the kid (but at least he drove out Say-tan!) and throws him out and he crawls into the box. Then the kid wants nothing to do with religion anymore by the time he ends up in that box and that ‘Jesus loves you!’ girls shows up, and he dies and Jack Chick’s god sends him to hell telling him he should have ‘honoured his father’
July 20th, 2009 at 7:39 pm
yay, another dissection. Good as always. As for “just accepting the name” this concept is seen in Chick’s last tract where girl is dying and father urges her to say the magic words. You just have to say them, you know, not really believe in what they mean and you get to heaven.
Yes I know, I’m expecting some sort of logic from Chick. I should have known better by now.
July 20th, 2009 at 9:43 pm
@Mick: Haha, I haven’t seen that one, I don’t think. I’ll have to look for it. Not too far off the mark, really.
@luxxi: Thanks! And yeah, the rules are always inconsistent: You either have to a) Do nothing but accept Jesus knowing full well what the implications are and who he is; b) Accept Jesus but also abide by all these bizarre rules about sex and drug use and abortion and whatnot, many of which aren’t even referenced in the Bible; c) Just say “I accept Jesus” without any idea at all who Jesus was as though it’s just a magic phrase and it’s the utterance of a pattern of sounds (in English, no less!) that’s the key.
And yet Jack and other fundies then act like it’s all so obvious what everyone has to do, and God simply couldn’t have made it any clearer.
July 21st, 2009 at 12:34 am
well, Chick and people like him think that KJV Bible is the word of God and all other versions are false (and likely part od Vatican conspiracy to keep True word of God(tm) from people. which means that we who don’t speak english as native language are screwed and destiend to burn in Hell forever (I’d prefer to read Bible in my native language not english)
July 21st, 2009 at 12:40 am
The “I’ll go for help!” bubble was added in later editions of this tract. Chicky probably got one too many complaints that she left him to die.
But really, since everyone else couldn’t care less about the kid’s plight, would be a shocker to see her do nothing else too?
July 21st, 2009 at 9:34 am
That kid’s going to be in for a surprise when his drunken, abusive, and overall terrible person of a father ALSO goes to Heaven (Where he probably continues to drunkenly abuse him the best he can for all eternity) because all the dad had to do was “accept Jesus” and he’s in!
It is kinda funny that the first thing the fundie girl does upon seeing a fatally beaten, malnourished, skeletal child, is try to convert him to Christianity. But then, that’s pretty much what missions are in places like Africa isn’t it? Except at a country-wide scale.
July 21st, 2009 at 10:44 am
What’s with the kid’s lips? In at least three panels, he looks like he’s puckering up.
And I like your take on Lightning Bolt. I think ol’ LB is now my favorite Chick character. At least he knew better than to stick around for the saccharine ending.
July 21st, 2009 at 3:04 pm
Gah! I’m used to Jack’s stroke-influenced artwork about now, but this is…designer…instincts…kicking…in!
Page 1: The date says 1972. Um, Jack? If you keep Xeroxing the original, you’ll hold the quality better.
Page 2: “Do me a favor, Astro-Boy. Go next door and ask for a cup of flour.”
Underage rear end? Naughty naughty, Jack.
Page 5: That kid is looking suspiciously at the penny. Making sure his distinctly Jewy-looking father doesn’t snort it by accident.
Seriously, I’m not sure where his arms start and end. They’re just a white glob against his black Hot Topic t-shirt.
Page 6: “Damnit, kid, you got the flour wet! Now it’s all stuck to the bottom of the cup! Thanks for the money, though, I’ve been meaning to do something about my freakishly huge cuticles for awhile.”
Page 15: Sorry kid, you just gotta sweat the meth out.
Page 18: Now c’mon, he can’t be THAT poor! I’d may good money for a hair mousse that can withstand all that downpour and ionization from the frequent nearby lightning strikes.
Page 19: He’s suddenly got that girl’s jacket, and I think the books are being used as a pillow. I read that as a makeout session for a sec. Seriously, why just leave the books like that for him to lay there and coddle for the remainder of his short life? I don’t think even Scientology requires that.
Page 20: And while he was out, the crew of Extreme Makeover: Home Edition installed a statue on his front lawn.
Page 21: After starring in this tract, he became one of the adult-faced little girls in “Come to Daddy.”
July 21st, 2009 at 5:43 pm
“The only objects in this house are bottles, a cup, a penny, a table, a shot glass and a cudgel. Here’s a tip for all you kids who might be reading this: If those are the only items in your home, run the fuck away.”
And the kid who lives in a house with just bottles, a cup, a penny, a table, a shot glass and a cudgel is supposed to get this message how?
I don’t think even MacGyver could put together a computer and internet connection from that list of stuff.
July 21st, 2009 at 5:52 pm
SOME BODY LOVES YOU… and they sent you some anthrax!
That kid is creepy. His face… dear god, he looks like Nemo.
July 22nd, 2009 at 12:59 am
What really amuses me about this one is how much the panel of the guy throwing his half-dead kid out into the rain resembles the many, many other panels in various other tracts of angels throwing (whole-dead) people into Hell.
Think about it. That’s such a perfect analogy, it’s almost like the artist intended it. Like, perhaps he was enslaved long ago and forced to draw against his will by the forces of Chick Publications, but he gets back at his tyrannical overlords by inserting suggestive panels which subtly work against their nefarious agenda. And also by drawing much, much worse than he’s capable of.
July 22nd, 2009 at 10:49 pm
“The only objects in this house are bottles, a cup, a penny, a table, a shot glass and a cudgel. Here’s a tip for all you kids who might be reading this: If those are the only items in your home, run the fuck away.”
Or type in “Take All”, because you’re obviously playing some 1980’s era adventure game.
July 23rd, 2009 at 11:25 am
… Huh. The version of this on the official site has everyone being black. Where’d ya get this copy, J?
July 23rd, 2009 at 4:18 pm
So I guess we can add “rain” and “syndicated orphan Dondi” to the list of things Jack Chick can’t draw for crap.
July 23rd, 2009 at 5:11 pm
I’ve seen this kid before. This is the SAME kid you see on those cheesy black velvet paintings from the 1970s that always turn up at yard sales in suburbs built in the same era. The eyes are the giveaway. Check it out!!
http://www.keane-eyes.com/
July 23rd, 2009 at 10:39 pm
@ J Crowney:
http://www.weirdcrap.com/chick/archive.html
That’s the parody Mick was talking about, its the one named “Loved to Death”.
Also check this parody (which is more like a continuation):
http://www.luciferianliberationfront.org/sly.html
July 24th, 2009 at 12:40 am
I just read “Yakety Sax” and shat myself laughing. Crowely, you made me laugh at a child being beaten to death. You sicko.
I’ve also read that parody before, and I love it!
Great as always, and I hope to see more like it in the future. I’ll be back later to discuss mroe irrelevant shit, but I’m off to bed right now with a hangover, pig AIDS and now a sense of guilt that I laughed at a dead kid!
July 24th, 2009 at 2:31 am
Are you sure that is boy? I thought it was a girl, look at those long lashes…
Guess it really doesn’t matter, it is a Chick Crap after all.
July 24th, 2009 at 10:19 pm
This is early Chick work. Even so, I’d think that something like, say, showing the church people noticing this barefoot, ragged kid begging for money in the gutter in a driving rainstorm might have done better getting the message across. As in “Oh! I have an idea! Why don’t we ask that kid to come sleep in the church tonight? It’s cold and wet out there, and he doesn’t have any shoes!”
For that matter, any cop that saw him would have him on his way downtown to the police station in a New York minute. And, yes, I know the cops are Evil…but compared to that dad of his, they look like saints. In that case, they’d probably pay Drunk Daddy a little…visit.
July 25th, 2009 at 1:56 am
I’ve never been a fan of this one, so mawkish and maudlin. It works best, if at all, on the level of allegory. Bear with me:
The kid isn’t actually begging barefoot on the street, but there’s enough evidence of abuse, bruises, limps, for someone to notice. But of course, “proper” people AND THAT INCLUDES CHURCH-GOING SO-CALLED CHRISTIANS never notice that sort of thing. I’m not just being facetious, there is that infamous case of the woman stabbed to death outside an apartment house, and despite her screams, no one bothered to call the police.
The child may will be a girl, it’s hard to tell. No, he or she may not begging for money, but abusive parents need no real excuse for a beating. Of course one reason is the money spent on the child, instead of on the parent’s drug/drinking habits; some people don’t like having responsibility.
The child is evicted, has to live on the street. This does happen in real life, my late uncle had to deal with such cases. And as in Chick’s pamphlet, it’s often the case adults prefer not to notice, and yes, many of them consider themselves “good Christians”.
The girl who does stop is maybe the one person who can and does give real hope, if almost too late. Many such lost and thrown-away young people just want someone, anyone to notice them; sometimes the message gets thru.
I do have to admit, the ending is rather pathetic; why couldn’t Jesus, or Buddha, or even simple human decency have stepped in sooner?
Christians who ignore such cases bear a greater shame than any atheist.
July 25th, 2009 at 7:49 am
Chick’s got an especially dim view of the world if nobody stops to help a child that pathetic-looking and sickly. And while I can buy that there are parents as cruel and ruthless as this kid’s drunken dick of a father, it’s still in pretty poor taste to depict him beating the boy to death over a friggin’ penny. But I’m beginning to learn (albeit slowly, I confess) that “poor taste” and “Jack Chick” are almost synonymous.
July 25th, 2009 at 5:39 pm
@luxxi: Sad part is, there are people so profoundly stupid living in this world that they actually believe English was the Bible’s “true” language or whatever.
Sadder part is, they were lucky enough to never pull a TV stand onto their head as a child.
@Ryan: Hah! I didn’t know that. Yeah, without that bubble, it looks like she just screams “JESUS LOVES YOU” and then stands out of frame watching him slowly die.
It definitely wouldn’t be shocking, and would fit right in with Chick’s view of the world: It doesn’t matter whether or not you actually help people, just that you deliver the message of Jesus to them.
@Marquis: Yeah, pretty much. God’s a real fucking asshole if abusive shitlords get eternal paradise for saying the magic words at the last minute and people who lived compassionate and caring lives get eternal torture for not saying the magic words.
And yeah, pretty much the only reason most missionaries even bother trying to make people’s lives better is so that they can manipulate them into being more religiously malleable. And besides, if they didn’t learn English, how would they be able to read the Bible in its “intended language”?
@Marian: I just assumed he had a beak of some sort.
And thanks! Yeah, he got out of there in the nick of time.
@Fenris: Heh:
Page 1: What quality? He could run this through a paper shredder, tape it back together, crinkle it up, photograph it with a disposable camera, scan the photo and apply a blur filter in Photoshop and it’d probably be an improvement on most of these.
@MeanderingMind: Library internet access? I don’t know, I was only trying to help.
I find your lack of faith in MacGyver disturbing.
@ladyhoot: Hehe, indeed.
@Joe England: Hah, how did I not make that connection? Very nice.
Though, this is one of the ones drawn by Jack. The Fred Carter ones are better in a number of ways, but still horrid-looking and grotesque in a number of other ways.
@Hawker Hurricane: Heehee, yes.
@Man Falling off a Cliff (NOOOOOO!): Really? I grabbed it from his site just the other day. I didn’t see the black one. Just go to the “All Tracts” page and do a word search for the title of the tract. There might be more than one on the page.
@commodorejohn: At this point it might be easier to make a list of the few things Jack can draw. So far, the list is blank. Oh wait, no: Fang. So far the list is Fang.
@Raven: Hee, the resemblance is indeed striking.
@Alex: It’s “Crowley”.
Thanks for the links! I really should do a few where I just edit the dialog. I’ve been meaning to try that.
@Felis: It’s “Crowley”.
I otherwise wouldn’t point it out, but that’s two people in a row who got it wrong.
Hehehe, my plan has succeeded! Soon the whole WORLD will be laughing at children getting beaten to death!
@Fdragon: Yeah, I tried to keep it gender neutral in the Dissection but eventually figured “fuck it” when the grammar hoop-jumps I was having to do got way too convoluted.
@Technomad: Yeah, the premise is basically 100% bullshit. Even in fictional dystopian nightmare settings, people have more compassion than the people in this tract.
@Panda Rosa: I know that there are cases of people tending to ignore tragic happenings, but they’re relatively few and far between, and there are so many counter-examples of selfless heroism and people protecting the weak and helpless that it makes it impossible to buy cynical callousness and negligence as a widespread epidemic.
I could accept maybe ten people passing him by without doing anything, but the idea that not a single person passing would help him is insane. And I mean, I live in NYC which gets a bad rep for people just ignoring each other and whatnot, but I see people helping each other out every day in a bunch of different and unexpected ways. And while sure people tend to pass homeless adults, especially those with obvious issues or dangerous looks, there’s no way they’d pass a lone child. It’s probably part of the reason I haven’t seen a lone homeless child on the streets in the three years I’ve lived here.
(Also, just because something happens in front of a building where a lot of people live, it doesn’t mean they’re home and it doesn’t mean they can hear it.)
It’s a poorly-constructed tract, really — like I said, the premise is completely unbelievable and relies on everyone involved except for the girl being a total bastard.
I’m not sure I agree with your closing line, though: It seems to denigrate or dismiss atheist morality as somehow “inferior” to Christians’, almost implying some greater or stronger impetus for good that makes it a bigger tragedy or negligence to not act on it.
I can agree that it’s worse on account of the hypocrisy of claiming a superior morality and then doing nothing to back it up, but I don’t think there’s anything inherently worse or more shameful about Christians not doing anything.
Atheists care about people too, and very deeply. It’s just that our morality tends to be more about the person being acted upon than the person doing the acting. That is, while Christianity, generally speaking, seems to place greater value on doing good (or “good” in many cases) for one’s own sake or salvation, or for God’s sake, or even for the sake of goodness itself, atheists seem to base their actions more around the consent of others, and treating individuals the way they want to be treated on an individual basis regardless of how the person doing the acting personally feels. “If you want to know what’s right and what’s wrong, just ask,” basically.
So I’d say it’s about equal, honestly, shame-wise. Perhaps for different reasons, but…
@Kooshmeister: Heh, indeed.
July 26th, 2009 at 8:20 am
Geez this tract looks really gritty. It’s like he used the pages as a coffee filter before publishing.
Also, am I the only one who thinks the dad in his lion wig looks like Heat Miser from “The Year Without a Santa Claus”?
July 27th, 2009 at 11:21 am
Aw man, I hate this one. What the hell, Jack, why would you ever look at this and think ‘Yes! This depiction of an abused child will inspire so many people to turn to Jesus!’
More annoying than that, why did that woman run away? “Oh, a tiny, beaten, exhausted child is laying in a box! There’s no way my scrawny woman-arms can carry him!”
July 28th, 2009 at 12:29 am
Am I the only one who remembers Jack’s COUNTLESS other tracts, all preaching that everyone is born a sinner and goes to Hell unless you’ve been saved? So this angel is actually taking the kid to judgement where he will be sent to hell for not accepting Jesus christ as his personal savior.
July 28th, 2009 at 4:22 pm
“Lightning crashes, a new mother cries. Her placenta falls to the floor.”
Actually, if you put all the lyrics to this song to each corresponding panel of the tract, they seam to go along with the warped story:
lightning crashes, a new mother cries
her placenta falls to the floor
the angel opens her eyes
the confusion sets in
before the doctor can even close the door
lightning crashes, an old mother dies
her intentions fall to the floor
the angel closes her eyes
the confusion that was hers
belongs now, to the baby down the hall
oh now feel it comin’ back again
like a rollin’ thunder chasing the wind
forces pullin’ from the center of the earth again
I can feel it.
lightning crashes, a new mother cries
this moment she’s been waiting for
the angel opens her eyes
pale blue colored iris,
presents the circle
and puts the glory out to hide, hide
July 31st, 2009 at 12:58 am
Well, JCrowley, actually I’ve tried to put it the other way: the Atheist does good for more “pure” reasons, can have a genuine reason to care, and to have concern for the victim out of basic human kindness. As a Christian, I have to consider not just myself and the helpless child, but you watching me. If I just walk away and do nothing but be all smug and santimonious, “Oh, it’s okay, Jesus will tend to the miserable little baste-er, little kid,” then it’s worse somehow. You’re free to act out of simple decency, Christians HAVE to do good OR ELSE.
And yes, this is hopelessly mawkish. Sheesh, where’s the Little Match Girl?
July 31st, 2009 at 11:42 am
Omny said:
“Also, am I the only one who thinks the dad in his lion wig looks like Heat Miser from “The Year Without a Santa Claus”?
ROTFLMAO!!!! Out-fucking-standing! You’re right! Damn, been years since I thought of that flick.
July 31st, 2009 at 4:32 pm
I also noticed Jack took care to draw a plumber’s crack in the kid in a couple of panels. That makes me wonder…
Yeah, another senseless Chick Tract that he somehow thinks is guiding people to Jack’s evil warlord god.
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:26 pm
This has to be the most “F”-ed up Chick Tract ever written! I first read this ages ago when I was browsing in a little bookshop near a bus depot in Yonkers, NY (where I was living at the time). That tract bugged the daylights out of me!
This kid (with eyes one would normally see in a Keane painting) is put out to beg by his dad (at least we think that’s his dad, it doesn’t say) who wants another drink. Everyone walks past him in the driving rain, except for some guy who drops in a penny. Then the dad beats the crap out of “Me” for only coming back with a penny and then throws the kid out of the house (nice guy eh?)!
This kid crawls into a (convenient) cardboard box and sleeps until he gets a flyer saying “Somebody loves you” and, well, you know the rest.
What rubs me the wrong way about this tract is that it is seriously messed up! For instance, if we see a raggedy, barefoot kid begging for change in a rainstorm wouldn’t we, I don’t know, maybe, call the police and/or Child Protective Services? Maybe I’m being overly optimistic, but I would like to think that most people would not just blithely ignore this kid. I mean, you can’t really yell “Get a freakin’ job!” to a raggedy little kid, can you.
Also, many of the tracts that followed “Me” have had people being kept out of heaven for not “accepting” Jesus. So, unless “Me” had time to accept the big guy before he croaked, he might end up taking an unexpected detour.
Anyway, this is pretty mauldlin stuff! But it set the stage for many instances of crackpot christian crapola to follow!
Perhaps next you could do a dissection of “Angels” next.
August 3rd, 2009 at 10:28 pm
I hope you won’t mind my double-dipping, but I would like to clarify that I wasn’t living in a bus depot when I first encountered this tract, but I was killing time waiting for a commuter bus to go home to my apartment. Thank you.
August 8th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
WAsn’t there an “adapted for black audiences” version of this POS?
August 9th, 2009 at 9:22 pm
Technomad Says:
August 8th, 2009 at 7:09 pm
WAsn’t there an “adapted for black audiences” version of this POS?
—————————-
If it is like the rest of his “adapted for black audiences” versions of other tracts… Well, the implications would be so racist, I kind of think that adapted tract would be considered a hate crime all by itself. Man.
August 11th, 2009 at 10:26 am
I was wondering if anyone – maybe you, mister Crowley ^^ (can’t help to add “Alaister” in front…) – has that infamous tract about that little girl abused by her father ? I’ve seen many many things said about it, and was really curious to actually see it. Why not even be dissecated !
First time to post here, but it’s been some time I read =) Always higly instructive and funny ! Great great job =)
August 11th, 2009 at 6:29 pm
Hey, Eawyne, welcome to the insanity! The tract you’re thinking about is Lisa. Browsing his site, you’d think that Chick was trying to forget that he ever published it. You’d be wrong.
Chick has recently republished it along with a few other tracts and his ramblings on the topic of said tracts in ‘Hot Topics’, his new book. I do not mention this to advertise so much as be the pedestrian who waves for cars to stop so they can come see the train wreck.
Scans of the original can still be found online here:
http://www.angelfire.com/on/3angels/lisa.html
Oh, and for those who were wondering, the black version of this tract can be found here:
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1102/1102_01.asp
Note that the artwork is pretty much all identical, but he added in shading.
August 12th, 2009 at 2:17 am
Jeez, thanks a lot =) As a matter of fact, I wouldn’t come along seeing a train wreck, but when’s it’s about mocking some high “intellectual” innuendo…
August 13th, 2009 at 2:50 pm
With a cudgel that size, the dad probably could have walloped one of those nicely-dressed people and got more than a penny for his booze.
August 18th, 2009 at 5:58 pm
Is it just me, or doesn’t this imply that if the kid had NOT found the incomprehensible pamphlet, then after a short life of hell he would have then spent an eternity in hell? I get that we’re supposed to feel sorry for this kid, but nowhere in the lead up does it say “If your life sucks, don’t worry because you’re going to heaven.” In fact, being familiar with Chick’s brand of theology, the run-up to the pamphlet could have just as easily been of a regular kid playing with his toys – the beaten kid and the regular kid are BOTH going to hell unless they accept Jesus. Gah?
August 20th, 2009 at 1:56 am
Panel 19, Frame 2
I see the arm reaching up and spasming and I think the kid is going “AAARRRRRRRAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHGG!”, like he’s about to start mutating into a supervillain. THAT would have been some nice payback for dad.
Speaking of dad, he does look like Wario. Thank god we never see mom, huh? She’d have probably looked like Waluigi.
August 20th, 2009 at 2:03 am
Also,
>“I’m so mad I put on my lion wig! And you know what that means!”
“It’s SIMBA time!”
“NO DAD NO!”
September 2nd, 2009 at 8:54 pm
Hear ye, hear ye! New Chick tract!
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0043/0043_01.asp
September 7th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Chick doesn’t know his Bible. Jesus didn’t throw Lucifer out of Heaven, it was God who did it, after archangel Michael defeated his bid to sieze the throne.
and I’m pretty sure Lucifer wasn’t guarding God’s throne
oh well…..
September 7th, 2009 at 5:47 pm
@Ryan: Huh. Jack’s new tract isn’t as aneurysm-inducing as his others. Rather sad, especially the artwork. Does he ALWAYS have to resort to making his antagonists look like stereotypical Jews? I mean, good lord, Satan’s nose is HUGE!
@Luxxi: As far as I remember, Lucifer DID guard God’s throne before he got kicked out. You’re right on with the first part, though.
September 7th, 2009 at 6:17 pm
FWLIW, I don’t think that the large noses in Chick tracts are intended to suggest “Jew.” I think he draws them that way for comic effect.
Am I the only one who thinks that “Grandpa” in the new tract looks a lot like one of the vampires in “First Bite?”
September 22nd, 2009 at 12:17 pm
Ohhh you gotta do this one, omg never saw jack this far off the rails before…
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1059/1059_01.asp
September 27th, 2009 at 10:57 am
I think this might be the best Chick Tract ever, which is of course not saying much. It still doesn’t make any sense, and the artwork is horrible, but at least it’s not about 99% of people going to hell.
October 1st, 2009 at 6:34 pm
Hey, I just noticed something—the girl did give him her coat to lie under before she left.
October 3rd, 2009 at 7:22 pm
happy to see another update….i kinda noticed why the girl took a while to get help. she had to convert the kid, then get help, cause, ya know, good works wont get you to heaven.
October 10th, 2009 at 11:29 pm
This is unbelievably awesome – I laughed so hard. Thank you so much for your wit!
Wario’s home life – ahahahhhaaha!
October 11th, 2009 at 7:45 am
Got a bit of a suggestion for the next Dissection.
Either this: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0096/0096_01.asp
Or since it’s a totally appropriate time of the year for it: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0011/0011_01.asp
Former one’s about bullshit, the latter about Chick’s paranoia.
Also, I really should do another dissection sometime. I did one with a MSN buddie of mine. We tried interpreting the Haitian version of “Wordless Gospel” with no knowledge of fundamentalism at all, and… the results were pretty hilariously surreal. Does Jack seriously think that tract, like One Way, can be interpreted as the message of fundie Christianity with no knowledge of the religion at all?
Anyways, not to be buggery or anything, but if anyone wants to read my horrendously outdated dissection on Evil Eyes, you’re free to download it via this Mediafire link. ( http://www.mediafire.com/?jz4n20mtzd2 )
October 14th, 2009 at 8:54 am
Overall, I enjoy your dissections. I just created a new blog dedicated to dissecting Jack Chick’s tracts, albeit from a non fundamentalist Christian perspective (http://investigatingjtc.wordpress.com). Mine aren’t near as funny as yours are.
I’d like to see you dissect one of his Catholic bashing tracts, maybe Man in Black or The Death Cookie, or any from the Alberto series. If you read the Alberto series of comics, which is where most of his anti-Catholic material is, he actually thinks that the Catholic Church created the KKK (which is anti-Catholic as well as being anti-black/Jew), Communism, the Nazi party, WWI, WWII, and Islam. Maybe traditional anti-semetic values influenced Hitler, who was raised Catholic, and maybe the church didn’t do enough to stop him, but to say that they directly helped him rise to power (and I think he says that Jesuits wrote Mein Kampf) is beyond belief.
(Note: currently a guy on Ebay-not me-is selling rare copies of a 7th Alberto comic that Alberto Rivera published himself. I bought one. It is poorly written, in that it was allegedly written in Korean first then translated to English, but it is a rare gem that is a good collector’s item for anyone interested in the Chick empire)
November 3rd, 2009 at 1:31 am
New tract ahoy! (It’s been up since at least Halloween)
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1060/1060_01.asp
November 7th, 2009 at 2:21 pm
@Ryan: (Re: the new Chick Tract)
I always knew that those kids killing themselves at orphanages was a hidden blessing in disguise. If those kids that killed themselves hadn’t done so, other kids would never find Jesus through the efforts of kindly Rwandan missionaries.
Abused suicidal children going to Hell is a small price to pay if one child can get to Heaven, and see how the (obviously Democrat) judge who abused them died of a heart attack after the child gave himself to Christ? That’s God rewarding one of his new followers. If those kids that killed themselves had only believed in Jesus sooner, Judge Stone would have died quicker, and everyone would have been saved!
You haters against Jack Chick just don’t want to admit to yourselves his true righteousness. “It’s Not Your Fault” is a wonderful message for orphan children.
P.S. It also shows that sometimes sexual abuse against children is OK as long as it leads to somebody being led to Christ. Look it up, John 11:35.
December 16th, 2009 at 12:11 pm
I like how the Christian girl just shouts “Jesus loves you!” and wanders off. I know my first response upon finding a nappy, androgenous kid sleeping in an orange crate and dying of blunt force trauma would be to shout “Jesus loves you!” and keep on truckin’. Oh… a beaten, bloody child lying in an alley. Well, Jesus loves you. I hope it all works out for you, kid, and remember to keep a positive attitude. Look at the time! I gotta blow. See ya!
I remember these vile pieces of filth turning up at various prayer meetings when my mother started drifting away from Catholicism and into some group of nuts who referred to themselves as “charismatic Christians.” Even at age 12, I could see these were grossly inappropriate attempts at fear mongering and propoganda, and they insulted my intelligence even then.
I’m glad I found your site. I happened upon this stuff while looking for information on the Satanic hysteria of the mid 80’s, its persecution of rock music, and its influence on the Satanic Ritual Abuse phenomenon.
Cheers
B
I’m so glad I found this site.
January 9th, 2010 at 2:17 am
Who wants a new Chick tract?
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1061/1061_01.asp
He also re-did one old tract with some new art:
https://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0047/0047_01.asp
February 19th, 2010 at 4:28 am
*blinks*
Wow, that’s the most depressing, horrible and disgusting thing ever. And apparently someone spouting the words “Jesus Loves You” can kill. See how pained that poor boy/girl (boirl’s?) hand looks before s/he dies?
So, an alternate interpretation of this could be God Hates Transgender Kids and Their Damned Magic Pennies?
April 15th, 2010 at 6:13 pm
Bit of a horrendously late addon, but I REALLY hope this tract wasn’t intended for kids.
July 10th, 2010 at 1:23 pm
Look at the image of the dad before the beating… is possesed by a Christian saint!!!