The Nervous Witch

Today we bring you the tract that started it all! We know it doesn't look that way, seeing as how we've already posted a whole bunch of other tracts already, but it's true. I happened to come across this tract online and I read it. wurwolf just happened to be conveniently available to show it to, and I did. "Holeee cow," I said, "You have got to see this..." Well, maybe what I actually said was a little less kind, but I definitely prefaced the thing with "Holeee cow."

Thus inspiration struck wurwolf, wurwolf struck me, and a new blog was born.

So, if you're a fan of this blog then you have this tract to thank for your amusement. If you hate this blog, then this is the tract that you should curse to the heavens.

Brace yourself. We were so excited that we got breathy. This is a loooong entry. Special thanks to Pharaoh Mobius!

And now, with that out of the way, we bring you.....

The Nervous Witch





wurwolf: Okay. *deep breath*

wurwolf: I'm so excited! This is a big moment!

wurwolf: First off, the mother has an abnormally long face.

Lita: It's probably because Bob's her brother.

wurwolf: Also, driving while talking on the celly? Some states have outlawed that. Even if your state allows it, is it really behaviour they should be promoting in a tract?

Lita: I know I should be commenting on how if I'd ever said "Shut up, Mother" to my mom she would have slapped me silly, even over the phone, but I'm too distracted by the fact that they have Fang in their display case.

wurwolf: I guess Fang is going to appear in every tract. I love that the artist puts Fang in everywhere. It's like a little gift for their loyal readers.

Lita: Also, there's a witch and a unicorn and a frog in there. Probably so we know that this is a house that houses EVIL.

wurwolf: But why is there a picture of an old lady scolding someone? How does that fit in with the EVIL on their bookshelf?

Lita: Maybe it's grandma. That makes her Bob's mom. That would explain quite a bit.

wurwolf: Oh yeah, it totally would.

Lita: OR! Maybe it's a teacher. If there's anything I've taken away from these tracts, it's that your teacher is EVIL and not to be trusted.

wurwolf: That's a definite possibility.

wurwolf: I know I'm going to be trying to wrap my head around the living arrangements while we're going over this tract. So this girl's mom calls her up to say she's bringing Uncle Bob home; that would imply that the mother lives there, too.

wurwolf: So is it the mother's bookshelf of EVIL there in her living room? And if that's the case, why is the daughter saying that she doesn't want Uncle Bob in her house? Isn't it the mother's house?

Lita: It partly depends on how old the daughter is supposed to be.

Lita: Is she a teen? An adult? She looks like a teen. Her friend looks like an adult.

Lita: Teenagers are always acting like they own the place. Teens. Feh.

wurwolf: It's hard to tell. She looks like a teen who is living with her mom, but there's witchy stuff all over and she's saying it's her house.

wurwolf wonders if she's going to have her questions answered by the end of the tract.

Lita: Mom's probably one of those overpermissive baby boomer moms who let their kids do anything they want.

wurwolf: She's no sister of Bob's, then.

Lita: I mean, she lets her daughter tell her to shut up.

wurwolf: Maybe she's married to Bob's brother?

Lita: Maybe she and Bob coped with their mother's haranging in opposite ways. Bob buried himself in fundamentalism in an attempt to make himself good enough for his Mother's approval.

Lita: His sister became sheepish and weak; unable to stand up for herself in the face of conflict. She vowed not to be as mean and un-understanding as her own mother, but went too far in the opposite direction. She became overly permissive and unable to discipline her own child, who inherited her grandmother's strength of will and uses it to walk all over the mother, just as everybody else always has.

wurwolf: Wow.

Lita: Yeah. I'm psychoanalyzing the hell out of Bob's sister.

wurwolf: Well, that's what we here at Holeee Cow are all about. Analyzing the hidden lives of cartoon characters in Christian tracts.




wurwolf: I think this is going to be my favorite line in the tract: "He makes me nervous because he reminds me of Jesus."

wurwolf: I know it's supposed to be anti-Christian and EVIL to think that way, but what a white-bread thing to say.

Lita: At least she's heard of Jesus.

wurwolf: Still, you just know that she's going to be surprised that He's the Son of God, or died for her sins, or rose again from the dead by the end of the tract.

Lita: I like the implication that once you're saved you'll never sin again. Way to set everybody up for failure there, guys.

wurwolf: How much longer until these tracts are saying that Bob is the Son of God who died for our sins?

Lita: Bob will never die. Bob is eternal.



Lita: "I'll take him down with a powerful love spell!" No, Holly, that won't work. Why don't you try to come up with an even lamer idea?

wurwolf: Why don't you tempt him with hash brownies, Holly? I'm sure he'll fall for that.

wurwolf: "What should we do?" How about not answering the door, for a start?

wurwolf: If you've got enough nerve to tell your mother to shut up, you should have enough nerve to take a stand against your mother bringing people you don't want into your home.

wurwolf: That is, if it is in fact your home. See, this is why the whole living arrangement is so confusing. I really need to have that dilemma solved.

Lita: Certainly a teen nervy enough to tell her mother to shut up would be nervy enough to turn the sprinklers on Uncle Bob.

wurwolf: Exactly.

Lita: "How about a baptism, Jesus Boy?!"

wurwolf: I wonder if we'll get to know Holly's demon's name. I liked Zanah -- he was fun.

Lita: Zanah was awesome. This guy is no Zanah.



wurwolf: I can only assume that this tract was drawn by a revolving group of artists, with each artist contributing a panel. It's the only way I can explain how Holly looks completely different in every panel.



Lita: "Witches rule!" Boys drool!

Lita: Holly is totally the lamest Satanist ever.

wurwolf: Let's take a moment to admire the artwork on the wall. Sure, you've got a skull and a pentragram and a wizard calling up a spirit and a dragon. I'll even buy that someone decided to sketch Harry Potter on the wall one day out of boredom. But an owl? Didn't God create owls? Don't they help us by keeping the mouse population in check?

wurwolf: This is how certain animals have been maligned over the centuries and slaughtered.

Lita: I wonder if in some future tract Bob will give us instructions on how to drown our black cats.

wurwolf: They drew Harry Potter in his bathrobe for some reason.

Lita: I do love that Harry Potter pic.

Lita: It must be that scene in the first book where Harry was playing Quiddich, but then somebody starts cursing his broom so it tries to shake him off and kill him.

wurwolf: Oh yeah, because he's obviously flying but not actually sitting on his broom.

Lita: Whoever drew this comic must have loved Harry Potter to go ahead and draw a particular scene.

wurwolf: "Remember Samantha..." Is she someone we should know? Someone in the witchy world?

Lita: Just Samantha Stephens, of Bewitched fame. But I think it's more likely that Samantha is our mother hating teen's name.

wurwolf: Oh. So there should be a comma after "remember".

Lita: Well, teachers are evil, so... but wait... then the evil person should listen to her teacher and have EXTRA good grammar!

Lita: This tract is so confusing! I can't keep up with all these plot holes!



wurwolf: Thanks, Chick Tracts! Now I know the proper seating arrangement in a pentagram for casting spells!

Lita:

o/` Your pentagram is down below our floor
o/` Your naked body shimmers in the night
o/` Dancing and chanting and sacrificial rights
o/` Your feet are dry with the ashes from dead babies...

wurwolf: What a great song. CAKE really is the devil.




wurwolf: I love it: "DING DONG! Oh no!"

wurwolf: I'm not sure why that cracks me up so much.

Lita: Not so tough when somebody's ringing your bell, are you missy?

Lita: Maybe it's because she knows that every time a bell rings an angel gets its wings.



Lita: "Down in a minute, Mother"? What a change in attitude. I was expecting a "@!!!**! off, Mother"

wurwolf: Okay, so I guess she's a teen who's living in her mother's house? And her mother is okay with the bookcase of EVIL in her living room?

wurwolf: And the pentagram on her daughter's floor?

Lita: That's why they're rolling the rug over it. Mom doesn't know.

wurwolf: There's plenty of other Satanic stuff around to tip her off.

Lita: Satan requires you wear a robe while you do your spells, just as Bob requires you to wave your lumpy butt in the air when you pray.

wurwolf: If these tracts had any balls they'd show Holly and Samantha naked while they were performing the rites.



Lita: Holly thinks she's hot snot on a silver platter, but she's really just a cold booger on a paper plate.

wurwolf: Why is Samantha holding Holly back? She needs to let Holly take all the heat from Uncle Bob.

Lita: Heh. Charmed is a tv show about witches. I wonder if that's a coincidence or if somebody actually bothered to make a pun.



Lita: At least now we know why Samantha's mom didn't care so much about all the witchy crap. She wasn't saved yet.

wurwolf: It's a wonder Bob let that kind of thing go on in his family for that long.

Lita: But look at Holly and Samantha's reaction to the news. They look like she said, "Bob and I just ate your dog Murray and the toddler next door! Their entrails were delicious!"

wurwolf: My first reaction to Holly in that panel was that she was holding in a whole lot of vomit.

wurwolf: I love how Samantha's mouth is open and she's looking shocked, but she's thinking "GASP!" Like, she didn't actually gasp out loud. She just thought about it.



wurwolf: Maybe now, Maggie, your mother will finally approve of you and stop withholding her love.

Lita: Maybe she'll even send you a picture of herself where she's not glaring at you and pointing her finger accusingly at everybody in your house.

Lita: I wonder what Grandma's prayers sounded like. "And please make my worthless daughter finally accept Jesus. That way I can continue to tell her just what I think of her and her filthy lifestyle, even in the afterlife."

wurwolf: "Call her now!" Bob wants to get his sister out of the way while he works over his niece and her friend.



wurwolf: Samantha's holding her nose as Uncle Bob's hanging up his coat. He must have just passed gas.

Lita: Since they don't believe the Bible then this incoming story should have absolutely no effect on her.

wurwolf: Bob is evidently the master of reverse psychology.



wurwolf: These tracts refer back to other tracts like everyone has a complete set in their home.

Lita: Stupid Bob, not giving us bible verses when I really want them. I could have sworn that when I read about Saul that he wasn't short. But I might be remembering wrong and I want to check.

wurwolf: Maybe little in his own eyes refers to Saul having low self-esteem.

Lita: Then Bob should just say so. "He had low self esteem and he was crowned by God's own high priest."

wurwolf: Gee, for someone being crowned king, Saul doesn't look all that enthused. He looks like he's having his shoes shined.

Lita: He looks like he's been sitting in class for a half hour already and the teacher is just going on and on about something he doesn't care about and he just looked at the clock and there's still a half hour left and he has no idea how everytime he comes into this very room he falls into a time warp where one minute lasts an hour and has deciced that he should just look straight ahead and try to appear interested while secretly he's replaying old episodes of Saved By the Bell in his head.

Lita: Not that I have any experience with that.

wurwolf: Oh no, of course not.



wurwolf: Yes, because she's a witch, this woman has a black cat.

wurwolf: And weird bendy arms

wurwolf: The guys behind Saul look like they've been through this before. "Here we go again."

Lita: Ah ha! A bible verse! Thought you could shake me, huh Bob? Not for long! Let the fact checking begin!

wurwolf: I'll be playing Addicition Solitaire while you're fact checking.

wurwolf: Whooo! I won a game!

wurwolf gets bored of Solitaire and looks at bunnies

wurwolf: Oooooooh!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! CUTE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!11!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!1

Lita: That was cute

wurwolf: You're supposed to be reading the Bible, sister.

Lita: I finished! I came back to tell you I read the whole Bible and you're in here throwing bunnies around!

wurwolf: Wow, if you just read the whole Bible that was really quick.

Lita: Well, I read a chapter and skimmed a couple of others, anyway.

wurwolf: I forget where we left off.

Lita: Saul's sad because Samuel died and now he can't talk to God



Lita: The EVIL translation of the Bible I was reading doesn't say "a woman that hath a familiar spirit." It just calls her a medium.

wurwolf: Is he asking a small child to go find him a witch?

Lita: I told you. Saul's a big guy.

wurwolf: I wish Bob would make up his mind.

Lita: That guy had to go all the way to Endor to find a psychic.

wurwolf: Isn't Endor one of the moons in Star Wars?

Lita: I think it's that place with all those damned Ewoks.

wurwolf: That would explain why all the demons are so short.



wurwolf: Saul's disguise is awesome. He looks like a completely different person!

wurwolf: Oh, wait. That's just the crappy artwork.

Lita: They snapped that picture right while the woman's demon was in the middle of a belch.

Lita: I object to the portrayal of this woman in this tract.

wurwolf: She's very warty.

Lita: Of course it's a woman, so Bob needs to make her look all evil and stuff, so they had her saying, "Howdy, stranger! Who do you want me to call up?" But the Bible says different.

Lita: And I just now checked this in King James, too, so Bob can't use the translation defense.

Lita: 1 Samuel 28:8-10

Lita: So Saul disguised himself by wearing ordinary clothing instead of his royal robes. Then he went to the woman's home at night, accompanied by two of his men.

"I have to talk to a man who has died," he said. "Will you call up his spirit for me?"

"Are you trying to get me killed?" the woman demanded. "You know that Saul has expelled all the mediums and psychics from the land.

"Why are you setting a trap for me?"

But Saul took an oath in the name of the LORD and promised,

"As surely as the LORD lives, nothing bad will happen to you for doing this."

wurwolf: Yeah, the woman goes to a lot of trouble to tell the disguised Saul that she could be killed for doing what he asked of her. It's not like she jumped out of her hut and yelled "Necromancy! Seances for sale!" or anything.

Lita: Really, it's the man, Saul, who should be getting the blame for this, not the woman. But it's Bob's story, so the woman's plain old evil.

wurwolf: Chalk it up to another story from Bob "womanhater" Williams.



wurwolf: I guess all the demons are saying "YAAAAH!" because they can't say "HOLY SHIT!" in a Christian tract.

wurwolf: Cool! In the afterlife, Samuel turned into a Jedi master!

Lita: In this tract, Samuel is played by Sir Alec Guiness.

wurwolf: Man, Samuel's really got a hate on for Saul, doesn't he? When the demons are pointing him out, Samuel's in the back like, Yeah, that's totally him. I'm just gonna stand here and watch while you guys kick his ass.

wurwolf: I get the feeling that Samuel really got off on busting Saul's chops.

Lita: The Bible, by the way, doesn't mention all the spazzing of the demons. Even the King James.

wurwolf: Bob's taking poetic license.

Lita: Bob takes a lot of poetic license.



wurwolf: When Saul heard that he was going to have to hang out with Samuel starting tomorrow, he keeled over.

wurwolf: Actually, it looks like he turned into a zombie.

Lita: Also, the tract makes it look like he dropped dead right there. But actually he falls on his sword (intentionally) in battle a couple of chapters later.

Lita: The woman was very nice to him after the vision and tried to make him feel better:

Lita: 21 When the woman saw how distraught he was, she said, "Sir, I obeyed your command at the risk of my life.

22 Now do what I say, and let me give you something to eat so you can regain your strength for the trip back."

Lita: And he didn't want to eat but she killed a fatted calf for him and everything.



wurwolf: Oh yeah? Bob doesn't want you to know any of that. All Bob has to say about her is "Later the witch died and went to hell."

Lita: Well, I don't have Bob's divine ability to decide who does or doesn't go to Hell, but the Bible doesn't say she did. It doesn't say she didn't either, but Bob assumes the worst.

wurwolf: In Bob's world everything is tied up nice and neatly. No loose ends.

wurwolf: "Lousy story, Bob!" Shouldn't Samantha be calling him Uncle Bob? She's so rebellious!

Lita: Samantha: God is love, and God loves us.

Lita: Bob: GOD DOESN'T LOVE YOU WHORES OF SATAN!!!

wurwolf: "No, you lose! Good day, sir!"



Lita: "Every witch, white or black, living today who rejects Jesus Christ as their lord and savior will end up in the lake of fire." I don't see why he had to bring race into this.

wurwolf: What about Asians? They're neither black nor white. Do they get a free pass?

Lita: You better get your husband into the witching biz, quick!

wurwolf: I know, we could totally live like kings!



wurwolf: Wow. Bob and Holly are so loud that you can hear them if you stand outside the house.

Lita: You can tell Holly's unrepentant. She's getting uglier by the minute.

wurwolf: WOW! Holly's so insistent on keeping her spirit guide, her words have become capitalized, bolded, italicized and slanted upwards!!!!

wurwolf: She really really means it!

Lita: "I curse you, Bob Williams! May you suffer a horrible death!"

Lita: I bet he's heard that one before.

wurwolf: Oh, who among us hasn't said that? Big deal.

Lita: Every night after Bob's finished with his prayers, he hears that booming down from his ceiling.

wurwolf: Did you notice that when Holly or Samantha curse in this tract, it's always the same symbols in the same order? @!!!**!

Lita: Maybe they're trying not to encourage people to be too creative when trying to figure out what they're saying.

wurwolf: I wonder if they're always saying the same curse word.

Lita: I think they're saying "butt", and that Bob censors it out because he thinks it's a swear. "I hate your BUTT gospel!"

wurwolf: Oh my. "And that BUTT Jesus you serve!" No wonder Bob censored it.



Lita: Bob uses the dreaded Rubber/Glue Defense

wurwolf: "* See what happens to Holly in tract #17 'Gladys'." Oh sure. I'll run right out and get it.

Lita: I read that one right after the first time we read this one so I know what happens to Holly. Just so you know? It's totally shocking. You'll never guess.

wurwolf: Oh gee, does she get saved with her lumpy butt up in the air?

Lita: By the way, I think it's funny that right as Bob is telling Holly that she's gonna get totally hellacursed, the Bible verse at the bottom tells us that you're supposed to bless people who curse you.

wurwolf: "You're going to hell, you crazy asshole! Have a nice day!"



wurwolf: Now that Samantha has that rebellious demon knocked out of her, she goes back to calling Bob "Uncle Bob".

Lita: Bob has the power to evict demons from people who don't want to give them up?

wurwolf: Bob is more effective than the NY Housing Authority.

Lita: She doesn't seem to be so totally posessed that she has no reason or will of her own. So doesn't she need to show at least a passing interest in getting rid of the demon?

Lita: I don't see any evidence that she was any less resistant than Holly. Maybe the only reason she didn't storm out with Holly is because she lives there. Where is she gonna go?

wurwolf: Bob doesn't care about that. He's there to score another notch on his soul-saving chart.

Lita: At least we get the lumpy butt scene



wurwolf: I love that they got involved in the occult through Harry Potter books. Millions of people have read the books and seen the movies -- does that mean we all have demons, too?

Lita: You know, as an adult woman who enjoys reading I have the same problem as Samantha. I read Chronicles of Narnia and ended up trapped in my closet for weeks.

wurwolf: And when you finally came out of the closet... well, that's a whole 'nother tract, isn't it?

Lita: Then when I read Through the Looking Glass I broke my nose trying to climb through my mirror. But it turned out for the best since I read later that this crazy chick Bloody Mary lives in there.

Lita: I read Charlie and the Chocolate Factory while I was doing my student teaching and it inspired me to kill off all my students one by one in ways that humorously highlighted their worst sins. By the end of the year there was only one kid left. I gave him an A+ and the promise that he could teach the class one day when I was gone. But don't tell anybody about that, ok?

Lita: It was even worse when I read the Bible not too long ago.

wurwolf: Once after I read the Bible I ended up coveting my neigbor's ass.

Lita: I dragged out my chemistry set and ended up accidentally creating a planet.

Lita: I had to put it in the fridge to keep it fresh.

Lita: And then all the people on it started misbehaving and I got worried because I don't have any kids to sacrifice and I didn't think sacrificing my bird or my dog would help.

Lita: But then the next day I checked the fridge and the planet was gone. My brother ate it without asking first. So I guess it all turned out for the best.

wurwolf: So instead of fire and brimstone, your world ended in acid indigestion?

Lita: I guess so.

wurwolf: All's well that ends well

Lita: Ok, now I'll stop.

wurwolf: Good thing you stopped. I was about to tell about the time I watched the movie Alive right before a plane bearing a Brazilian soccer team crashed in my yard...

Lita: I read The Shining last winter. The trip to a historic Colorado hotel that resulted was one I'll never forget...



Lita: I don't remember any Ouija boards in the Potter books. Or Tarot cards, for that matter. Crystal balls I'll give them, though they didn't really work very well.

Lita: "The Potter books open a doorway that will put untold millions of kids into hell!"

Lita: So I guess Bob read the Onion article.

wurwolf adds "Harry Potter: Witchcraft Repackaged" to her Netflix queue.

Lita: Is that movie really on Netflix?

wurwolf: I don't know...

wurwolf checks

wurwolf: No, it's not.

Lita: Too bad.

wurwolf: Here's what Chick Publications says that kids are saying about Harry Potter!

wurwolf: It looks like they were totally leading the kids on. Like someone asked the question, "What would you do if you were in a Harry Potter book?" None of it is really that bad, except maybe the last kid.



Lita: Ahhh, so nice to warm ourselves by the fire of a good old fashioned book burning.

wurwolf: Did she burn the owl, I wonder?

Lita: Bob's motto: "Burn a book today, or burn a witch tomorow."

wurwolf: That's a huge ass bonfire. I hope they got a fine for that.

Lita: If they were in California they would. They might even be jailed. Half the state burns down every year because of morons not paying attention to fire safety regulations.

wurwolf: "What about your house?" Yeah? What about my house? You got a problem with it?



wurwolf: Ah, the King James Bible. The only version Satan hasn't messed with.

Lita: Finally we get to that immortal quote.

wurwolf: You'd think Satan would be behind the KJV because it's so hard to get around the flowery language. Why would he want you to understand what you're reading?

wurwolf: I think Satan's messing with Bob.

Lita: Tomorrow Samantha will be furrowing her brow in an effort to understand the King James, until she finally gets sick of it and goes out and gets some Batman Comics to read instead.

Lita: And then Satan sits back and laughs

(All the comic panels are copyright Chick Publications 2002 and the images were used according to Fair Use laws in the US.)