Christmas with Jack
I was desperately trawling through Ebay looking for something interesting to buy for Onkle B for Christmas (I failed), when – for reasons known only to God and the algorithm – I was offered a block of 25 sealed copies of a Jack Chick tract, That Crazy Guy. Dear seller in Georgia – ain’t nobody pay a hundred bucks for this.
I collected Chick tracts when I were a lass. There were tons of them in circulation in the Seventies. They had two qualities I adored: really, genuinely, outrageously awful artwork and bizarre messages.
Lots of straight up evangelizing, naturally, but with odd twists. He hated Catholicism, for example – which may have limited his reach. Though it was said he was probably the most widely read living author in the world. Er, when he was alive.
Chick didn’t do interviews and remained a bit of a mystery. David Daniels, who worked with him toward the end, has published a biography, You Don’t Know Jack, and a video series of the same name.
I can’t imagine I’ll be bored enough to follow up on that.
His whole oeuvre is available at chick.com. I wish they were better about recording the artist and publication date – I can identify the hand of at least three different illustrators at minimum, each very different but all truly awful.
I thought it would be fun to visit some of the weirder panels over the holidays, by way of easy content. It’s tempting to think That Crazy Guy is a Steve Martin reference, which places it late Seventies. Untreatable AIDS (spoiler, he gives her AIDS) makes it mid Eighties. This illustrator is better than Chick.
Posted: December 23rd, 2024 under art.
Comments: 3
Comments
Comment from Jon
Time: December 23, 2024, 5:59 pm
I think it’s sad that modern progressive comics are much more disturbing than Chick Tracts but get almost no scorn. (Except on nuTwitter where fun can happen)
Comment from The Neon Madman
Time: December 23, 2024, 8:01 pm
Chick tracts! Man, I haven’t thought about those in (coff, coff) years! They were so bad that they were actually hilarious. Of course, this was at the same time that Mad magazine and the National Lampoon formed a significant part of my reading.
Thanks for the blast from the (distant) past.
Comment from Uncle Al
Time: December 24, 2024, 2:28 pm
You’re dying and there’s no cure.
Now, there’s an uplifting Holiday message for ya.
Evie the Christmas Mare says, “Neigh!”
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