Real Heat

Today we learn that while Catholics are jerks who love to burn real Christians, that's nothing to Bob's love of tormenting the wounded and helpless in... Real Heat.

Lita takes out her Chick Chart, because she totally wrote one

wurwolf: Are you kidding me?

Lita: No. I seriously did it. I got sick of having to flip back through old tracts every time I wanted to remember somebody's name.

Lita: So each entry has the number of the tract, the name of it, the character's name, any nicknames we might have for them, a short description and whether or not they're saved (if we know) .

wurwolf: Wow.

wurwolf: I like the dude melting on the cover. Evidently the heat was strong enough to melt his legs but not strong enough to melt his fingers or singe his hair.

Lita: He is in the process of melting. Like a snowman. In a few minutes he will be a puddle of goo.

Lita: I do find it interesting that his clothes are melting along with his skin. I take it he does not wear many natural fibers.

wurwolf: He must be standing on something hot.

Lita: He's melting like a crayon. Later giant 5-year-olds will use him to draw stinky unattractive pictures on tin foil.

Lita: Which really would be an awesome punishment to put in Hell.



wurwolf: Usually we see Fang in the first couple of panels. It would be so sad if he was in the car.

wurwolf: I'm trying to figure out what happened here. I guess the truck rear-ended the car? Is there a car in between them or is that smoke?

Lita: In the first panel you can see that there is a third car between them. In the second panel it is gone. So I guess it's like that urban legend where a semi crashes into something else and there's a car between them but they don't find out until way later because it got squashed into a tiny cube.

wurwolf: The Mythbusters might be interested in seeing this tract.

Lita: Stop drop and roll, buddy!

Lita: I wonder who that truck driver is talking to. I hope it's not the guy on fire.

wurwolf: The trucker cold-heartedly is getting back in his truck on his way to drop his shipment and is admonishing the guy on fire to go get a fire extinguisher.

Lita: "Quit rolling around like an idiot and get your fire extinguisher. I gotta go. I get paid to drive, not to watch macabre scenes of destruction and torment. Bye!"



wurwolf: I'll admit my first aid skills are sadly lacking, but when someone is on fire are you really supposed to use a fire extinguisher on them?

Lita: I have no idea, actually. And I took first aid. I'd think it'd be better than leaving them on fire.

wurwolf: Good point.

Lita: I don't think that's a fire extinguisher, though. Look at that trucker's face. That's no friendly American trucker. That's Saddam Hussein. And I bet it's battery acid in that fire extinguisher.

Lita: Hence the screams, "AHHH! I'm burning!"

wurwolf: Right off the bat we get into the gore. The artist must've been so excited to be drawing a guy on fire.

Lita: I haven't read ahead in this tract, but judging from the title I predict that the artist will get many more opportunities.

Lita: The guy driving the ambulance looks downright evil.

wurwolf: He really disapproves of people getting in accidents and catching on fire.

Lita: Well, it's just such a mess. It really does just make more work for him.

wurwolf: Come on, ambulance driver. You have that whole big cab there! You can move your seat back!

wurwolf: I'll bet the artist of these tracts has his car seat up as far as it will go and so thinks it's perfectly normal to sit crammed up into the dash.

Lita: Well, in his defense, the artist does have three-inch legs.



wurwolf: How did this guy manage to go two months in the hospital without being cornered by Bob Williams? Normally Bob loves this kind of situation. You'd think he would have been all over it.

Lita: Maybe the kid's condition was too bad.

wurwolf: Come on. That doesn't stop Bob.

Lita: I bet Bob could be seen at the hospital every day banging on the windows of the nurse's station. "No visitors? What do you mean no visitors? I'm Bob GODDAMN Williams! I will strike you down! 1 Samuel 17:46!"

wurwolf: "Or be executed!" The kid's nearly been burned to death. His best friend was burned alive right next to him. But Bob still feels the need to one-up him.

Lita: Bob has always been all about the sensitivity.

wurwolf: The only way Bob could be less sensitive is if he walked into the kid's room and said, "Wow, what smells so delicious in here?"

Lita: "Are they serving barbeque today?"

wurwolf: Bob knows that whatever blunders he may make now will be taken care of by the hypno-stare later on.

Lita: I bet what this kid wants to hear more than anything while he lies here in the burn unit is a story about people being set on fire.



Lita: Oh, dear. Look at that next panel. I thought I was kidding.

wurwolf: Nope. You know Bob all too well.

Lita: "Yes, Bob! I'd love nothing more than to hear your story all about people being set on fire! As you can see from these burns, I can't get enough fire!"

Lita: It should probably be noted at this point that this kid is on a LOT of painkillers.

wurwolf: Oh definitely.

wurwolf: I would really love it if halfway through the tract they showed the kid asleep while Bob is yammering on.

wurwolf: "The fear of fire is a terrible weapon to control people..." Tell him something he doesn't already know, Bob.

Lita: My grandmother spent some time in the hospital a while back. They put her on painkillers as well. I was visiting her at the time when she went in and when I went to see her in the hospital one day she kept asking me to shoo away the eagle that was sitting on her legs.

wurwolf: Did you?

Lita: If I had seen any eagles in the room I would certainly have shood them away. Or at least complained to the nurse.

Lita: I'm just saying. This kid? Might not be completely in control of his brain at the moment.

wurwolf: So you let your grandmother sit there with imaginary eagles on her legs? What kind of granddaughter are you?

Lita: I did mention to the doctor that she was having scary hallucinations.

wurwolf: That's good, but you should have taken the opportunity to tell her about Bible characters with similar but worse fates than hers.

Lita: A nun came in and gave her a brochure about nun-related matters. I was interested because I'd never met a nun before. Grammy and I stepped right into her Papist trap.

Lita: Well, Grammy didn't. She had me read her the bible verses on the back of the brochure and then got irritated because the wording was wrong.

Lita: But I digress.

Lita: That Bob! What a pompous asshat, huh?

wurwolf: Bob doesn't like the Catholics either, so you're in good company.

Lita: I skimmed over the tract about Catholics once and it was super boring. But the message was clear. Catholics are EVIL. Even the nice ones.

Lita: Sorry, Springy.



wurwolf: Tommy Hawkes was super popular, but that skank Bloody Mary totally hated him.

wurwolf: People are running up to get his autograph.

Lita: He does have great teeth. That was a big accomplishment back in the day.

wurwolf: He's also a snappy dresser.

Lita: Of all the floppy hats in all the land, his was the floppiest.

Lita: He wasn't Catholic either. I bet that made him popular.

wurwolf: He's also not taking any of the priest's bullshit. "I will always wave my finger in your face!"

Lita: Oh. I thought the priest was flipping him the bird.

wurwolf: It could go either way.



Lita: Those Catholics REALLY hated Tommy. They've piled up a bunch of dynamite around his stake.

Lita: And they brought the little guy out to wave his crucifix in Tommy's face and annoy him before he dies.

wurwolf: "I'm not touching you. Does this bug you?"

Lita: Tommy's all like, "No thank you. I won't be having any crucifix today. I'm stuffed, really."

wurwolf: He's not tied on there very well.

wurwolf: It's like he got his belt caught on a nail.

Lita: He's such a badass he doesn't need to be tied on there very well. He can handle the pain and not run away or fall down or anything.



wurwolf: Here's your second person on fire. I'm surprised it's not more detailed.

Lita: With like skin dripping off the skull all Raiders of the Lost Ark style.

Lita: Instead Tommy's pandering to the audience, fishing for applause.

wurwolf: He looks like the dude in the Scream painting.

Lita: Bad way to go out, Tommy. But, as they say, it's better to burn out than to fade away.

wurwolf: He's clapping in the friendly font style, not in the authoritative all caps style.

Lita: I like that one guy on the right. He's all, "Hey. Look at that."

Lita: Wow. I thought we'd have to wait a while to get to the Catholic bashing tract, but it looks like we've got one right now!

wurwolf: Has Rick never heard of the Spanish Inquisition? He's so surprised that the Catholic church did something like this.

Lita: Nobody in these tracts have ever heard of anything. Except Bob.



wurwolf: There's a little too much shading in the torture panel for me to make out everything that's going on. It's like the artist got carried away with drawing the action.

Lita: I like that they invited a member of the Ku Klux Klan to the inquisition.

wurwolf: It looks more like a wild frat party than the Inquisition. Some dude passed out on the floor, totally wasted.

Lita: Clockwise around the pic starting from the left side we have a monk El Kabonging some guy on a table, two dudes trying unsuccessfully to climb the rope in gym class, the aforementioned Klansman at his post at the voter registration table, and a monk trying to get some sleepy guy to look at his crucifix.

Lita: I think the sleepy guy's feet are on fire.

wurwolf: I think the guys with the rope are hanging a piñata in the shape of someone's legs.

Lita: Why isn't it in the history book? What, the Spanish Inquisition?

wurwolf: What kind of school did Rick go to?

Lita: Gee, I don't know. Say, wurwolf? Why didn't anybody ever mention the Spanish Inquisition in any history books?

wurwolf: Oh, it's because NOBODY EXPECTS THE SPANISH INQUISITION!

wurwolf: Or because Rick wasn't paying attention in class.



Lita: The nurse interrupts our Rick-bashing to remind us that Rick is heavily medicated.

wurwolf: "DON'T LEAVE!" Is he talking to the nurse or to Bob?

Lita: I wonder why Bob would need to leave while Rick is getting medicated. Where does she have to put the medication?

wurwolf: Oh goodness.

wurwolf: Is that Nebuchadnezzer's twin in the background or a statue?

Lita: I once had a hermit crab named Nebuchadnezzer.

wurwolf: This guy looks like a hermit crab.

wurwolf: Nebby's beard has bouncing and behaving curls.

Lita: Possibly anxiety about his beard was the source of a lot of his crabbiness.

Lita: That totally wasn't an intentional callback to the hermit crab thing. Just so you know.

wurwolf: He's a slave to fashion.

Lita: I love Shadrach Meshach and Abednego. My dad would tell me the story of the firey furnace when I was little.

wurwolf: It's one of my favorite stories, too. I'm sure Bob's going to ruin it for us.

Lita: Also, I am personally relating to this tract WAY too much.

Lita: I suppose I should be thankful that I've never been set on fire.

wurwolf: Let's hope Bob doesn't show up and tell you about all the people he knows of who were worse off than you.



wurwolf: King Nebuchadnezzer lives in a sand castle.

Lita: At first I thought, "Wow! Nebuchadnezzer sure does have a lot of tats!" But now I see we're back in modern times.

Lita: He has a tattoo of Fang

wurwolf: There's our Fang sighting. He's also got a flower and a heart tattooed on his arm.

wurwolf: He's got a pony and a happy sun face on his other arm.

Lita: This is what happens when you let the five year old pick Daddy's next tattoo.

Lita: Is he sitting in the nurse's station? I bet he's head nurse.

wurwolf: That's a scary hospital.

Lita: Most hospitals are kind of creepy, I find.



wurwolf: "They messed up everything!" You should've been there, it was totally awesome!

Lita: "King Neb totally gagged on his applesauce, it was so cool!"

wurwolf: Jealous Jew haters? Oh, are they anything like jealous Catholic haters?

wurwolf: I'll bet the king's advisors told him that they intentionally left stuff out of history books, too.

Lita: This was back in the days when Bob disapproved of Jew haters. Once Jesus showed up Jew hating became ok.

Lita: "They ruined my ceremony! Everybody was supposed to bow down! No exceptions!"

Lita: Why don't you just cry about it, you big baby.



wurwolf: The guard with Shadrach, Meshach & Abednego is wearing a helmet that makes him look like a weiner.

Lita: Meshach is the mouthpiece for the trio.

Lita: They always stood in that order too, I bet. Less confusing that way. They liked to help out when they could.

wurwolf: I'm sure they switched around once in a while, just for kicks.

wurwolf: I'll bet we see them switching and clowning around in the outtakes of this tract.

Lita: Shadrach and Abednego did that all the time. Nobody could tell when they switched places, not even their wives. It's the beard thing.

wurwolf: They're the original ZZ Top.



Lita: Wow, Rick's hand swole up, didn't it?

wurwolf: It must be the medication.

Lita: I bet the artist did all kinds of research about what you look like when you get third degree burns.

wurwolf: Are you kidding?

Lita: Half kidding. On the one hand, research? For a Chick tract? On the other hand, our artist LURVES the gore.

wurwolf: Hand... heh heh... I get it.

Lita: Wow. That look on Nebby's face.

wurwolf: Nebuchadnezzer looks like an Edward Lear drawing there.



Lita: Last week I took a group of kids on a night hike, as I do when I'm subbing at the nature camp, and as we were walking around in the dark we heard the noise of some animal or other crashing around through the manzanita by the side of the road Obviously not a mountain lion, since a lion would be more quiet. That left the possibilities that it might be a deer or a bear. (I should note here that the bears in our area are not man-eaters. They eat berries and garbage.)

Lita: The kids all freaked out because they were convinced it was a bear. Flashlights aren't allowed on the night hike, but I let them use it that once because I figured if it was a bear we should really know. A couple of kids thought they saw its eyes, but nobody really saw what it was. Whatever kind of animal it was left as soon as it heard my girls squawking.

Lita: Anyway, when we got back to camp the kids started telling anybody who would listen about the HUGE BEAR we saw. And that panel with Nebby right there? EXACTLY what my kids did in describing the bear.

Lita: And again I am horrified to have identified with the tract.

wurwolf: It's really getting eerie now.



wurwolf: Whoooo! More people on fire!

wurwolf: I don't get it. How come the soldiers were like ten feet away and they burned up, but Nebby and his advisor can stand right on the edge of the flames and not get burned?

Lita: Nebs and that one guard covered themselves with asbestos before peeking into the furnace there.

wurwolf: They all look like they're standing in tissue-paper flames. Like they're in the church play or something.

Lita: Maybe that's where the artist got the idea.



wurwolf: Nebuchadnezzer looks like he's wearing a succession of film cans on his head.

Lita: If you spin his crown around really fast you can watch the movie.

Lita: Bob skipped the awesome part of the speech. As usual.

Lita: Verse 29: Therefore, I make this decree: If any people, whatever their race or nation or language, speak a word against the God of Shadrach, Meshach, and Abednego, they will be torn limb from limb, and their houses will be crushed into heaps of rubble. There is no other god who can rescue like this!

Lita: As you can see, Nebby has clearly rethought his ideas about the treatment of his subjects.

wurwolf: So he didn't panic and run around waving his arms like an old woman, like Bob wants us to think.

Lita: Well, he may have. But in the midst of all that he also gave a speech about how cool the Jewish God is and threw in a few threats to people who talk smack about his buds.



wurwolf: Nice forced perspective in the hallway. It looks like the doorway in Willy Wonka that looks like it's going to be big but turns out being tiny.

wurwolf: Another one who never heard of the Son of God.

Lita: Rick's got the crazy eyes. I think the new medication just kicked in.

wurwolf: For someone who's been burned nearly to death, he sure has a lot of range of motion in his face.

Lita: He sure has a lot of his face, for that matter. His whole head was on fire.

Lita: In one of my ethics classes (supposedly Ethics of Religion, but my prof hated that subject so he decided to secretly teach us medical ethics instead) we saw a video about Dax Cowart. That guy was also burned alive. In the video he looked like a corpse. And not a fresh one.

Lita: So that's why I'm surprised that Rick looks so good.

wurwolf: I love that your ethics teacher did something behind the administration's back.

Lita: Those of us in the class weren't thrilled. If we wanted to take medical ethics we would have signed up for it.



wurwolf: Bob wants us to know that parts of non-King James versions are missing.

Lita: It's The Father, THE WORD and the Holy Ghost. None of this The Son bullshit.

Lita: New Living translation doesn't have that phrase in the actual text, but does include it in a footnote. And it does say "The Word"

Lita: Ditto on NIV

wurwolf: Wow, four panels in one. The artist really worked hard on this tract.

Lita: I'm glad the artist added a little arrow to point to Jesus in the furnace flashback. In case you missed it before.

wurwolf: Two arrows, in fact.

Lita: Oh! I thought one of those arrows was the bottom of Abednego's sleeve.

Lita: It's like at the end of The Sixth Sense where they show you all the clues you should have gotten to guess the ending.

wurwolf: I guess that was Jesus smacking Moses around with the stone tablets.

wurwolf: And I guess that's Jesus judging Roger again.

wurwolf: I take that back about the artist working hard on this tract. They just recycled panels from previous tracts.

wurwolf: Meanwhile, on the tv in the hospital room, General Hospital starts.



Lita: I'm glad that Bob's finally mentioning Hell. When he said that fire was used as an execution I thought for sure this tract would be all about Hell and he'd be telling our burn victim all about the fire that was coming to him. I was surprised when it wasn't.

wurwolf: You'd think it would have been a shoo-in.

wurwolf: "Paging Dr. Mengele. Dr. Josef Mengele, please come to the OR."

Lita: The Dr. is checking Rick's chart to make sure that he's getting his recommended daily dose of long, drawn-out lectures about the very thing that put him in the hospital and ruined his life in the first place.

wurwolf: Well, he can check that off.

Lita: Now I see how Bob's so sure who does and doesn't go to Hell. Apparently EVERYBODY who didn't get burned up in Neb's furnace goes to hell. So I guess those guards that stood too close lucked out. Sucks for the rest of us, though.

Lita: "That's real heat!" Not like your stupid little car accident, Rick, you whining little pussy!

Lita: Bob is being unusually cruel today!

wurwolf: Can you imagine Bob sitting at home, planning out this little talk with Rick? "Okay, I'm going to visit a guy in the hospital who has third degree burns over 70% of his body today. How will I minister to him? I know! I'll tell him about more burn victims and that this is only the start of being burned up unless he gets saved!"

Lita: "And you will join them unless..."

Lita: And then he pauses just to draw out the guy's torture a little longer.

wurwolf: For crying out loud, Bob, go easy on the guy! I know you want to scare him into salvation, but ease up!



wurwolf: Poor guy, he's scared to death. Nice one, Rick's mom! Way to set up your son!

Lita: "Sadly, Rick, that prayer of yours won't get you anywhere. You didn't bow down. Get out of your bed and get on the floor and bow down like the snivveling little worm you are! Grovel at my feet! Wave your lumpy butt in the air! Do it or so help me God I'll set you on fire again right now! Go ahead and cry, you little wretch! I'm going to burn down this whole hospital! AHHHHH HA HA HA HA HA HA HA!!!!"

wurwolf: Meanwhile, he's in bed crying, the salt of his tears stinging the hell out of his wounds. Bob doesn't care. He just sits back and makes another mark in his Bible.


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