It's a hot girl-on-girl tract, until Bob comes in and ruins it at the end. Let's take a look at the ladies in Chick Publications' The Outcast.
Also, thanks to our good friend, Rimmi, for contributing! //fondles!
wurwolf: Those are some crazy physics going on with that woman's feet and legs. Is she a contortionist?
Lita: She's... I don't know. I'm drawing a blank on this one. I hope it's not a preview of how I'm gonna do for the rest of this.
Lita: Shirley's got a clown nose.
wurwolf: Is that Sandra Lee finding out there's no more alcohol in the cabinet for her crappy cocktails, or is that Janet?
Lita: No, it's Janet. That look means she's going to have to listen to another one of Bob's stories.
Lita: Speaking of which, my dad listens to radio broadcasts from Bob Jones University. I don't know if you're familiar with them.
wurwolf: Oh yeah, I know all about Bob Jones University. Many of my friends went there.
Lita: It's basically Christian broadcasting for old people. They play hymns and sermons and Christian radio dramas complete with an organ at every plot point and stuff like that.
Lita: And one of the shows I hear from time to time is Tinyburg Tales.
wurwolf: I'm guessing they don't allow interracial dating in Tinyburg.
Lita: It has this guy Bob (I don't know if it's Bob Jones) who tells inspirational Christian stories. Usually it's about something really twee like maybe an old lady who loves the Lord so she makes a bunch of quilts for a homeless shelter or something and all the homeless people come to Christ because she sewed her love of God into every stitch or something like that.
Lita: Anyway, at the end of every episode the announcer tells us that he always loves visiting Tinyburg because it gives him a chance to hear another one of Bob's stories. Only he puts this weird little pause in. "It always gives me a chance to hear another one of Bob's... stories."
wurwolf: I would love it if one day he'd say "farts" after the pause.
Lita: I always think about that when we look at these tracts and we get to hear another one of Bob's... stories. And I jut thought I'd share it with you.
wurwolf: Well, thanks.
Lita: No problem.
wurwolf: Boy, you really are stumped by that first panel, aren't you?
Lita: I really am. I'm moving on. So. Shirley's a hooker, huh?
wurwolf: Is it wrong that I'm laughing my ass off over "Shirley, who did this to you?" "My pimp!"?
Lita: I wonder if Ronnie is Shirley's pimp.
wurwolf: You can be sure that if he is, Joey's gonna call the cops on him. On Shirley, too.
Lita: And on Janet.
wurwolf: Give up on the sunglasses, Shirley. You're not fooling anyone.
Lita: We're finally getting to meet Bob's wife?
wurwolf: Helen looks like Ava Gardner. How did Bob score that?
Lita: I wonder what kind of medicine they brought. Penicilin? Cough syrup?
wurwolf: They went through their first aid kit and took out everything that was expired.
Lita: Bob's leaving the ladies alone for a while. Janet is so relieved.
wurwolf: Oh wait..... did they go to a hospital after all? Or does Janet have a hospital room all set up in her house?
Lita: She's got one of those Craftmatic adjustable beds.
Lita: This poor woman has had such a rough night already. And now she's going to have to listen to another one of Bob's... stories.
wurwolf: Okay, so wait. It says "2 hours later...", and Shirley's just now getting to the part where her father left them and her mother took up with some unemployed loser?
wurwolf: What did she talk about for the first two hours?
Lita: She filled the first two hours talking about the stuff that happened before she was 7, apparently.
Lita: Shirley: I was hittin' the playdough hard, man. Not a day could go by without me eating some. I was up to five containers a day!
Lita: That is one helluva bump on the side of her head. I don't care if she's "not worth it." Somebody should take her to the damn hospital.
Lita: Some ignorant moron put tape on her eye. That's going to hurt like hell when it comes time to take it off. If you want to keep the eye shut, how about putting some gauze over it and taping that?
wurwolf: There's also tape on her huge bump.
Lita: I wonder who Shirley exposed Hank to.
wurwolf: I think Hank exposed himself.
wurwolf: So the only black people in the tracts so far have been a demonstrator being beat up by white policemen and this guy, a drug dealer.
Lita was just about to point that out
wurwolf: Nice one, Chick tracts. That's pretty shitty.
Lita: Now I see how Bob got Helen for a wife. She shares his love of trapping injured people into listening to Bible stories.
wurwolf: He told her a Bible story on their first date and she was hooked.
wurwolf: "Wanna hear it?" Like, where is she going to go, Helen? Way to have a captive audience.
Lita: At least she doesn't have his scary hypno-eyes
Lita: You guys could be calling her an ambulance. But that's ok. You tell your story.
wurwolf: "This is a beautiful story.... Moses had just died." Moses, in heaven: Thanks a lot!
wurwolf: Even if you don't know the story, you can tell Rahab the prostitute is going to end up on the right side, because she's beautiful.
Lita pulls out the Bible.
Lita: Heh heh. "Joshua the son of Nun sent two men as spies secretly from Shittim..."
wurwolf: *snicker!*
wurwolf: That's why Bob left the room. He didn't want to have to say Shittim.
Lita: Helen is going to have to hear a Bible story about the dangers of profanity later.
wurwolf: Those dudes climbing down the wall are totally getting mooned!
wurwolf waits while Lita finishes reading the passage.
Lita: The Bible takes half a page to explain the whole Scarlet Cord deal.
wurwolf: Does it give length and dimensions and stuff?
Lita: Basically it boils down to "We won't kill anybody in the house with the scarlet cord, but if they leave the house while we're slaughtering people it's their own fault if they get killed."
Lita: It's all Joshua's fault that this passage of the Bible is so long. He's a talky fellow.
Lita: God says, "Have your guys stand still in the creek with the Ark of the Covenant." He takes another half a page to tell his guys this.
Lita: Helen skipped that part. I like her editing skills.
Lita: And then God tells them to make a pile of stones and Joshua relays the message while also going on and on about what it will symbolize to future generations. Just tell them to pile up stones!
wurwolf: Joshua doesn't know when to shut up.
Lita: I'm still reading. I'm still not to the wall falling down. I'm at the part where all the men get circumcised. Helen skipped that part, too.
wurwolf: Helen's such a prude.
Lita: And then the nation of Israel had to lie around for a few days until their circumcisions healed. Joshua 5:8
wurwolf: So really, a lot happened between the panel of the dudes climbing down the wall and the walls falling down.
Lita: Tons.
Lita: And when they do finally walk around the city? First an angel of the Lord has to tell Joshua the whole plan.
Lita: Then Joshua has to tell his men the whole plan.
Lita: And then they have to carry out the whole plan.
Lita: So I get to read it three times! Editors had not been invented back then.
wurwolf: Luckily, Helen gives us the condensed version.
Lita: The waaaay condensed version. Most of the rest of the Bible happens before you find out (as Helen mentions later) that Rahab married Salmon and became an ancestor to Jesus Christ in Matthew 1:5
wurwolf: "The troops destroyed the city and every living thing." Helen, go tell Bob about that city when he starts going off on Sodom and Gomorrah.
wurwolf: Check the Bible, Lita. Does it say that Rahab's house is the only one left standing?
Lita: It said the wall fell flat. Then the soldiers went in and killed the whole town except Rahab and her family.
wurwolf: Looks like the artist is taking liberties with the story. Heretic!
Lita: Her house was still standing, but it doesn't say that everybody else's houses fell down. Just that the wall did. Of course, I'm reading out of a New American Standard Bible. And I don't know much about ancient architecture.
Lita: Maybe everybody lived in the city wall back then.
Lita: And of course immediately after their victory, Israel screws up. Helen doesn't tell us that story, though so I'm not going to read it.
wurwolf: Helen wants to end on a high note.
Lita: Oh no. Bob's horning his way in.
Lita: Probably he knows Helen can't do the hypno-eyes, so he has to take the wrap-up.
wurwolf: He heard, "Jesus Christ Himself" and thought, There's my cue.
Lita: The headboard is blending into Helen's head so she looks like she has a big lump growing out of her noggin. Just like Shirley!
wurwolf: I thought the knob was Helen's hair until you just said something.
Lita: Shirley: God even loves prostitutes!
Lita: Bob: He sure does! And so do I! Helen, would you step out of the room for a few minutes?
wurwolf: Shirley looks worse than when Helen started her story.
Lita: I know. Possibly because NOBODY'S CALLING A DOCTOR.
Lita: What a pack of neglectful morons.
Lita: "Was Jesus Christ a man of God?" Great. Another one who's never even heard of Jesus Christ.
wurwolf: So, Shirley tells us in the beginning of the tract that she gave up on God, but then she's surprised to hear that Jesus is God? And so why was she impressed that Rahab could claim Jesus as a descendent?
Lita: The way she phrases the question she sounds like she's never even heard of him.
Lita: Maybe she belonged to a non-Christian religion.
wurwolf: I guess so.
wurwolf: The people are all ready to pelt the adulteress with dinner rolls.
Lita: Adulteress=whore in Bob's world.
Lita: What I find interesting about that story is that nobody tries to throw rocks at the man involved in the adultery. And the Pharisees just happened to be hanging around and just happened to notice the adultery in progress? That poor woman was totally set up.
wurwolf: I love the look on the one Pharisee's face. "BUH?"
wurwolf: He looks like Jesus caught him in the middle of spitting out a watermelon seed. *PTOOEY!*
Lita: Bob: Jesus loved the tax collectors and the prostitutes and the adulteresses, BUT TEH GAYS WILL BURN IN THE FIREY PITS OF HELL FOR ALL ETERNITY!!!
Lita: I suppose we should just be glad that they resisted the urge to draw two of those Pharasees making out. The artists of these tracts love to draw men making out in the evil crowd scenes.
wurwolf: You know that in the artist's mind the Pharisees were feeling each other up under their robes.
Lita: I guess I shouldn't be shocked that Shirley doesn't know what happened to Jesus. She'd never even heard of him before a few panels ago.
wurwolf: There's a lot of gore in this comic tract.... for kids.
Lita: Jesus died for pimps, prostitutes, sodomites...
Lita: Sodomites?
wurwolf: That would be the gays. Although a pretty bad word for gays.
Lita: I know that. But there has to be a reason he didn't just say "gays" or "homosexuals."
wurwolf: He wants to use the most derogatory word he can, without calling them fags.
wurwolf: You should hear what he calls black people when we're not around.
wurwolf: In every tract we see Janet she starts out looking very nice, and by the end of the tract she looks like a monster.
wurwolf: She should sue.
wurwolf: Or at least get picture approval.
Lita: They made the poor woman get out of bed and kneel on the floor in order to receive Jesus. No wonder she's screaming in pain in the next panel. Cretins.
Lita: Maybe getting out of bed too fast caused Shirley's head injury to get even worse. I can't tell if she's screaming in pain, insanity, or horror in that panel. I'll go with insanity, considering that the words coming out of her mouth don't match her expression or tone.
wurwolf: I gotta go with horror. She looks like she just caught the look on crazy Janet's face.
wurwolf: "I never want to sin again!" Boy, is she going to be disappointed.
Lita: Maybe now that she's worth something they'll call a doctor.
(All the comic panels are copyright Chick Publications 2001 and the images were used according to Fair Use laws in the US.)
7 comments:
In all fairness, I actually didn't mind this tract so much. At least they kept it almost within the realm of things that could actually happen.
The woman in this tract really had hit rock bottom, and it was in a way that happens in the real world. In that situation people really are more receptive to getting religion. Also, for once the Bible story almost related to the situation the woman was in.
Really the most objectionable thing to me in that tract was that they didn't insist on calling the police or getting her immediate professional medical attention. Even Bob's creepy looks were kept to a minimum.
This isn't to say there wasn't anything else wrong with the tract. I mean, "Sodomites?" The drug dealer/pimp was black? But considering that so many of the other tracts are just completely beyond the pale, this represents a big improvement.
Another fine job.
- When I saw the first panel, I thought Torgo was coming to visit Janet.
- "Shirley" - such a popular name for girls these days.
- I liked your Tinytown bit. It's strange, the way the guy would say "I get to hear another one of Bob's . . . stories." I don't know how it plays on radio, but seeing it in print it comes off as if the narrator thinks Bob is making stuff up. Like he's searching for a nice way to describe what Bob told him, and settles on ". . . stories", with a nudge and a wink to the listner. Like he really wanted to say "one of Bob's fairy tales".
-Bob and Helen show up with medicine, clothes, and extra food? I can see them buying medicine. And MAYBE I can see them stopping at the locat Target and buying some random clothing ("Hello, I need some clothing for a girl. Any size will do."). But what, is Janet's fridge so bare that they had to bring food too?
- I thought the same thing with the "2 hrs later . . .". That was hilarious. She spends 2 hrs talking about everything that happened while her parents were together, and then covers the rough part of her life within 30 seconds.
- That bump! Holy crap! She's turned into Rocky Dennis! "These things I like: going to school, riding my bike, and the sun shining on my face. These things are a drag: an abusive pimp, Bob & Helen's stories, and the sun shining on my face."
- When Shirley says to Helen "I tried to tell you in High School but I was ashamed. Do you know why I dropped out?", I started wondering if Helen was the schoolteacher from "It's the Law", and not Bob's wife. Since she was given no first name in "It's the Law" and she's not identified as "Mrs Bob" in this one, it's hard to tell. But they do look similar, and by the end of "It's the Law", the teacher was looking pretty Ava Gardner-ish. What do you think?
I eagerly await your next installment!
- ns (bw bw)
Wow, I didn't even think of that about Helen being the teacher, Springy. Maybe in addition to trying to convert everyone, Bob also tries to pick up the chicks.
Love the Rocky Dennis ref! :o)
On second thought, I'm not so sure it could be the same schoolteacher. I mean, is she ready to start witnessing with such authority?
I mean, look at our friend Janet. This is the second time we've seen Janet since she accepted Christ back in "It's Coming!", and while she may be able to spot someone in need of saving, she knows she's not up to the task yet. That's why she calls in the big guns (Bob) to save everybody.
So could we expect our recently saved schoolteacher to have such an intimate knowledge of the story of Rahab and Jericho? Maybe - she is a schoolteacher after all; she could have crammed and pulled an allnighter and stuff. But if we are to apply any logic to the timelines of these tracts (which is a stretch), I'd have to guess that Helen is not the same teacher that was saved in "It's the Law".
Which leads to my next question: if she's NOT the same woman, yet she IS a teacher, how could she possibly be allowed to teach in public schools with her deep Christian beliefs? We all know that public school teachers are evil, after all. And we know for certain that she teaches in a public school - there's no way Shirley "Who's Jesus?" Shepherd could have gone to a Christian school!
So now I've come full circle and am thinking that it must be the same schoolteacher as last time, and I've constructed this little scenario to explain her performance in this tract: she has since left her teaching job since it conflicts with her new beliefs, and she's a quick study, or Bob prepped her in the car ride over, or something.
I've completely confused myself. I'm like a dog chasing it's tail. Save me, Jack Chick. No, forget that, you're the one who's caused this . . .
-ns (bw bw)
Don't assume the teacher in the previous tract has any study skills just because she's a teacher. She apparently didn't know the story of Moses and the 10 Commandments (or even that Moses and the 10 Commandments even ever existed), despite having just read little Timmy's essay on that very subject.
Then again, it's possible that Timmy's essay consisted entirely of "Teh 10 comandmint are the rule god told us to have. mosis made up teh 10 condament and he was charlestin hudson. the jews wosrhip a gold cow. my teacher is a lebanese whore."
I still stand by Helen being Bob's wife.
Lita: What I find interesting about that story is that nobody tries to throw rocks at the man involved in the adultery. And the Pharisees just happened to be hanging around and just happened to notice the adultery in progress? That poor woman was totally set up.
If I'm remembering right from my studies over the years, that's exactly what happened. In fact, ol' Bob is probably not too off-track for once in calling the woman caught in adultery a prostitute. What probably happened in that passage was that one of the Pharasees hired a prostitute then the rest of his Pharasaical brothers caught them in the act. She gets grabbed, the adulterous man "somehow gets away", and there you have it. Yes, they brought a woman who was technically an adultress (given that even if she were single, she's technically an adultress if she had sex with a married man), but they were just as guilty for setting the whole thing up. As such, none of them could cast the first stone, as it were.
Anyway, off that subject. Good job once again, you two! You had me cracking up the whole way through. :o) //thump
Oops! That last comment was me. I forgot to sign in! :o}
PM
Post a Comment