The Promise

Lita: I would like everybody to know before we start that I don't have any big problems with Muslims or their religion. I do realize that not all Muslims are terrorist. I must admit however, that I am mostly ignorant about Islam and what that faith entails. For that reason I may not be able to immediately know when today's tract is telling the truth or just making stuff up.

wurwolf: Come on, it's a Chick tract. Stuff will be made up.

Lita: If you are a Muslim or know a lot about Islam and you feel that we have missed important points, feel free to enlighten us in the comments section.

wurwolf: Amen. So here we go, it's time for The Promise.

wurwolf: DEATH TO ALL JEWS! We're starting off on a positive note here.

Lita: This was made in 2001. I wonder if it was pre or post 9/11.

wurwolf: 9/11 was pretty late in the year, so there's a good chance it was made pre.

Lita: The artist put a lot of effort into our terrorist. Maybe he was looking at a picture of the terror suspects.

wurwolf: The terrorist looks a lot like M. Night Shamalyan.

Lita: The woman behind him looks like she's sneezing.

Lita: The guy in the lower left looks like Marv Albert.



wurwolf: Wig and all.

wurwolf: The bus blew up! Chick Publications loves to show stuff blowing up and people getting hurt or killed.

Lita: Why was Bob invited to the crime scene?

wurwolf: He's part of an elite task force.



Lita: He's talking to that dude from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Hunter S. Thompson.

Lita: I think Hunter will really be able to appreciate the upcoming Bible story because he will be able to see it all happening right in front of him.

wurwolf: Bob has the power to project movies with his mind.

wurwolf: Hunter is so dumb. He must not know Bob, because everyone else knows you never give Bob an opening like "Who?"

Lita: He's on drugs. His decision-making skills are limited.

Lita: I like how random people are able to just go check out the burned out husk of the exploded bus. It's not like there's evidence or corpses or anything that the police might want to keep random lookiloos from prodding.

wurwolf: It's part of the tour now.

wurwolf: Nice how tourists in Hawaiian shirts and fishing hats are able to just hang out in front of the Dome of the Rock.



Lita: I thought Hunter might be a cop or something, but now I see Hunter's wife or whoever that is and I see how everybody's dressed and I know this isn't the case.

wurwolf: Let's call her his wife. Is she wearing a helmet?

Lita: I think it's just Prince Valiant hair.

wurwolf: I don't know.... it looks awfully plastic.

Lita: The whole woman looks awfully plastic. She hasn't said anything yet either.

Lita: Maybe Hunter just drags her around so he can drive in the carpool lane.

wurwolf: She very well may be inflatable.

Lita: Were they on the bus when it exploded and God shielded them from the blast because He knew Bob would save their souls? That would have been awesome to show.

Lita: Maybe Hunter survived the blast by hiding behind his fake wife.

wurwolf: Sadly, his fake wife isn't going to protect him from Bob.

wurwolf: In addition to his camera, Hunter carries a purse.

Lita: "Get thee out of thy country... unto a land that I will shew (show) thee." God said "shew"? Where's He from?

Lita: And why is our writer destroying God's holy word by changing the language? I thought that was the work of Satan. Isn't that why we're supposed to read the King James in the first place?

wurwolf: I like how Bob had to make sure we knew that "shew" meant "show". Bob not only talks down to the people there with him, he also talks down to all of us.



Lita: That Jewish guy behind Bob is falling asleep. Much like this tract's readership.

Lita: He accidentally caught some of Bob's monologue as he was strolling by and it affected him instantly.

wurwolf: Hunter's wearing sunglasses so you can't tell that he's asleep, too. His wife is plastic. Her eyes always stay open.



wurwolf: Hunter has removed his hat out of respect for the solution that is causing us problems for 4000 years.

Lita: *gasp*! Hunter's plastic wife speaks! She's a vent figure! Hunter is throwing his voice!

wurwolf: Hunter pulled the string in her back.

Lita: It figures that the wife is fully responsible for all the trouble in the middle east. Damn women.

wurwolf: I'm sure Bob thinks that his wife is fully responsible for all of the trouble in his house.



wurwolf: Sarah looks pissed off. It's your solution, lady! Own it!

Lita: Abraham didn't have to slip it to the Egyptian servant. He knew God promised him a son. But it's still all the wife's fault.

Lita: God told Abraham in the previous chapter that his descendants would get a whole buttload of land. Abraham made a choice not to believe God would keep his promise just as much as Sarah did.

wurwolf: Does it say buttload in the King James version?

Lita: I don't think it does. But I have one of those Satanic non-King James versions.

Lita: I think in the King James it says "ass-load"

Lita: This tract also makes Sarah sound like the bitch for kicking Hagar around. According to my bible Abraham gave her permission. She complained to Abraham that Hagar was being snotty and Abraham replied, "Behold, your maid is in your power; do to her what is good in your sight." (Genesis 16: 5-6)

Lita: Granted, I'm not reading out of a fancy King James Bible.

Lita: But I just read the King James version and it comes out to the same meaning.

wurwolf: Sarah's got the rich bitch hair going on. Did they have salons in the desert back then?

Lita: Hagar looks so innocent and scared in the first panel we see her in, and then immediately she's looking all full of herself in the next panel. That's women for you.

Lita: As soon as they have the forbidden sex they turn all evil.

wurwolf: Sometimes even the bidden sex. You never know with women.

Lita: I bet Sarah's a bitch because she had sex.

wurwolf: If she'd have just kept her legs shut we wouldn't be having a crisis in the Middle East.

wurwolf: You can tell when the artist is getting tired of drawing the comic by how many shadow panels there are.



wurwolf: The angel talking to Hagar looks like Richard Mulligan.

Lita: He's looking at Hagar with such contempt.

Lita: Probably he's noticed that she's a woman.

Lita: I guess the King James just calls Ishmael a wild man. I like my translation better. "He will be a wild donkey of a man."

wurwolf: Again with the hairstyles: I'm trying to figure out that one tourist's hair.

wurwolf: Is it a cap? Also, I can't figure out where the hair ends and Hunter's shirt begins.

wurwolf: You know what, I have to say something here. Everyone gets so down on Sarah because she didn't believe God would provide a son for her, but give her a break. She's 90 years old. Also, it's not like they had a Bible or had known about God for generations like we do today. She and Abraham were pretty new to the whole God thing.

wurwolf: I can understand why it would be difficult to believe and want to take matters into her own hands. Who among us hasn't done that, and we have every benefit available to us.



Lita: I like how "And Hagar gave birth to Ishmael" is right there at the bottom of the angel's speech so that it looks like as soon as the angel finished prophesying her water broke and she just dropped the kid right there.

wurwolf: *PLOP!*

wurwolf: By the way, that baby's mouth is extremely small. He's got a big nose and big eyes and a 40 year old man's hair, but the smallest mouth ever.

Lita: I feel sorry for Ishmael, though. Just think. All your life you've been raised to believe you're going to inherit your father's great nation. You're raised like a prince. And then you're 13, a tough age even if they were considered adults by then, this lady who never liked you gives birth to your half brother and now you're out in the cold.

Lita: Who hasn't heard of a sarcastic teenager? But he cracks one joke and Sarah gets mad and wants to throw him out of the house. And then God backs her up! And now his stupid little brother is going to inherit all this stuff he thought would be his!

wurwolf: That is pretty difficult.

Lita: I can understand why he would be very angry.

Lita: Abraham made a lot of noise about how he loved his son, but then he just throws the boy and his mother out into the desert with some bread and a skin of water. Like, thanks. That'll help.

Lita: God is the one who noticed that Ishmael and his mother were about to die in the desert and showed them where to find water and helped them survive. (This is all in Genesis 21, if anybody wants to read for themselves)

Lita: I'm surprised that the writer didn't mention that God helped Ishmael and his mother to survive in the desert. It seems like an important detail to me. Do they not want us to know that God would help somebody who would one day father all the Muslim nations?

wurwolf: Maybe they want it to look like God's hand is completely against Hagar and Ishmael.

Lita: It just makes God look really cruel. It's not Ishmael's fault that he was born.



wurwolf: I think Saddam Hussein is in the middle of the chanting Ishmaelites.

Lita: It's a post-spider hole Saddam.

wurwolf: He looks like he just slipped into the crowd.



wurwolf: How awesome would it be if they had drawn Isaac throwing up on Abraham while he was tossing him in the air?

Lita: Just like Sims



wurwolf: Some random guy in the back looks really annoyed that Bob is there.

Lita: Look at it from his perspective. He's trying to enjoy his Holy Land instead he has to listen to some American guy yapping.

Lita: He's thinking, "This guy thinks he's such an expert on our culture because he was on the tour bus when it swung by the burned out terrorist bus and the mosque before it stopped by Mc Donalds on its way to our wall here."

wurwolf: Now we're to the part where we're done with the Ishmaelites. It's all Isaac.

wurwolf: Oh wow, this quote says "lovest". How will I know what that means without Bob to translate?



wurwolf: Bob really feels strongly for Abraham here. His eyes have turned black and his neck has gone skinny with rage.

Lita: Maybe Bob had to sacrifice his chihuahua last week and the pain is still fresh for him.

wurwolf: Is Hunter making a grab for Bob's throat?

Lita: "Eyes... rolling back... limbs stiffening... brain... functions... sluggish... Must... make... Bob.... stop... talking!!!"



Lita: Abraham is really disgusted in that next panel. "My God, God!"

wurwolf: He's crying onto Isaac's head. Gross!

Lita: Does Isaac know that he's on the short list for sacrificial stuff? I was under the impression that Abraham didn't tell him until they got there.

Lita: Ah. Isaac doesn't know he's the sacrifice. I guess Abraham crying all over his hair last night wasn't a clue.

Lita: He was all like, "I love you, father!" because he didn't know what else to say in response to his dad totally freaking out.

wurwolf: It's what you say to drunks when they're starting to scare you.

wurwolf: Drunk: I love you soooooooooo much, man! You: Oh, uh..... yeah. I love you too.

wurwolf: The donkey is joining Abraham in his conversation with God. He's making sure Abraham knows that God cannot lie.

Lita: He's a Narnian talking donkey.

wurwolf: It's Puzzle! Good old Puzzle!



wurwolf: I like to think of the next panel as the artist's tribute to the female breast.

Lita: There's even a nipple in the sky.

wurwolf: Also, Abraham looks totally different when he's climbing the mountain with Isaac than when he's saying something that's going to go down as one of the Bible's famous quotes.

wurwolf: Maybe that was taken during a photo op on a different day.

Lita: Glamour Shots did that second one.



Lita: I thought Abraham went to do the sacrifice up on a mountain or something. How come they're hanging out in a marketplace?

Lita: Er... Oh. That's Bob and Hunter and Plastic Wife.

Lita: And an elderly Hitler there in the front.

wurwolf: Hitler found himself a nice little watch cap there.

Lita: Some of these peasants look Eastern European

Lita: Is that a mouse in the corner?

wurwolf: Gee, it's hard to tell but that's what it looks like. So I guess it's just Bob and these two on a tour of the Holy Land. Maybe Bob conducts these tours on the side.



wurwolf: Hunter Thompson and his plastic wife are shocked by what Abraham had to do!

Lita: Plastic wife's eyes are creepily magnified by her glasses.

wurwolf: Can you imagine Isaac telling his friends later on about his wacky dad trying to kill him?

Lita: "You think your dad's a psycho? Mine almost sacrificed me as a burnt offering!"

wurwolf: More lazy shadow-rama artwork.

Lita: God: Ha ha, Abraham. Of course I don't really want you to slay your son, you goof! I was just punking you. I can't believe you were really gonna do it!

Lita: Abraham: Ha ha... That's really some sense of humor you've got there, God... ha ha ha...

wurwolf: The ram is like, Oh shit, what a day to get tangled up in the bushes. This never happens to me.



wurwolf: Bob is losing the Hitler look in favor of Peter Sellers.

Lita: Yep, the Abraham/Isaac thing exactly like the God/Jesus thing. Except for the old switcheroo at the end. Jesus really did die. I can't believe Bob forgot that.

wurwolf: Usually Bob's more thorough.



Lita: Hunter's plastic wife has never heard that Jesus is God before!

Lita: She's only on a tour of the Holy Land!

wurwolf: Really! Why the hell else are they there? Did they hear the hamentaschen were better in Jerusalem?

Lita: Hunter needs to drag her out from under his bed more often.

wurwolf: Hunter's head has swollen up like a balloon.



Lita: Bob is going to explode their heads with his mind if they do not convert RIGHT NOW.

wurwolf: They're thisclose to going all scanners on us.

wurwolf: They look more startled by Bob's preaching than they do by people dying in a burning bus wreckage.



wurwolf: Hunter got a new wife. Either that, or she suddenly gained a ton of weight and lengthened her hair.

Lita: While they're kneeling with their eyes closed some street urchins are going to run by and steal all their bags and cameras and stuff.

wurwolf: Hunter just leaves his camera lying there for anyone to walk off with.

Lita: At least his plastic wife leaned her purse up against her knee so she can feel if somebody takes it. Hunter's a man and he doesn't understand these things. He just left his man purse out in the open.

wurwolf: Bob doesn't care enough to warn him. He just lets it sit out there.

Lita: Bob has no luggage. He needs only God to help him survive in the desert.

Lita: Either that or the urchins have already made off with his stuff.

(All the comic panels are copyright Chick Publications 2001 and the images were used according to Fair Use laws in the US.)