Here He comes

We knew it would happen sooner or later, but who knew it would come so soon? Ladies and gentlemen, we have reached the end times. That's right. This is our final Bible Series Tract. It's a momentous moment for all of us. Please join wurwolf and me as we join Bob one last time in...






Lita:
Here he comes again,
Ooh, he'll make you flip,
Here he comes again,
When he's dancing 'neath the starry sky,
Here he comes again,
I kinda like the way he dips,
Well he's my best friend's girl,
He's my best friend's girl,
But he used to be mine!

wurwolf: Other than the line "he's my best friend's girl", I think that's the most awesome song about Jesus I've ever heard.



wurwolf: I love love love that Helen is sitting in the back seat while the two men are up front. How typical is that of Chick tracts?!

wurwolf: You know how in TV shows they do outside shots of a car driving down the street, but when they show what's going on inside the car it's on a sound stage and someone's shaking the car around to look like it's moving? I think that's what's going on here. From the outside, Bob's car looks like this:



but on the inside his car looks like this:



Lita: How come Damien didn't get raptured? He gave up the on the whoring.

wurwolf: In every tract we see him in, he's still wearing a black shirt, albeit without the collar. That tells me that he hasn't fully committed and is still a closet Catholic. He's probably got a shrine to Mary hidden away in the room he has in Bob's house.

Lita: Or maybe it's like how I'm going to hell just because my grandfather was a Freemason. Even though I'm a fully committed Christian and have never been a Mason myself, I still have Freemason stink all over me.

wurwolf: The sins of the fathers and all that.

wurwolf: Or in Damien's case, the sins of the Father.

wurwolf: And something just occurred to me -- since Damien is no longer a priest, what is he doing for a living now? Or is he just freeloading off of Bob and Helen?



Lita: Oh no! Fang is lost! He will burn in Hell forever! No wonder he looks so scared!

wurwolf: I doubt Fang is lost. He gets passed around from owner to owner. He's probably just with some new family.

Lita: He's lost in Christ.

wurwolf: Is that a bottle of whiskey flying out of the car when it hits the telephone pole?

Lita: Damien does have a history of drinking. But I think Bob and Helen were trying to set him up. That's why they bailed him out of the car. Now that great whore's pimp is going to face drunk driving charges!

wurwolf: Also flying out of the car: kiddie porn



Lita: Ohhhh. It Was All A Dream. That's too bad. I wanted to read a tract about a world without Bob.

wurwolf: You will be soon. This is Bob's last tract.

Lita: He'll still exist in these comics' "universe," though.

Lita: I guess this confirms that Damien is staying with Bob and Helen. It's like they're running a halfway house for former sinners.

wurwolf: Former celibate sinners. That's a single bed.

Lita: It sure is. Poor Helen.

wurwolf: She can always bang Damien on the couch. Or the kitchen table.

Lita: At that rate she may as well just do it on the tiny bed.

wurwolf: I'm sure she and Bob have separate twin beds, like Rob and Laura Petrie.

Lita: I bet every morning she combs the newspaper for news of fires. "Oh, Bob! The Jones's house burned down last night! Three people died and there's a kid in the hospital!" That burn ward buys her a lot of "Helen Time"

wurwolf: Left behind is in boldface again. Another shout out?

Lita: You know, I never read any of those books myself, so I'm probably a bad judge of this. But I did have several kids do book reports on books from the series while I was student teaching. It didn't strike me as overly Bible based.

Lita: Not that you can tell much from a kid's book report. But what the hell? It's about waging war against Satan! Fun!

wurwolf: I read about four or five of them when I was working at the Christian bookstore, but that was about ten years ago and I really don't remember anything about them. So I'm not particularly helpful.

Lita: Kirk Cameron is in the movie version.



wurwolf: I like Bob's black robe with the leopard skin collar.



wurwolf: By the way, it's not set in stone that we will be raptured before the Tribulation. It's what all Christians hope is going to happen, but we don't know for sure.

Lita looks up the verse Bob just threw out

Lita:

Then I saw thrones, and the people sitting on them had been given the authority to judge. And I saw the souls of those who had been beheaded for their testimony about Jesus and for proclaiming the word of God. They had not worshiped the beast or his statue, nor accepted his mark on their forehead or their hands. They all came to life again, and they reigned with Christ for a thousand years.

Lita: It's just about what happens to Christians during the tribulation. It doesn't say that these are post-rapture Christians.



wurwolf: Bob has been droning on the entire time it took Helen to make a pot of coffee and get Father Damien a cup.

Lita: "The Antichrist will be revealed! Are you interested?" "Are you kidding?" Seriously, Bob. You already told him the Antichrist is the Pope.

wurwolf: The tract cut Damien off before he could say, "It's two in the morning and I've got a long day of banging your wife while you're at work tomorrow! I'm going to bed!"



Lita: There are distinctly five horsemen in that picture of the four horsemen.

wurwolf: And one of them is on fire.

Lita: Also one of those horsemen is a Catholic priest and another is the Pope. Who knew? I wonder which plagues they represent. That Pope must be busy if he has to do double-duty as both the Antichrist and a horseman.

Lita: Poor Fire Horseman has to share a horse with the Turban Horseman

wurwolf: Poor Turban Horseman. I hope he's wearing asbestos.

wurwolf: I've seen fundamentalist literature that claims that Christ is the horseman on the white horse. I guess Bob is saying this guy is the Antichrist.

Lita: There's two white horses.

wurwolf: One's supposed to be gray.

wurwolf: You'd think Fire Horseman would be better off riding with Fireman Horseman.

Lita: Mongolian Horseman doesn't even get a horse. I guess nobody wanted to share with him.

wurwolf: Oh, he's Mongolian? I thought that was a fire helmet.



wurwolf: I like how the vultures pecked out the Arab guy's eyes. Nice touch.

Lita: They look happy to do it.



wurwolf: Okay. Bob's editorializing there.

Lita: No, the Bible actually says, "And lo, the Pope will be drooling all down the front of his robes waiting for the Jews to build a temple. He liketh the real-estate."

wurwolf: Wipe your mouth, your Holiness.

wurwolf: Is there such a thing as a Jesuit general?

Lita: Sure there is. It says so. In the Bible. Don't ask for a verse.

wurwolf: Okay!



Lita: The Pope has tons of authority to sign peace treaties on behalf of the nations of the world.

wurwolf: The guy in the bowtie in the picture of the Pope signing Sherry's birthday card is the guy from the Freemason's tract, I think.



wurwolf: The Pope is casting a skeptical glance at the Buddhist monk.

Lita: Heh. I think this is the first tract we've seen to include Surprise Buttsex

wurwolf: They saved the best for last.

wurwolf: It should say that then Satan slowly and gently enters the Beast.

Lita: Doesn't look all that slow and gentle to me. Look at the beads of sweat running down that poor guy's head!

wurwolf: Okay, so Satan's taking him by force. Why am I surprised? He is Satan, after all.

Lita: By the way, I thought the Beast was supposed to be the Pope. So why are we getting some random priest here?

wurwolf: Bob's making the claim that the Pope is the Antichrist and the Beast is the Jesuit General. Whatever that is.

Lita: Oh, ok. This whole thing is so confusing.

wurwolf: But aren't the Beast and the Antichrist the same person?

Lita: I've always been under the impression that the Beast was the Antichrist.



wurwolf: It's cool how the Beast's army has neat skull logos on their hats.



wurwolf: Wow! The Beast is on American Idol! So that's how he takes over the world!

Lita: "Hang Ten, dudes!"

wurwolf: He's totally Stayin' Alive!



wurwolf: The Pope's always making decrees about something. Why should people suddenly start listening to him now that it's the Tribulation?



Lita: You know, I'd have thought they'd just throw all the heads in a big bucket, but they're going through the trouble to drive stakes into the wall and mount the heads on them. This is indeed a quality operation.

wurwolf: Saddam Hussein and Lou Reed are working on adding more heads.

wurwolf: It looks like they're out of spikes. Where will they put this next head?

Lita: Looks like they might be late for lunch after all.

wurwolf: That's a dedicated executioner if he can chop off all those heads and still have an appetite for lunch.



wurwolf: Can wrath be kept in a vial?

Lita: God can keep His wrath wherever He wants.

Lita: You know, most people would take "his wrath will be poured out" as a figure of speech for "He'll get really mad and start punishing people." Leave it to Bob to take it completely literally.



wurwolf: Speaking of taking scripture literally, the locusts with the faces of men in Revelation are widely regarded to be helicopters. Not literal locusts, Bob.

Lita: I bet this is the artist's favorite tract ever. It's so gruesome.

wurwolf: Oh of course. And yet it wasn't gruesome enough -- they had to show Jesus on the cross, too.

wurwolf: This scene would be the perfect place to put Fang and Bad Cat. Fang's been reduced to posters for too long.

Lita: They really have been cheap with the Fang sightings lately. I feel cheated.

wurwolf: You'd think they'd finish that particular plot line up with a bang.



wurwolf: People in heaven: "Whoohoo, the Vatican's gone! I've been waiting for the place to burn down for an eternity."



Lita: Now it's payback time.

wurwolf: Bitches.

wurwolf: The angels are so casual about casting the Pope and the Jesuit General into the lake of fire. It's your big moment, guys! Get excited a little!

Lita: They're always just like, "Eh." Like they're throwing laundry into the hamper or something.

wurwolf: I know they've been tossing people into the Abyss left and right for years now, but this is the big one!



Lita: Even when they throw Satan in. It's just like, "See ya later, dude. Whatever."

wurwolf: "Have a nice trip. See you next fall."



wurwolf: Here's the movie of everyone's life. This guy's looks boring -- can we skip on to Genghis Khan or something?

Lita: Genghis Khan is too busy riding his invisible horse around with those other four guys.

Lita: I like that guy on the Jumbotron. He's all pointing his thumb at himself like, "Yeah! How about me? You motherfuckers don't have the guts to keep ME out of Heaven!

wurwolf: Why is God asking if that guy's name is in the Book of Life? He knows it's not. He's just trying to amp up the drama.

Lita: It's like at the end of any given reality show when they take forever to reveal who's leaving. They know darn well who it is. They just want to pad out the last five minutes of the show with tense silence.



Lita: Oh no! Now Bob is breaking the fourth wall and talking directly to US!

wurwolf: It's his last chance, too.

wurwolf: And this is how Bob leaves us. One last time to turn on the hypno-eyes.

Lita: Goodbye, Bob, you magnificent bastard.

wurwolf: You were.... well, not enjoyed.

Lita: That's what Helen said! (Ba-DUM-bum!)


(All the comic panels are copyright Chick Publications 2003 and the images were used according to Fair Use laws in the US.)

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Who's Missing?

We are almost at the end of the Bible Series, folks! Surprisingly, only two tracts are devoted to the fire and brimstone message of Revelation -- you'd think Bob would want to keep the party going for at least five tracts. Join us as we look at bipolar sisters, papal Antichrists, and special guest star Billy Graham in Who's Missing?

Thanks to Rimmi for contributing!

Lita: Ok, what the hell is with that cover? Who approved that? It's so grainy and tiny that it took me a minute or two to figure out what the hell was supposed to be going on.

wurwolf: What is going on in that picture? I couldn't figure it out.

Lita: A bunch of people are standing around a coffin and are aghast to find that there is no dessicated corpse rotting inside; a stench rising to their nostrils that they will never be able to forget, and that they will never quite be able to wash away.

Lita: The dead guy they were expecting was probably Catholic. That's why they're so appalled to see he's still alive. Or maybe they're now anticipating a zombie attack.

wurwolf: Oh. Wow, you have better eyesight than I do. It could be a group of kitties having a picnic for all I know.

Lita: Well, at first I thought I saw an unflattering caricature of a Jewish gentleman, but after squinting at it for a while I decided I was mistaken.



wurwolf: "He's so marvelous. He's so needed." Are they talking about Tork?

wurwolf: Because it looks like they're talking about Fred Sanford.

Lita: Of course it was the one in the turban who set him up the bomb.

wurwolf: Evidently she's a suicide bomber.

wurwolf: They were hit by a YAAAAA bomb.



Lita: I am delighted by that bomb squad dude's handlebar mustache.

wurwolf: Is that Bob in the suit? I thought it was his mustache.

wurwolf: Whoever he is, his hand is HUGE!

Lita: You can tell it's not Bob because his eyes aren't dead and soulless.

Lita: Is sarin gas a real thing, or is Chick Publications making something up for the story? Help me, Google!

Lita: Oh, it's real. And now I have learned something. The More You Know...

wurwolf: What does sarin gas do?

Lita: It kills you.

Lita: So. Without reading ahead, will this death be considered good or bad or just ok? Will it turn out the black guy and his black friends were sinners who deserved it? Are Chick Publications pro- or anti-UN?

wurwolf: If I know my fundies they are definitely anti-UN.

Lita: Yeah. I agree. So I don't see this guy as being portrayed as sympathetic for much longer.

Lita: And something tells me the whole "This could be Armageddon" remark won't slip by without comment.

wurwolf: It looks like this tract is about the Rapture. So I'm guessing Fred Sanford is a bit player in this unfolding drama, and that for once in a Chick tract, his race is unimportant.

Lita: I don't know. It seems like in these tracts black people are either baptist ministers, getting the shit beat out of them, or dealing drugs.

wurwolf: So because a delegate to the UN was assasinated, that means the beginning of Armageddon?



Lita: This panel with Bob in the den is giving us a startling view into his home life.

wurwolf: I'm trying to figure out why Bob has a picture of Fang on the side of his desk. Is that a "missing pet" poster?

Lita: Bob sits at his laptop in his filthy sweat-stained tee shirt. He doesn't look up from his porn when Helen enters the room. Apathy and whiskey drip from his pores. She instinctively raises her hands in defense as she carefully delivers her news. She has not brought the beer he asked for. He merely has a phonecall. She backs back into the kitchen tentatively. She hopes the priest will have something good to say. She hopes she will escape another beating.

wurwolf: Oh yeah. That's exactly what's going on there.

wurwolf: I love that Bob doesn't even look up when Father Damien calls. Bob ambivalently tells Helen that he'll get there when he gets there, and Father Damien can just sit and wait for him. Father Damien is still in that stage of Bob worship, where he thinks that Bob still cares about him as a person. He doesn't realize that he's just another notch in Bob's Bible belt.

Lita: Helen has first-hand experience with Bob's Bible belt.

wurwolf: Also, I'm wondering what Bob has a degree in.

Lita: Computers. (Not to be confused with Computer Science. Science is the work of the devil.)

Lita: Does anybody actually look at the earpiece of their phone when somebody is talking to him? And what's with the slack jaw? I feel like there should be a line of drool coming out of there. Bob's totally wasted.

wurwolf: He was busy IMing with the 14 year old kid from God With Us.



wurwolf: Father Damien must really hate his sister.

wurwolf: He thinks sending Bob to her house will make her less of a wreck? He's crazy.

Lita: Father Bruce must have told his sister that Bob was coming by. That's how I'd react.

wurwolf: Is that Bob shouting that Father Damien's sister is a ding dong? That's really rude.

Lita: It's the end of the world and she knows it, but she feels fine.

wurwolf: She knows it! Knows it! KNOWS IT!

Lita: She's totally



wurwolf: Psy-yi-yi!



wurwolf: Bob's sitting across the room while Helen sets up Father Damien's sister.

wurwolf: "That's it, dear... Reel her in... We'll see her lumpy butt in no time."

Lita: Bob's sitting there so stiff and uncomfortable. He looks like he's about to leap out of that chair and fly across the room to slap her with his Bible.

Lita: Which, I guess judging from the next panel, he does.

Lita wonders how Mary Anne pronounces "thermonuclear"

wurwolf: If she was George Bush she'd pronounce it "thermonukular".

wurwolf: Mary Anne's gone all Shelley Duvall on us.



Lita: I like how this tract refers us to another tract instead of, say, Genesis 1:1.

wurwolf: This tract thinks it's a forgone conclusion that if you've gotten this far through the series, then you must have every one.

Lita: "Don't look in the Bible! Trust us to tell you what God wants!"

Lita: Which makes sense, since if you actually looked in the Bible you'd see how much of these tracts are bullshit.



Lita: The Blessed Virgin? What the Sam-Scratch does the Blessed Virgin have to do with a single thing they're talking about?

wurwolf: That's what Father Damien wants to know.

wurwolf: I wonder if he calls the Catholic church the Great Whore in front of his sister.

Lita: "Jesus is very clear--" "The Blessed Virgin!" "Yes, but Jesus--" "Mephistopheles!" "Um... Ok... Jesus--" "Squirrel! Monster truck! Weeee!"

Lita: It's been a while since Bob has had the opportunity to witness to a clearly insane person.

wurwolf: I wonder if that means Mary Anne will go to hell, just like Gladys.

Lita: They might want to show Mary Anne going to hell just to reinforce the point that even sincere Catholics with love in their hearts are less likely to get into Heaven than a hateful fundie.

Lita: Father Damien looks more stressed now than when he was trying to kill himself.

wurwolf: That's what hanging out with Bob does to you. Have you ever seen Helen smile?

Lita: Bob looks so bored while he's telling Mary Anne about the turmoil the world will go through. He's getting as sick of his series as we are.

wurwolf: Bob is so blah about the end times. He has to stop himself from actually saying "Ho hum."

Lita: I like Bob's message to calm Mary Anne down, though. "You're freaking out about this little thing? It's going to get so much worse!"



wurwolf: They recycled that panel where Jesus is talking to the crowd from the last tract.

wurwolf: Jeez... we're referring back to our tracts just as much as Chick Publications does.

Lita: I think Mary Anne just swallowed an entire bottle of nyquil

wurwolf: Can you blame her?

Lita: Yes. Nyquil tastes terrible. She should have gone for something cherry flavored.

Lita: Or tequila.

wurwolf: She looks like she's about to sneeze.

Lita: That or ralph.

Lita: All over her rosary, too. Bob and Father Bruce will be so pleased.

wurwolf: Bob's not even looking at her when he talks about God's judgment against this wicked world. He's off in his fantasy land of the world's total destruction.

wurwolf: I'll bet he is so hard right now.

Lita: Helen better watch out when they get home. "You be the Whore of Babylon! I'll be the ten-horned beast of the sea!"

wurwolf: Hee! Dirty!



Lita is looking for something...

wurwolf: I hope you're looking up Bob's claim of cannibalism in the end times.

Lita: In my skimming of Revelation just now I did not see any mention of cannibalism. That doesn't mean it isn't there. There's lots of weird stuff in Revelation. But it'd be nice if Bob would throw us a Bible verse or two, since he keeps saying he wants us to see what the Bible says.

wurwolf: If cannibalism is actually in Revelation, I think it would fit in with one of those weird things that could go either way.

Lita: And so much of Revelation is symbolism. It must be hard for Bob not to take every word completely literally.

Lita: Or maybe he really does think that the Catholic Church is literally a giant whore who rides a dragon around.

wurwolf: I'm sure he does. He takes everything else literally, so why not that?

wurwolf doesn't really have anything to say about the gospel message.

Lita: No. We've heard it.

wurwolf: Except to say that I like the clipart Jesus better than the Chick artist Jesus.



wurwolf: Huh. No surprise to see that Bob is squarely in the hellfire and damnation camp.

Lita: Oh, how he yearns for the days of "Sinners in the Hands of an Angry God":

"If you cry to God to pity you, he will be so far from pitying you in your doleful case, or showing you the least regard or favour, that instead of that, he will only tread you under foot. And though he will know that you cannot bear the weight of omnipotence treading upon you, yet he will not regard that, but he will crush you under his feet without mercy; he will crush out your blood, and make it fly, and it shall be sprinkled on his garments, so as to stain all his raiment. He will not only hate you, but he will have you, in the utmost contempt: no place shall be thought fit for you, but under his feet to be trodden down as the mire of the streets."

wurwolf: Those were the days....

Lita: He's gonna squash you like a grape, and then get all pissed off because your guts got his robe dirty.

wurwolf: And that, in a nutshell, is Bob's gospel.

Lita: God damn professors in bible colleges! How dare there be educated people teaching in bible colleges??! Them and their sneering and their standing right there in class cutting up the Bible with scissors!

wurwolf: Who is that looming behind the college professor? Satan?



wurwolf: Coincidentally, the health and wealth pastor looks a lot like the pastor of a health and wealth church I went to in the 80s.

Lita: I think his fetal twin is growing out of the back of his head.

wurwolf: And yet he's so happy in spite of it.

wurwolf: Ladies and gentlemen, special guest appearance by BILLY GRAHAM!!!!

Lita: God damn Billy Graham and his doing the devil's work!!!

Lita: He doesn't know a thing about the Bible! He's too edjimakated!

wurwolf: Billy Graham has led so many people astray.

Lita: See, if we were going to talk about "men of God" who are falling away and doing the work of Satan, I'd pin that on the televangelists who steal money from the elderly so they can buy another hummer or a new pool for their third mansion. The hucksters with their fake healing and so on. But I guess that's ok with Bob.

wurwolf: No, the only evangelist that Bob singles out by name is Billy Graham.

Lita: Well, the man is dead. What's he going to do.

Lita: Wait... Is Billy Graham dead?

wurwolf: No, he's not. He's still around to make false statements about the gospel and to do the devil's work.

Lita: Oh. Well, he's a Christian. He has to forgive Chick Tracts.




Lita: Oooooooh!!!! The Pope is the Antichrist! I thought it would be somebody with some actual power over world policy, but I guess not. I'm relieved about that. That means only Catholics will have to go through that 666 business. That leaves me out!

wurwolf: And evidently every Pope is the antichrist. So we don't have to be looking out for one guy in particular. We just have to steer clear of any of the Popes. Easy enough!

Lita: Hey, all you Catholics out there! Quit bending to the will of the Antichrist! Use birth control!

wurwolf: Have a steak on Friday!



wurwolf: Bob hustles us through the chain of end time events by bringing up the Rapture.

Lita: The missionary talking to Piado is disturbing to me. He's all chalky and heroin chic.

wurwolf: The missionary is definitely giving me a drug addict vibe.

wurwolf: So the fate of the world hangs on the time Piado accepts Christ? Piado's the most powerful man in the world.

Lita: Poor Piado. He's only been a Christian for three seconds and already he has to feed his addict missionary his lines. "So... Do you, uh... Jesus and stuff? Accept or whatever?" "Yes." "..." "..." "Buhhhhh...." "Let's pray." "Riiiiiiight you are, little dude."

wurwolf: The first one's free, Piado.

Lita: Wow. The resemblance is uncanny:





Lita: WOAH!!!! The dead in Christ will LITERALLY rise! Not just their souls, but their bodies as well will bust out of their coffins and fly through the air!!!

wurwolf: It's like the raptured Christian got shot out of his grave by cannon.

Lita: Notice how the Catholic corpse and the Freemason corpse did not rise. I guess there's still plenty of room in Hell.



wurwolf: I have to say, as a Christian, 1 Thessalonians 4:17 has always made me feel so hopeful. I've always loved that verse.

Lita: Mary Anne agrees with you. She has to light a cigarette after hearing that verse.

wurwolf: She was thinking about Piado and a missionary.... position.

Lita: That is some impressive sex hair she's working.

wurwolf: As opposed to Helen who has, "I won't be having sex" hair.

wurwolf: So many people come away from a session with Bob with greasy, sweaty hair. That must be how Helen passed muster -- she managed to keep her hair helmet in the face of Blowhard Bob's hot air.

Lita: "They'll be Left Behind... available in a quality Christian bookstore near you! Pick one up today!"

wurwolf: Even Christian tracts have product placement. It's unavoidable.



Lita: Catholics hate the Bible. Check.

wurwolf: Whoa. Did Mary Anne forget her bipolar medication today?

wurwolf: One minute she's happy and thinking that everything is beautiful, the next minute she turns into a raging Whore of Babylon.

Lita: Have we ever seen Bob take on a full-on Athiest? I'd think he'd be more worried about evangelizing them than Catholics. But I guess I'm just deluded by the Devil and his pro-Catholic propaganda.

wurwolf: I don't think we've addressed Atheism. There have been plenty of people who espouse an athiestic viewpoint, but none who have actually said they were an Athiest.

Lita: Even with them the argument isn't about whether or not God exists or whether or not the Bible is true. They're just ignorant and need to be told the right story. They fully believe it when they hear it.



Lita: That panel with the car is giving me a total "One of us! One of us!" vibe.

wurwolf: I noticed that everyone who preaches in these tracts loves to point. Jesus did it earlier. Now Malcolm's doing it.

wurwolf: I have had to refrain from making so many "pull my finger" jokes.

Lita: And why do they have a room for Damien? Did he live with his sister? Or do they mean a room in their bomb shelter when the Apocolypse starts?

Lita: Or is their church so wealthy that all the congregants get their own little worship cubicle?

wurwolf: I guess he bunked with his sister after leaving the priesthood. This guy's just bouncing from house to house. How much longer until he gets bounced from Bob's?



Lita: The way he's looking at that mountie, I don't think he'd be bunking alone for long.

Lita: Did I just make a pedophile Catholic priest joke? Wow. That was creative of me.

wurwolf: No, I think Chick tracts just made that Catholic priest/pedophile joke.

Lita: They did draw the panel. He's either looking at the mountie or Helen. "Hey, Helen, I'm allowed to use a rubber now."

wurwolf: I like how the Mountie now has a cross on his hat.

Lita: I wonder if his mom knows that he's sitting next to the creepy guy who talked to him in the park.

wurwolf: Too bad we don't get to see Mary Anne being tossed headfirst into the Great Abyss.

Lita: Maybe in the next tract. It'll be Bob's last chance!

wurwolf: I'm kind of excited to see how the last witnessing ends. Will it be lumpy butts or headfirst into the Abyss?

Lita: I hope it ends with Bob getting punched in the eye.


(All the comic panels are copyright Chick Publications 2003 and the images were used according to Fair Use laws in the US.)

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Hooray for New Technology!

Thanks to the tips over at this blog here (probably only worth clicking if you're a blogger yourself) we here at Holeee Cow have implemented a new gizmo on our blogamajig. The gist is that now most of our blog entries have been collapsed behind their introductory paragraphs.

This means that you don't have to load up every single pic of every one of our image-heavy blog entries just so you can read the latest one. It should make for much nicer loading times.

Of course, a select few of our posts have willful spirits and refused to be hidden in this manner. They are uncooperative and evil and we don't know what to do with them. If you see any that are downright busted (they won't open or there are large chunks missing or some other sinister bit of business), please let us know.

Despite these few minor problems, it's a big huge improvement and even though you can see the change just by looking at the blog, I had to post about it because I'm just so excited!

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Man in Black

It's been a while since our last update, we know. The Devil doesn't want us to update, so he gave us conflicting schedules. We managed to get it together today, though, and we have a new tract for you!

Today Bob calls half of the readership of this blog whores, and he's not talking about the ladies (this time). Find out which corner of the street you're standing on by joining us while we read




Lita: Ooo! Man in Black! Is this going to be a biotract of the late, great, Johnny Cash?

wurwolf: I like to think I'm above making the obvious Johnny Cash joke here. It's about secret agents who fight aliens.

wurwolf: The Man In Black is missing the lower half of his torso on the cover there.



wurwolf: Why is the car calling Fang a drunk? He's just walking across the bridge.

Lita: Well, it is pretty bad weather to just be wandering around town.

wurwolf: So are you saying that when you see someone walking in the rain, it means that they're completely hammered? Neil Sedaka and Rupert Holmes, get your asses to rehab!

Lita: If they don't use an umbrella.

Lita: Except me, since I don't even own an umbrella.

wurwolf: You just get wet, huh?

Lita: Soaked.

wurwolf: Well, according to this tract, you're just asking for a lecture from Bob.

Lita: Isn't everybody?

Lita: Dammit! It's been too long since we've done one of these. We lost our rhythm!

wurwolf: Start with an ice breaker. Try jazz hands.

Lita: Uhh.... ok...



wurwolf: I believe in the power of the jazz hands.



wurwolf: Bob, get back in your car. You're only going to make him want to jump more.

Lita: Bob. Just the guy you need to talk to when you're sick of talk, lies, and deception.

wurwolf: And when you're drunk.

Lita: The terrible movie Varsity Blues took on a frightening, surreal quality when I watched it while drunk. I can only imagine what a drunken encounter with Bob would be like.

wurwolf: It would be like being thrown into hell by an angel headfirst while naked.

Lita: Really? Because I assumed lumpy butts would be involved. And nudity.



wurwolf: Is the priest expecting a flood?

Lita: It's raining pretty hard.

wurwolf: I learn so much from these tracts. What a dynamic way to witness to people! "Hey buddy, Jesus totally hates your religion!"

Lita: That priest looks like he should have a chainsaw for a hand...which would make this the coolest tract ever.

wurwolf: Army of Bobness.




Lita: You know, it's really counterproductive to include a drunken hiccup after your demand for respect.

wurwolf: I thought he was calling Bob a hick. Which, with that jacket that Bob's wearing, I'd say the priest is right on the money.

wurwolf: I don't know why the priest would say that Bob thinks he's lost. According to Bob, he's just 100 feet away from hell.

Lita: Oh, I see. They're standing over the [insert name of a river commonly regarded as foul here].



wurwolf: Do I detect a note of disappointment from Bob about the priest not jumping?

Lita: "Good for you." I'm sure the priest appreciates your sarcasm, Bob.

Lita: The priest is going all Bruce Wayne.

wurwolf: Bruce Campbell, Bruce Wayne. He's totally Father Bruce.



Lita: Or Father Damien. Like the Antichrist... Subtle, tract.

Lita: Jesus called the church the "Bride of Christ." Is Bob saying Jesus married a whore?

wurwolf: Jesus did love to hang with the sinners.

wurwolf: By the way, once again Chick Publications is totally taking a verse out of context with Matthew 23:9.

Lita looks it up

wurwolf: Look up the whole passage.

wurwolf: I'm not even going to bother looking up the passages from Revelations, because they definitely do talk about the Whore of Babylon, even if they don't necessarily mean the Catholic church.

Lita: Matthew 23:9 says, "And call no man your father upon the earth: for one is your Father, which is in heaven."

wurwolf: You're also not supposed to call people Rabbi and Master.

Lita: But that verse, looked at in context, isn't even really about not having Catholic priests. It's about not letting Earthly people have all the authority over you in life, because you have a master in Heaven to serve.

wurwolf: Exactly.

wurwolf: That includes Pastors and Reverends, I'm sure.

Lita looks up Revelation just for the hell of it

wurwolf: Knock yourself out, sister.

Lita: Ok. If you read the whole chapter, even in King James, there's nothing there that screams "CATHOLIC CHURCH" at me. In fact, it's pretty clear that this is the widely famed, Whore of Babylon. And verse 18 says it plainly, "And the woman which thou sawest is that great city, which reigneth over the kings of the earth." She represents a city, not a church.

Lita: Even if you said she represents the Vatican, how many kings of the earth would you say still worry about what the Pope has to say?

wurwolf: Good point.

Lita: You know, considering this passage:

3 So the angel took me in the Spirit into the wilderness. There I saw a woman sitting on a scarlet beast that had seven heads and ten horns, and blasphemies against God were written all over it. 4 The woman wore purple and scarlet clothing and beautiful jewelry made of gold and precious gems and pearls. In her hand she held a gold goblet full of obscenities and the impurities of her immorality. 5 A mysterious name was written on her forehead: “Babylon the Great, Mother of All Prostitutes and Obscenities in the World.” 6 I could see that she was drunk—drunk with the blood of God’s holy people who were witnesses for Jesus. I stared at her in complete amazement.

You could make the argument that the Whore of Babylon represents the Internet. I'm not saying she is. I'm just saying that the argument could be made. Most of the filthiest things I know about I learned from the Internet.

wurwolf: I know I've certainly stared at some things I've seen on the Internet in complete amazement.

wurwolf: I've also gotten drunk on the Internet, so.... you may be right.

wurwolf: On the other hand, the Whore has a bitchin' ride. I think I could rule the world if I rode around on something like that.



wurwolf: I am so not surprised that Bob drives around in a boring black sedan.

Lita: Bob, Father Bruce asked if you could prove this. "Yeah. Jesus saw it." isn't proof.

Lita: Not unless you are able to get Jesus to physically manifest in that car and tell everybody there what went down.

wurwolf: He could claim that Jesus said any number of things.

Lita: And regularly does.

Lita: Besides. Even if you take what Bob's saying as absolutely true, seeing some bitch get born and die is not proof that the leaders of the world fear the Catholic Church, which is what I believe Father Bruce was asking about.



wurwolf is laughing at Nimrod's horn.

wurwolf: You know, it's bad enough that your name is Nimrod. Do you have to dress up like a rhinoceros, too?

Lita: Maybe Nimrod is wearing a Viking helmet sideways.

wurwolf: Nimrod's wife may be Semiramis, but this guy is full-on Ramis.

Lita: Is Bob really saying that Semiramis is actually The Virgin Mary?

wurwolf runs up to Nimrod and honks his horn.

wurwolf: Sorry, still laughing about Nimrod.

Lita: Because I don't know if Bob noticed this, but the Bible does mention Jesus being born to a virgin named Mary.

wurwolf: Where?! I demand you provide verses!

Lita: I'll do you one better and link you to another tract.

wurwolf: I love how Chick Publications actually tosses in a real Catholic prayer there where people are praying to Semiramis.

Lita: From what I understand, and realize that I'm coming from a non-Catholic background here, the cult of Mary sprang up because representations of Jesus in the early church were pretty scary.

Lita: (I wish you could see the closeup of the damned being sent to Hell, by the way; it's super badass)

Lita: Jesus was the big guy who helped his dad decide whether or not to send you to Hell. But Mary is a nice lady, right? And she's Jesus's mom. So it's a lot easier to pray to Mary and ask her to put a good word in for you with her angry son.



wurwolf: Bob's claim that Satan pushed the worship of Semiramis through all other female deities really smacks of misogyny to me.

Lita: I have heard the theory before that Mary became popular partly because Goddess worship had been so popular in the religions that Christianity was pushing out. Similar to how Christian holidays are often on the same days as pagan holidays. But that's not the same as what Bob's saying.

Lita: I think Father Bruce knows about Jesus dying and stuff. We can probably safely skip those frames.



Lita: Oh, gross!! The Christians are feeding the poor clothing made from your widows? No wonder you guys are pissed!!

wurwolf: It's the early AD version of Soylent Green.



wurwolf: Are you kidding me? "The fear of death was gone. Love was their weapon." Bob, you jackass, your weapon is the fear of death! Have you listened to yourself?

Lita: I can't think of a single moment where Bob's ever shown any love to anybody. Even his own wife. Mostly he ignores her while she putters around with the cooking.

wurwolf: This is the kind of stuff that makes me angry. People like Bob have no concept of a "weapon" as anything other than something with which to bludgeon someone.



Lita: I thought Satan was supposed to be the most attractive of God's angels.

Lita: I guess Bob has some funny ideas about what's attractive.

wurwolf: Bob has a lot of funny ideas.

wurwolf: I love the arrow. "This way to see how Satan pulled it off!"



wurwolf: It sounds like Bob is blaming the Catholic church for the persecution of the early church, but wasn't the early church Catholic? If I remember my religious history right, the Catholic church single-handedly carried the cause of Christ for centuries until the Protestants splintered off.

Lita: That's how I always heard it. Even the name "Protestant" comes from it being a protest of the Catholic church.

wurwolf: So it wasn't like the Protestants were the first church, and Satan was sitting around trying to think of a way to counter them and suddenly came up with the Catholic church.

wurwolf: I'm not saying I agree with Catholic theology, but give credit where credit is due, Bob.

wurwolf: Where on earth is he getting this history from? I grew up in one of the most fundy churches around and I've never heard that the "real" Christians fled to the mountains while the "phonies" stayed in Rome.



Lita: I've never read the Catholic bible. Is it really incredibly different than the Protestant versions? I know the 10 Commandments are different, and I can see how people could get cranky about that.

wurwolf: I've never read it either, and I didn't know there were different versions of the Ten Commandments.

Lita: I don't know what the difference is. It's just what I heard. I guess it would be easy to look up.

Time passes.

Lita: It is different. They took out the one about not having false idols and divided the one about coveting up into two separate commandments to cover the difference.

Lita: Wiki has an incredibly huge article that we need not bother with reading the entirety of, but there is a handy little chart here.

wurwolf: Except that the Catholics totally took out the graven images part. It's not like they incorporated it into another commandment. They just totally removed it.

Lita: True. And I'm sure the anti-Catholic conspiracists out there are happy to say that the Catholics did this on purpose so that they could happily worship the Pope, Mary, and assorted saints. I wonder why Bob didn't point this out? I'd think he'd be all over that.

wurwolf: You do have to wonder, though, why they did take it out.

Lita: Any Catholics in our reading audience care to enlighten us?

wurwolf: Knock yourselves out.

wurwolf: Okay, we're totally off on a tangent here. We should get back to the tract.

Lita: Ok.

wurwolf: I like how Bob isn't calling Damien "Father". Firstly, because any self-respecting Fundy would never call a priest "Father", and secondly, because for Bob it's a forgone conclusion that Damien won't be a priest after today.

Lita: I would probably call a priest "Father." Not so much for any deeply spiritual reason, but just because it's polite to call people by their title. The same way I might say "Pastor Bill," or "Doctor Smith," or "Asshole Bob."



Lita: Bob is totally getting off on calling Catholics whores. He's throwing out the big W every chance he gets.

wurwolf: I just counted eleven mentions of the word "Whore" in this tract.

Lita: Why were they the Dark Ages? Because a Catholic whore was in control. Thank you for that enlightenment, Bob.

wurwolf: "Vandals plundered, raped and destroyed Europe." Yeah, probably your ancestors, Bob. Since like half the people in the US are of Germanic descent: "There are over 60 million Americans of German ancestry in the United States."

Lita: Were the Vandals Catholic?

Lita: According to wiki: Most Vandal kings, except Hilderic, persecuted Catholics to a greater or lesser extent. Members of the clergy were exiled, monasteries were dissolved, and general pressure was used on non-conforming Catholics. Although Catholicism was rarely officially forbidden (the last months of Huneric's reign being an exception), they were forbidden from making converts among the Vandals, and life was generally difficult for the Catholic clergy, who were denied bishoprics.

Lita: So I guess you can't really blame Catholics for the Vandals terrorizing everybody, Bob.

Lita: Well... I guess he can...

wurwolf: Just like he can come up with all sorts of things that Jesus said and claim that it's proof.



Lita: Wow. Father Bruce ate too many cheese curds in the shadowrama a couple of panels ago. He's really packing on the weight.

wurwolf: He looks so beaten down. He looked more chipper when he was drunk and getting ready to jump off a bridge.

wurwolf: That's what a couple hours with Bob will do to you, I guess.



Lita: Is it only Catholics who take any notice of the Baby Jesus, or Christ Crucified, or who call themselves "little Christs," take communion, or who spread the notion that Christ is angry?

wurwolf: Yup. That's what separates them from us.

Lita: Take note, Bob. If you're trying to convince somebody that their religion sucks, do not include, on your list of douchbagerry that the other guys are committing, things that your own faith does as well.

wurwolf: "Hey Damien, Jesus hates your religion! What with you believing that He was born human and died on the cross and following His commands! You dummy!"



Lita: How many times has Bob told us that Jesus is pissed about one thing or another? Why is this such a terrible thing now that the Catholics are doing it?

Lita: Oh, wait. I just answered my own question, didn't I?

Lita: I like how the platform Mary is standing on has all the other goddess's names crossed out and hers stuck in on the bottom. The Catholics were just too damn lazy to to make her a new pedestal.

wurwolf: When I first saw that I thought maybe the artist was crossing out certain letters to spell something else, but then I realized that they were supposed to be crossing out the previous names.

Lita: Because if there's one thing we know about Catholics, it's that they don't like to put a lot of effort into the stuff they build for their faith.



wurwolf: Such sloppy work. I'll bet that only took them a few centuries.

Lita: I much prefer the various elementary school gymnasiums and cafeterias that my churches have been held in over the years. Such exquisite craftsmanship on the lines on the floor for the basketball courts.

wurwolf: You could consider them markings for liturgical dance, if your church went in for such fruity festivities.



wurwolf: Revelation 17 doesn't specifically say that Rome is the city on the seven hills. It doesn't even say that the seven hills are a city. I don't think.

Lita: Apparently the KKK are Catholic. Just so you know. Somebody should probably go tell them that. Let's send Bob.

wurwolf: Oh right. The KKK hate Catholics just as much as Bob does. I've been trying to figure out if that guy is KKK or the Knights Templar or something. I'd do some research but I feel like we've spent too much time on this tract as it is.



Lita: Hey, wait... is Bob saying that some of the Popes were corrupt and did nasty things under the cover of Popedom??? I HAVE NEVER HEARD THAT BEFORE!!111 WHY ALL THE LIES, CATHOLIC CHURCH???? WHY?????

wurwolf: Because it's been totally swept under the rug!

Lita: I love how Bob doesn't specifically say that Popes are gay, but then right in front of the picture of debauchery are two Popes kissing.

wurwolf: And we all know that Protestant churches have never had that sort of problem.

Lita: I'm sure this tract must have been made before Pope Benedict came to power, because I don't see how Bob would be able to resist calling him a Nazi.

wurwolf: You're right, it was.



wurwolf: As for the files in the Vatican, the worldwide Great Catholic Conspiracy is a fact, according to our friend Tork.

Lita: The Vatican has flies and flies on everybody.

wurwolf: I know the Catholic Conspiracy to be a fact as well. When we requested my husband's baptism certificate from the Philippines, it also mentioned the church in Queens NY where he was confirmed. We have no idea how they found that out.

wurwolf: Other than a worldwide Catholic Conspiracy, that is.



wurwolf: We don't get to see the priest's lumpy butt, thank goodness.

Lita: We know it's there, though. Just out of the frame.



wurwolf: Father Bruce is all too willing to begin calling his former religion The Whore.

Lita: Look, even now he's still trying to get other people to do his praying for him. You're a Protestant now, dude! You're allowed to pray your own self!

wurwolf: Old habits die hard, I guess.

wurwolf: Bob looks like he's wearing a Hugh Hefner smoking jacket in the panel where he's giving his final pitch.

Lita: Yes. And note that he's hunched over and his hands are suspiciously out of the frame.

Lita: Speaking of old habits.

wurwolf: And hard.

Lita: The look on his face just kind of caps it all off, doesn't it?

wurwolf: I hope Bob has a handkerchief to wipe the drool.

Lita: Yeah. Drool. Welcome to your new religion, Father Bruce!

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