If you grew up in the Bible Belt during the 70s, 80s and even well into the 90s, there is a very good chance that you have more than a passing familiarity with the hateful, frightening and just plain bizarre “Christian” comics produced by one Jack T. Chick.

Chick’s twisted message, infused with his peculiar style of fervent, the-end-is-near Fundamentalist Christian insanity, by virtue of appearing in what most parents considered to be innocuous “religious” comic books, enjoyed a long period of widespread cultural popularity. Chick tracts were distributed in Sunday schools, summer camps, motel lobbies and bus stations all across America. There have been over 750 million of them sold!

There can only be one reason such deranged literature was allowed in so many places: Adults never read them. If they had, they’d have been utterly horrified. (My own mother gave me dozens of these comics when I was a kid. I’m sure in her mind they were better for me than the Marvel of DC comics I was reading. LIttle did she know that she was actually providing me with!)

Chick’s scary, angry Fundie diatribes have given many a kid terrible nightmares. His favorite topics tend towards subject matter like “You’re going to Hell,” Halloween is evil, eternal damnation, abortion, the Vatican is evil and created Islam, demons walk amongst us, child molesters, the Antichrist will rise soon, New Age beliefs, Judaism, Mormonism and Islam are Satanic, witches are everywhere, homosexuality is an abomination (Chick’s solution? Fire-n-brimstone, baby!), Darwin’s theories are Satanic, Harry Potter is Satanic, feminists are Satanic, the Satanic plot behind rock music (The Beatles were Druids!), “You’re going to Hell,” the Commies are everywhere (Catholics are to blame for this, of course) and just about any other crazy, fucked up conspiracy theory you can think of. He’s kind of the Glenn Beck (or maybe better still Alex Jones) of paranoiac Christian comic books. Did I mention that a lot of his comics were about how YOU (that’s right you, the person reading this) are going to Hell? Chick’s God is a VENGEFUL God. The Old Testament Jehovah has got nothin’ on Chick’s version.
 

 
Not much beyond the basics are known about Chick, who is now 86-years-old. He’s an extremely private man and few photographs have been taken of him. So it’s not like anyone knows about the reclusive Jack T. Chick himself, but show almost anyone in America one of his Chick tracts and they’ll respond with an immediate recognition of the distinctively shaped and wildly deranged mini-comics. For Jack T. Chick, it’s all about saving YOUR soul from eternal damnation, not about being popular.

It wasn’t until 1998 that the first serious examination of the world’s best-read theologian (think about it) appeared and that was in the pages of The Imp a self-published journal of comics criticism from Daniel Raeburn, fashioned via the shape, design and a Daniel Clowes illustration to resemble a Chick tract. I’ve had a copy of this issue of The Imp since it came out, sitting in pride of place on my bookshelf, but it’s now long out of print. Happily Raeburn has put all four issues of his much admired publication online, also including his erudite takes on Daniel Clowes, Chris Ware, and Mexican historietas.

Says Raeburn:

“People who dismiss hate literature offhand are going to miss the point of this tribute to Chick, which is that hate literature reveals not only its own corruption but the sick society that hatched it. Examine the historical and theological forebears of little Chick and you’ll find an awful, and I do mean awful, lot of mainstream beliefs. Like the Protestant zealots who colonized and raped this country, Chick tracts and the violence in them are as American as apple pie.”

 
Above, an episode of Boing Boing TV featuring Syd Garon and Rodney Ascher’s animated take on the Chick “classic” You Goofed.. This is Jack T. Chick in a nutshell. (Reportedly he’s seen this and liked it!)
 
This might be a recent photograph of Jack T. Chick

Huge online compendium of Chick racts

Thank you Taylor Jessen of Burbank, California!

 
“Are you angry that I would make a video such as this to expose racism for what it is?” so asks a man who has just exposed himself to himself. This must be the dumbest thing I’ve seen… all afternoon.

Mind-numbing, cognition destroying, soul-sapping video from Pastor Terry Jones & his Dove World Outreach Center congregation. Depressing to watch. I can’t even get a hard on to mock them, as much as they deserve it.

Jones and his “church” are the folks making plans for “International Burn a Koran Day” on September 11, so more of the same should come as no surprise.

Via Christian Nightmares

 
I will admit to being somewhat crestfallen at the lack of loony-toons wingnuts on parade in all the reporting on the Glenn Beck event over the weekend. Somewhat crestfallen? Who am I kidding? I waited all week long to see a bunch of crazy, ignorant white people with low IQs spouting off on television about things they know nothing of and regurgitating, parrot-style, the predictable tropes and catchphrases that they’d been fed by Fox News, World Net Daily and Rush Limbaugh.

But there was so little of it. What a letdown! The reporting—and what transpired onstage with Beck, Palin, et al—was too bland to even hold my attention. I wanted to see foaming at the mouth nutcases, zany racist signs, people dressed as giant tea bags, in Confederate flag jumpsuits, etc, etc. Perhaps because signs were discouraged, the visuals were lacking, but it sure took all the fun out of the cable new coverage of the event.

But now Chase Whiteside and New Left Media have posted their take on the “Restoring Honor” event and well, it looks to me as if the job the major news channels did has been bested by the “indie” coverage of some students from Wright State University in Dayton, Ohio. It’s not like you couldn’t throw a rock the distance of, oh, about 12 inches without hitting an idiot, so how did the mainstream media miss these kooks and ignoramuses?

The story that’s not being examined—but should be—is is how fucking DUMB about a quarter of this country is. It’s not Glenn Beck or Sarah Palin or Ted Nugent or any of the rest of them, who are the story, they’re merely symptoms of the greater problem: 20-25% of the American population are abject idiots. That’s the story I want to see the media tackle.
 

 
Via The Daily What

 
Why is it that no one on the Right can make a decent political documentary? Name one (serious) contender for the title “Michael Moore of the Right.” You can’t because that person doesn’t exist. Are conservatives congenitally incapable of constructing a coherent and convincing narrative in documentary form? Something that might actually sway some people their way? Or is their philosophy just so bankrupt that it falls apart onscreen and screams false to our bullshit detectors? Or is their stuff just boring? The main reason that Hollywood is dominated by Liberals is because conservatives tend to be not very entertaining. (Hollywood even tolerated Mel Gibson up to a point because he made money. He’s one of the few conservatives to do so in recent memory).

Ask almost anyone and you’ll hear, “Communism is dead! The Berlin Wall came down.” And though the word communism isn’t used anymore, this film will show the ideas behind it are alive and well. 
Join Bowers for a fascinating look at the people and groups that have successfully targeted America’s morality and freedom in their effort to grind America down. It’s not just another conspiracy theory. It’s a well documented agenda. 



I’m Curtis Bowers and I made this film because I hoped that once you saw the facts you would realize what I did after researching this topic… what has happened to America hasn’t been an accident. Now is the time to get involved before the “Left” accomplishes their goal of destroying the greatest country in ALL world history!

Remind of why the Left is out to destroy America, again?

This filmmaker behind AGENDA: Grinding America Down, Idaho legislator Curtis Bowers, comes off as an earnest, but extremely unhip, Republican weenie beating the same old dead horse John Birch Society conspiracy theories that no one takes seriously anymore. I mean, how could anyone really expect a person under the age of 50 to know who Alger Hiss was or care what anyone has to say about him, or Joseph McCarthy, for that matter. in 2010? Phyllis Schlafly might care (she’s interviewed in AGENDA: Grinding America Down) but she’s nearly ninety. And a crackpot.

This trailer is almost not insane for the first five minutes and then all of a sudden it weirds out until the end like a demented action flick. Without any action. Or point.

 

 
A man photographed at Glenn Beckstock. Via Little Green Footballs
 

 
And here’s another “patriot,” this one via Gawker.

 
Brick Stone rules! This is hilarious!

 
That brilliant Bob Odenkirk character reminded me of this twisted old coot who is unfortunately not joking. I do however love how the casio changes settings with each edit and it’s quite a jaunty little tune for such a grimly absurd message. See Richard’s post from last year for more info about this deeply silly man.
 

 
I didn’t say he goes “deep” inside their minds, did I? This is brilliant! He totally nails it.

“C.S. Lewis Jr.” reminds me a lot of THIS GUY, don’t cha think?
 

 
I’ve spent so much time with this record already, I nearly forgot that this is the day it officially makes its way into the world. Be kind, world ! Actually folks have been extremely kind so far. Prefix mag via KCRW posted up a lovely piece yesterday and there’s a podcast with songs from my shady past and present as well as a pretty good and casual phone interview at Most People Are DJs. And of course, as you doubtless already know due to that flashing ad down there, you can buy your own CD or colored vinyl LP (see above) directly from my superb label, Hometapes.
 

Brad Laner - Eyes Close from Josh Laner on Vimeo.

 
Go on, have a guess!

Thank you (I think) Jose R. Mejia!