49 thoughts on “Comic Books”

  2. Wow, that picture brings back memories!

    I actually enjoyed reading those comic books. They were interesting, even if not all of it was true. Jack Chick is quite an artist! The one thing I did find weird, though, was how seductive all the “worldly” women in the comics were dressed. I mean, he had to obviously take time drawing all that cleavage and all those curves. Hmm….

    Does anyone know if Jack Chick is married?

  4. Big props to Camille for finding! I’m fighting putting my hand up, but the pressure of all the other hands in the auditorium that I can’t see are putting a lot of pressure on me! 🙂

  6. How did I grow up in the fundiest of fundies and nver saw these? Perhaps they felt that “comics” were too close to a form of merriment (obviously didn’t read this one).

  7. 39 cents! What a Deal! What a Deal!
    This is a true collector’s item! I mean it, a 39 cent in mint condition would fetch a missionary’s monthly support.

  8. @Don –
    ” would fetch a missionary’s monthly support.”

    At the church I grew up in that would be about 15 bucks.

  9. Speaking of comics, I remember in the 70’s reading Archie comics that taught bible messages. Does anyone remember this? It just seems strange that now they are putting a gay character in Archie.

  10. My grandmother had some of those and I asked her to read me one about a boy praying to Satan…I had nightmares for a while. I was too scared of them to look after that.

  11. @Kat
    Actually, although Jack Chick is the publisher and the nutcase behind the ideas, I believe it’s actually Fred Carter behind the art. Jack Chick is not very good, but the quality of Fred Carter’s work in this and other Chick tracts is always excellent.

  12. It was this one! I was 4 or 5 I think and my Grandparents lived in this really old house and my grandma read it and we fell asleep and I woke up before her and it was dark and I was terrified of that house to begin with and the comic/idea of praying to satan freaked me out too…worst day at grandma’s house ever! http://www.chick.com/catalog/comics/0104.asp

  13. I remember read the Chick tracts, but I don’t remember the comics. Maybe I’m just blocking them out?

  14. *Raising hand with head bowed and eyes closed.*

    Yes, Jack Chick had a way of giving nightmares to impressionable young fundamentalists like myself.

  15. @John

    At the church I grew up in that would be about 15 bucks

    Wow! such extravagant spending on just one (1) missionary? You must have attended one of those big fancy churches that probably had a cold water fountain in the foyer, didn’t you.

  17. yes! jack chick! one of my all-time favorite fundy topics! there’s just nothing about these that isn’t perfect. the bat-poo crazy theology, the universally debunked source material, the conspiracy theories, the perpetual use of 70’s-era fashion… i just LOVE them!

    i have never seen this one before. look at them! it’s CHAOS! you can tell by the panic in their eyes!

    also- dig how the nurse is not wearing pants. standards, baby!

    thank you thank you thank you!

  20. OH, I have this one somewhere collecting dust with a few others. What a stroll down memory lane. I was a teen and early 20s when these came out. The 70s fashions were quite current, more’s the pity! The first explanation I ever heard of KJVOism was in one of these comic books. I thought it was about the weirdest thing I’d ever read and I think that’s what made me eye the whole KJV issue with suspicion. So that backfired. Praise God! I loved the art, though. Were the main characters’ images based on Arnold Schwarzenegger and Carl Weathers?? 😉 Forget the women’s curves! I liked getting these to fest my eyes on the guys’ rippling muscles! It’s good things only men can have lust of the eyes, amen, ladies? Bless jack Chick for looking out for moral fiber of IFB youth!

  22. I didn’t grow up Fundy but still read all of these comics many times over. I especially enjoyed the series of comics on Alberto Rivera, exposing that Great Whore of Babylon the Roman Catholic Church. They tried to silence him but praise the Lord he was able to get the truth out to the masses. Can I get an Amen? No? Oh wait, you mean he was a fraud and a liar? That’s just what those crazy Catholics want you to believe!

  23. I’ve often wondered about the idea of babies disappearing during the Rapture. I know the idea is that they are innocent, so they must escape the Tribulation, but this just leads to other theological problems. Aren’t all humans born with sin? How old is a child before they stop being innocent? How old would a person have to be, at the Rapture, to be condemned to having to live through the Trib? What about children born after the Rapture, during the tribulation? Or maybe there wouldn’t any children born during the Tribulation?

    This way lies madness.

  24. No lie: a huge wave of guilt come over me when my mom caught me reading these in the back of our church’s Christian Bookstore. Sort of the same reaction I had when she caught me reading the “dirty” sections in our World Book Encyclopedia or melting crayons in the baseboard heaters.

    Something in me knew I shouldn’t be leering at the freaks, secretly lusting at all of that double-knit polyester.

  27. @Don

    Not a fountain, but large portraits of the founding pastor. As we went into church, and left church the portraits were great reminders of who was really sover… *er*… in charge.

  29. for those that don’t follow D’s tweet posts – look to the right and click on the one that talks about Patch the Pirate. That’ll give you a good laugh.

  30. I have “CHAOS”. I also have “The Broken Cross” and “Operation Bucharest”, and several of Al Hartley’s Spire/Barbour Christian comics. My copies were purchased in the late 1980s and the Chick Crusaders series were priced at 69 cents (they’re $2.25 now at chick.com). The Spire/Barbour comics, which included the Archie Christian series, has been out of print for at least twenty years.

    I stopped believing in a pre-tribulation rapture over ten years ago when I learned about how this teaching came about from reading Dave MacPherson’s “The Rapture Plot”, a book I found in a fundie bookstore along with the usual pre-trib propaganda. It is very fascinating reading. The name of Dave MacPherson is every bit as loathsome to pre-trib peddlers as the name James White is to King James Onlyists.

    The Chick comic “CHAOS” is to me, as with Jake, just a good laugh now.

    Speaking of the Rapture and laughs, I’m something of a cartoonist myself and have a couple of Rapture-related cartoons to share (perhaps I might be Jack Chick’s successor when he kicks the bucket?):

    http://www.tv-signoffs.com/jawtoons/2003_LeftBehindMovie.jpg

    http://www.tv-signoffs.com/jawtoons/2005_NoRaptureToday.jpg

  31. Mac is right. That’s Frank Carter’s artwork, not Jack Chick’s.

    Carter is the most famous cartoonist no one has heard of.

  32. My life as a child was fraught with nightmares, courtesy of Chick, Salem Kirban, Hal Lindsay, and a host of ghoulish speakers in church who loved to shock and awe congregations with their gruesome tales of the future. (Much of the information from Kirban and Lindsay came to me secondhand courtesy of prophecy-obsessed teachers and relatives.)

    With Chick, it wasn’t just the rapture comic. Someone else has already mentioned that another of his favorite topics was the occult. Three of the other Crusader comics that gave me nightmares were “The Broken Cross,” “Angel of Light,” and “Spellbound.” Of the ones I read, “The Broken Cross” was the freakiest. It featured a Satanic cult kidnapping a hippie girl so they could kill her and drink her blood; a weirdo eating human fingers; and vomiting Satanic priests. If Chick hadn’t broken into the comics racket, he could’ve become a dandy exploitation filmmaker – a combo of Ron Ormond and Ruggero Deodato.

    Along with Alberto, the man whose allegations formed the basis for some of the content in the Occult-related comics, John Todd, has also since been discredited. Not only have his stories been called into question, but following in the footsteps of many a fundamentalist speaker/leader, he was also arrested for rape in 1987.

  33. Man, I remember these, as well as the Christian Archie’s. I always felt like the dialog was just too over the top and heavy handed. Did anybody actually get saved by reading these? Especially the Archie comics, because those were just so…boring, the kids were sucked of their personalities, they just talked about God way too much for normal teenagers.

  34. @ Kate: “Forget the women’s curves! I liked getting these to fest my eyes on the guys’ rippling muscles! It’s good things only men can have lust of the eyes, amen, ladies? Bless jack Chick for looking out for moral fiber of IFB youth!”

    Hahaha, I remember reading one of these comics and finding the artist’s rendition of Lucifer rather dashing. Probably the point, worked a little too well.

  37. @ beth
    And she’s left after the rapture, notice. Coincidence?
    If she had the Holy Spirit she would have dressed more modestly.

  38. @Stephen–Salem Kirban! I was given the Salem Kirban Study Bible–complete with pictures of his family interspersed among the study notes!

  39. Someone gave me the whole set, including the “Alberto” series (the Jesuit priest issues)… Was always stunned at the detail given to the women, it was like an excusable X-men for me. We were taught that Christian rock was bad but hardcore Christian comics was ok. That always confused me.

    1. I always wondered how he knew what demons looked like and why he spent so much time drawing them scheming and hiding in shadows ready to leap on people.

  40. Though raised in a home that communicated the gospel I did not believe on Christ until age 19. It was after reading this very Crusader comic, Chaos, that I accepted the truth that at any moment I could die and would not have a chance after that to believe. Within minutes I recalled all the truth of the gospel I knew and refused to head and instead turned and in prayer, expressed my believe on Christ as my Savior.

    As I matured in my walk I came to discover that though many sources are used by God this does not mean 1% or 100% of the human agents or their mechanisms are condoned. But if and when they contain the gospel God will always use that divine mechanism to enlighten us through his Spirit.

    I do not live my life as a believer in the manner that is reflected by Chick publications, BJU or PCC or any eccentric group. But I am grateful, in spite of their weaknesses, that they still contain the gospel message.

    May it be that those things that are demonstrations of arrogance, foolishness, immaturity, ignorance and so on be matters for which they received enlightenment and rehabilitation.

  41. I only learned about five years ago that pre-tribulation dispensationalist belief system began in Scotland in the 1830s. It was either started by Margaret McDonald or John Nelson Darby. It does appear that McDonald, a teenage girl who used to have visions, was the first person to coin the term “The Rapture”. (A word that never appears in the Bible)
    Many fundamentalist leaders hide the history of this belief system from their congregations. They allow many fundies to believe pre-tribulation dispensationalism also been around for 2,000 years. They also have made Pre-Trib another fundamental of the faith.
    I also believe Pre-Trib is a form a sci-fi for fundie nerds who are not allowed to watch Star Trek, Star Wars or other forms of secular science fiction. The “Left Behind” books can be viewed as fundie science fiction.
    Christian author Gary DeMar has written some excellent books criticizing pre-tribulation dispensationalism from the Christian perspective.

  42. Terrific blog. MacPherson is the “Pretrib Rapture Answerman” because he’s the only one who reportedly has spent more than 40 years researching the pretrib view. I too have his book “The Rapture Plot” which I obtained at Armageddon Books online. His most shocking online articles include “Pretrib Rapture Diehards” (the most accurate outline of pretrib history), “Pretrib Rapture Secrecy” and “Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty” (be sure to see the colorful version on the Powered by Christ Ministries site). Oh, and another of Mac’s articles is “The Unoriginal John Darby.” Timothy (BTW, I’ve heard that Jack Chick is not as gung-ho for pretrib as he once was, and may even have abandoned it. Anyone with info on this?)

  43. Chick comics scared me off comics FOREVER. I got this very issue when I was like 12. My mom saw me reading Spiderman, Superman and Star Wars comics and thought these would be PERFECT for me. I couldn’t close my eyes for weeks after each one of these appeared on my nightstand. She bought, and made me read, almost all of them: Chaos, The Gift, Alberto, Operation Bucharest, The Godfathers, Scarface, Angel of Light, Exorcists, and The Broken Cross. Looking back I now view her Fundy teaching and indoctrination as child abuse. All of the fear mongering led me to be a Secular Humanist.

  44. I loved these books in my pre-teen years. We would get ’em as “rewards” in Sunday school. Batman wasn’t allowed in the house ‘cuz his ears looked like horns. Spidey and Superman weren’t allowed because Batman had horns. Made a lot of sense at the time I guess. So when the pastor’s wife brought the little tray around filled with good Christian rewards I couldn’t believe the obvious quality of the Crusader books. I don’t even remember what else was on the platter I was so fixed on these little gems. It took me a year of good deeds to collect about six of them. And I remember every story almost thirty years later so that says something as well. Boy, did Dad and the new wife approve of the Crusader books. Rape, murder, drug abuse, satanic worship, human sacrifice, book burnings, eternal torment, and so much more that Batman never even speculated on. Until I read these I had no idea I was only one step away from murdering the entire family, eating their remains and sodomizing the family pets while praying to Satan in my purple robe and horned headband. Thank God I found these comics in time to avoid that whole ghastly scenario. Fortunately I was able to move back to real Mom’s house where I was able to begin reading Batman again and found out that his “horns” were actually acetylene torches used to cut through metal bars on prison cells. Or maybe the acetylene was hell fire? Damn, I’m still confused. Thanks, Chick comics. Anyway, if you haven’t read ’em check ’em out, you can read the whole series on Chick.com. . Looks like they have all been updated with some fancy computer lettering and textured backgrounds but the timeless message is still there – Join us without question or you will die and roast for eternity.

  46. I remember these! We had them at church! I remember, especially, the one where there was like this super-Christian team or something, where one guy (a thoroughly Aryan, blonde-haired, blue-eyed guy) used to be a special forces operative but was wounded and became Christian, and the other guy (a black guy) used to be . . . a gangster. Classy, Chick. Classy.

  47. I had a physical reaction when I saw this cover. I grew up with these, and they made me terrified of the world. My parents didn’t know any better, unfortunately.

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