Bob Williams was clearly a character for the ages in Chick Publications. The person doing the witnessing doesn't even get a name in this tract! It ultimately doesn't matter, though, because George is the one to keep your eye on here. So join us as we take a look at one man's descent into madness in The Choice.
wurwolf: "All through life we make choices." Yeah. Because combovers and ugly shirts just don't happen.
Lita: That's the CEO of the company behind that guy. If he doesn't hurry up and grab an eggroll he's gonna be so fired.
Lita: Why is this guy so freaked out anyway? The whole point of a buffet is you don't have to choose. You just grab some of everything that looks good. Is this some kind of evil Bizarro buffet where you can only grab one thing?
wurwolf: Really. It's not like he has to eat everything on his plate anyway.
Lita: Maybe he just knows from experience that if he blows it then intense gastrointestinal distress will be imminent.
wurwolf: These people have no concept of buffet etiquette. It's not a one-at-a-time kind of thing. You can go to the other side and serve yourself.
Lita: I bet they know that but they're all super passive-agressive and prefer to stand there and wait and glare at him and make a big show of how he's putting them out, but they're not saying anything.
wurwolf: Is the grumpy CEO sitting down to eat with indecisive guy?
Lita: Nah. The CEO doesn't wear glasses.
wurwolf: Wait... is this guy saying that George is going to die eating the buffet food? Has he been reading restaurant reviews?
Lita: "You're gonna say I have to choose between God and the devil, right?" "WRONG!"
Lita: "Actually I was referring to your choice in life insurance. Can you be sure that your family will be provided for when you die? Will they be able to pay your funeral expenses? Well, let me tell you about this great plan from Colonial Pen. You cannot be turned down..."
wurwolf: He certainly looks the part.
Lita: You kind of get the idea of what it's like to have lunch with our bald friend here, considering George is fully expecting this whole lunch thing is just a flimsy cover for a witnessing opportunity. George must be really hungry.
Lita: Hungry for the Bread of Life!
wurwolf: Hey-o!
Lita: Hey! It's Fang! And he's sniffing a fire hydrant! Thanks for the pee reference, Chick Tracts!
wurwolf: Bob is gone, but we still have our Fang.
Lita: Fang has no problem with the idea of peeing in a Christian comic.
wurwolf: Neither do I. Why would that be any worse than the usual gore we're treated to?
Lita: So... MOST people will be in Hell because they agreed to eat with a guy they knew would just witness to them the whole time?
wurwolf: Talk about bad choices.
Lita: I guess that meal would be pretty hellish.
wurwolf: George must live in a cave. I'll bet he's going to be surprised to hear that Jesus is the Son of God.
Lita: I always find it interesting in these tracts how the stumbling block to faith is never that the person being witnessed to doesn't believe in God or doesn't believe the Christian theology. It's that they've never heard it before. They always fully accept everything they hear once they're told.
wurwolf: It's true. Whether the person being witnessed to holds very strong beliefs or doesn't believe in anything at all, they're always perfectly willing to get on board the Jesus train once the person witnessing mentions His name. I've always thought that writing a tract this way would be counterproductive to real-life witnessing.
wurwolf: It's counterproductive for Christians doing the witnessing because real-life witnessing just isn't that easy, and it's wrong for those hearing the gospel message because it probably doesn't answer any of their questions to have the person being witnessed to in the tract say, "Jesus? Okay! Where do I sign up!"
Lita: It certainly doesn't respond to the whole "There is no God, we evolved to be here" issue, or even the whole, "Jesus is not the son of God. I believe in this other god over here" issue.
Lita: Even in the tracts where people were converted from other religions, they weren't really given a reason why Christianity is more true than whatever they believed in before. They were just told it was and fully believed it.
wurwolf: Exactly. I wonder how many people have really been converted as a result of these tracts, and what their mental capacity is.
wurwolf: But then I get distracted by something shiny, and I don't care any more.
Lita: Oh, for Heaven's sake. "NO I'm not going to tell you your choice is between God and the Devil! What are you, an idiot? I'll tell you what it's really all about! You see, there's God, right? And then there's the Devil. Let me tell you a little about them both so you can make the right choice..."
wurwolf: I sure hope that old dude brought along the flannelgraphs to spell it out for George. He seems to need it.
wurwolf: Look how tiny that old dude's mouth is. How does he fit any food in there?
Lita: It bugs me how these tracts insist on drawing Satan as an ugly horned demon. The Bible itself says that Lucifer was a good looking kinda guy. And with Chick Tracts being so rigid about taking the Bible completely literally, it's interesting how happy they are to take liberties with certain things.
wurwolf: He's Satan... IN SPACE!
Lita: And really, it makes more sense to have Satan be attractive. Few people would sin if they didn't think there was something they could get out of it. The whole point is that it looks pretty good, even though it isn't really. The embodiment of that evil should personify that.
Lita: I guess at the very least they made him look like a normal angel before he became Satan. But I don't remember reading in the Bible where it said God uglified Lucifer when he was cast out.
Lita: Those teeth. Eating has got to be an unpleasant experience for him.
wurwolf: Poor Satan. You're making me feel sorry for him.
Lita: Nothing like a Chick Tract for making you feel sympathy for the Devil.
Lita: Huh. Apparently "ate of the Forbidden Fruit" is actually secret Bible code for "rolled around in piles of dog shit." Take that, all you pervert Catholics who wanted to make it a sexual thing!
wurwolf: So because Adam and Eve rolled around in piles of dog shit, that has made children through the ages dump bowls of food on their own heads? I'm sorry, I'm not following the reasoning here.
Lita: I don't know, but I like how they made sure it was a toddler dumping the food on his head so that once again they can show that God doesn't even make allowances for little kids who don't know any better. The age of accountability is for sissies!
Lita: If that baby died right now he would ROAST IN HELL. As well he should. The filthy little sinner.
wurwolf: Now I'm starving for some roasted baby.
wurwolf: Look at those poor people! They're sliding right across the Ice Rink of Damnation!
wurwolf: Actually, that looks like me when I'm trying to ice skate. Heh.
Lita: I guess they do have snowballs in Hell
wurwolf: You know, Chick Publications does a really lousy job of making Hell seem hellish, what with the skating parties and balloons and slides and nudity.
Lita: Wow, gross. Look at Satan's fingernails. I would not be smiling like that if he stuck those fingers in my ears.
wurwolf: At least you'd know you were getting a good ear-cleaning.
wurwolf: Frankly, I think that chick made a bad choice in earrings.
Lita: You don't like her ear chandeliers?
wurwolf: They're a little bit too party girl for me.
Lita: They look like tiny swinging axes to me. I thought she must be a fan of Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum"
Lita: "One of his FAVORITE weapons is religion. He uses it to keep billions in bondage." "Hey! Wow! You're right! I'll be sure to steer clear of that, then. Bye!"
Lita: Like many people I have been taught about evolution in my public school, but never once was it taught by pointing to a picture of a Gorilla with the word "Daddy" under it.
Lita: Typical straw man argument, though. They don't have much they can say about how evolution is actually taught (at least not in such a brief format), so they make up a blatantly ridiculous argument and say the other guy said it so they can defeat THAT.
wurwolf: Er.... those "young people" aren't particularly young.
Lita: And yet, those same "young people" could be the very saints that might encourage this young man to drop out of that evil school he's going to! The tract shouldn't be so harsh to them.
wurwolf: Yeah, really. Is the tract saying that peer pressure is keeping kids from accepting the theory of evolution?
Lita: His friends would probably encourage him to go smoke some crack or maybe rob a liquor stor or something and not think so hard about where we all came from.
wurwolf: That's kind of a weird tack for a fundamentalist Christian tract to take.
Lita: Great of the artist to give the money-chasing guy a big huge nose. What a Jew.
wurwolf: He can just smell the money!
wurwolf: Poor guy with the beer can on his head. I've been there, fella.
Lita: I do agree that Football Season was sent to us by Satan, though.
wurwolf: I'd be willing to go so far as to say that all sports are straight from hell.
Lita: Professional sports, anyway. No reason not to go outside with your friends to throw a frisbee around once in a while.
Lita: It is a little unsetting to find some common ground with a Chick Tract, though.
wurwolf: Yeah... you're right.
Lita: Come on, Chick Tracts! Say something crazy again so we can get back to more familiar territory!
wurwolf: So did Jesus come to earth on an arrow?
wurwolf: It's like the Father, Jesus and the Holy Ghost were playing a life-size game of Chutes & Ladders, and Jesus lost and slid straight down to earth.
Lita: It's a map of His journey. I bet Indiana Jones music played while Jesus came down.
Lita: And how incredibly awesome would it be if that were true?
wurwolf: Jesus is just that cool.
Lita scrolls down past the crucifixion scene because, SEEN IT.
wurwolf: We're getting so jaded about the crucifixion. Stupid Chick tracts.
Lita: The look on George's face as he tries to process this information is hilarious.
wurwolf: You can imagine him sitting there for several minutes with that expression.
Lita: "Can't... understand.... concentration... painful.... must... think.... George.... think!!"
wurwolf: *FART*
Lita: Those who believe that Jesus died for their sins and trust Him as their Saviour are born into God's family. Others wear filthy clothes and carry bedpans around with sour expressions on their faces.
wurwolf: What? Oh... that's a busboy and we're back in the restaurant. I was like, What does this guy have to do with trusting Jesus?
Lita: Still others join the mob and creepily peer in from the edges of frames of religious comics.
wurwolf: Others are personally escorted through the Space Mountain ride at Disney World.
Lita: That angel is totally using the Superman pose while flying. I love that. If I could fly I'd totally fly in Superman formation.
wurwolf: Totally.
wurwolf: I have to wonder what the point of drawing George and the old dude so close together. George looks like he's going to lick the old dude's ear.
Lita: "Well, as long as I'm going to Hell, we may as well have a little fun here on Earth..."
wurwolf: But not in a diner, guys. Jiminy crickets.
Lita: Yikes! A troll has come down from the mountains and is roaming the town trying to pass as human!
wurwolf: I think that lady just swallowed her teeth when she saw the bill.
Lita: Even now she's planning to cheat her waitress out of a decent tip.
Lita: Yeah, buffets don't have waitresses, but they don't bring a bill to your table when you're done either. You pay upfront.
wurwolf: Well, this buffet has a Mennonite waitress.
wurwolf: Hearing that you don't choose between God and the devil has really thrown George into a panic. His whole world is falling apart.
Lita: Or maybe he looked out the window and saw that Badcat made it with a squirrel and produced some horrible mutant cat/squirrel/pig baby.
wurwolf: I know, I was going to say that was Badcat but then I got a better look at it. Ick!
Lita: Wow. That face. This is a really frightening depiction of a man's descent into madness.
Lita: All that's missing is the line of drool running from that slack jaw.
wurwolf: That's why these tracts are comics. You could probably draw that in yourself.
wurwolf: The woman Jesus is preaching to is wearing deely-boppers.
Lita: She's gonna catch a party in New Orleans as soon as the sermon is over.
wurwolf: She's one step away from a macaroni hat.
wurwolf: Yeah, George is upset and outraged, but that hasn't stopped him from putting his fork down.
Lita: Ok. So it's not a choice between God and the Devil. It's a choice between Choosing God or staying with the Devil. Thanks for the ridiculous argument in semantics, bald dude.
Lita: George finds it irritating that the waitress is passing the check right in front of his nose. She really should respect his personal space. Just put the bill on the edge of the table!
wurwolf: Well, can you blame him? She's practically slapping him in the face with it.
Lita: True. But on the other hand you'd think he'd be thankful for the interruption in this conversation.
wurwolf: The King James Version: The only version heavy enough to squish the devil.
Lita: Wow, the Devil is tall. Or maybe the Bible smooshed him out a little bit.
Lita: All that dialogue is dribbling right out of George's mouth.
wurwolf: That's the craziest series of word balloons I've ever seen.
wurwolf: Is the old dude a robot? His expression hasn't really changed at all.
wurwolf: George has gone from indecisive to smug to stark raving mad, but the old dude looks like he drank a bottle of Cherry Nyquil before heading out to the buffet.
Lita: Poor George. We know his salvation won't take because he couldn't be bothered to get out of his seat and roll around on the floor during his prayer.
wurwolf: Frankly, I think his salvation won't take because Bob Williams wasn't handling the conversion.
Lita: I think his salvation won't take because he's a clearly insane person.
Lita: Seems to me George would be pretty easy to convert. Tomorrow he'll be shaving his head and marrying a group of goats in homage to the Great and Powerful Messiah George Roberts.
(All the comic panels are copyright Chick Publications 1999 and the images were used according to Fair Use laws in the US.)
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wurwolf: "All through life we make choices." Yeah. Because combovers and ugly shirts just don't happen.
Lita: That's the CEO of the company behind that guy. If he doesn't hurry up and grab an eggroll he's gonna be so fired.
Lita: Why is this guy so freaked out anyway? The whole point of a buffet is you don't have to choose. You just grab some of everything that looks good. Is this some kind of evil Bizarro buffet where you can only grab one thing?
wurwolf: Really. It's not like he has to eat everything on his plate anyway.
Lita: Maybe he just knows from experience that if he blows it then intense gastrointestinal distress will be imminent.
wurwolf: These people have no concept of buffet etiquette. It's not a one-at-a-time kind of thing. You can go to the other side and serve yourself.
Lita: I bet they know that but they're all super passive-agressive and prefer to stand there and wait and glare at him and make a big show of how he's putting them out, but they're not saying anything.
wurwolf: Is the grumpy CEO sitting down to eat with indecisive guy?
Lita: Nah. The CEO doesn't wear glasses.
wurwolf: Wait... is this guy saying that George is going to die eating the buffet food? Has he been reading restaurant reviews?
Lita: "You're gonna say I have to choose between God and the devil, right?" "WRONG!"
Lita: "Actually I was referring to your choice in life insurance. Can you be sure that your family will be provided for when you die? Will they be able to pay your funeral expenses? Well, let me tell you about this great plan from Colonial Pen. You cannot be turned down..."
wurwolf: He certainly looks the part.
Lita: You kind of get the idea of what it's like to have lunch with our bald friend here, considering George is fully expecting this whole lunch thing is just a flimsy cover for a witnessing opportunity. George must be really hungry.
Lita: Hungry for the Bread of Life!
wurwolf: Hey-o!
Lita: Hey! It's Fang! And he's sniffing a fire hydrant! Thanks for the pee reference, Chick Tracts!
wurwolf: Bob is gone, but we still have our Fang.
Lita: Fang has no problem with the idea of peeing in a Christian comic.
wurwolf: Neither do I. Why would that be any worse than the usual gore we're treated to?
Lita: So... MOST people will be in Hell because they agreed to eat with a guy they knew would just witness to them the whole time?
wurwolf: Talk about bad choices.
Lita: I guess that meal would be pretty hellish.
wurwolf: George must live in a cave. I'll bet he's going to be surprised to hear that Jesus is the Son of God.
Lita: I always find it interesting in these tracts how the stumbling block to faith is never that the person being witnessed to doesn't believe in God or doesn't believe the Christian theology. It's that they've never heard it before. They always fully accept everything they hear once they're told.
wurwolf: It's true. Whether the person being witnessed to holds very strong beliefs or doesn't believe in anything at all, they're always perfectly willing to get on board the Jesus train once the person witnessing mentions His name. I've always thought that writing a tract this way would be counterproductive to real-life witnessing.
wurwolf: It's counterproductive for Christians doing the witnessing because real-life witnessing just isn't that easy, and it's wrong for those hearing the gospel message because it probably doesn't answer any of their questions to have the person being witnessed to in the tract say, "Jesus? Okay! Where do I sign up!"
Lita: It certainly doesn't respond to the whole "There is no God, we evolved to be here" issue, or even the whole, "Jesus is not the son of God. I believe in this other god over here" issue.
Lita: Even in the tracts where people were converted from other religions, they weren't really given a reason why Christianity is more true than whatever they believed in before. They were just told it was and fully believed it.
wurwolf: Exactly. I wonder how many people have really been converted as a result of these tracts, and what their mental capacity is.
wurwolf: But then I get distracted by something shiny, and I don't care any more.
Lita: Oh, for Heaven's sake. "NO I'm not going to tell you your choice is between God and the Devil! What are you, an idiot? I'll tell you what it's really all about! You see, there's God, right? And then there's the Devil. Let me tell you a little about them both so you can make the right choice..."
wurwolf: I sure hope that old dude brought along the flannelgraphs to spell it out for George. He seems to need it.
wurwolf: Look how tiny that old dude's mouth is. How does he fit any food in there?
Lita: It bugs me how these tracts insist on drawing Satan as an ugly horned demon. The Bible itself says that Lucifer was a good looking kinda guy. And with Chick Tracts being so rigid about taking the Bible completely literally, it's interesting how happy they are to take liberties with certain things.
wurwolf: He's Satan... IN SPACE!
Lita: And really, it makes more sense to have Satan be attractive. Few people would sin if they didn't think there was something they could get out of it. The whole point is that it looks pretty good, even though it isn't really. The embodiment of that evil should personify that.
Lita: I guess at the very least they made him look like a normal angel before he became Satan. But I don't remember reading in the Bible where it said God uglified Lucifer when he was cast out.
Lita: Those teeth. Eating has got to be an unpleasant experience for him.
wurwolf: Poor Satan. You're making me feel sorry for him.
Lita: Nothing like a Chick Tract for making you feel sympathy for the Devil.
Lita: Huh. Apparently "ate of the Forbidden Fruit" is actually secret Bible code for "rolled around in piles of dog shit." Take that, all you pervert Catholics who wanted to make it a sexual thing!
wurwolf: So because Adam and Eve rolled around in piles of dog shit, that has made children through the ages dump bowls of food on their own heads? I'm sorry, I'm not following the reasoning here.
Lita: I don't know, but I like how they made sure it was a toddler dumping the food on his head so that once again they can show that God doesn't even make allowances for little kids who don't know any better. The age of accountability is for sissies!
Lita: If that baby died right now he would ROAST IN HELL. As well he should. The filthy little sinner.
wurwolf: Now I'm starving for some roasted baby.
wurwolf: Look at those poor people! They're sliding right across the Ice Rink of Damnation!
wurwolf: Actually, that looks like me when I'm trying to ice skate. Heh.
Lita: I guess they do have snowballs in Hell
wurwolf: You know, Chick Publications does a really lousy job of making Hell seem hellish, what with the skating parties and balloons and slides and nudity.
Lita: Wow, gross. Look at Satan's fingernails. I would not be smiling like that if he stuck those fingers in my ears.
wurwolf: At least you'd know you were getting a good ear-cleaning.
wurwolf: Frankly, I think that chick made a bad choice in earrings.
Lita: You don't like her ear chandeliers?
wurwolf: They're a little bit too party girl for me.
Lita: They look like tiny swinging axes to me. I thought she must be a fan of Poe's "The Pit and the Pendulum"
Lita: "One of his FAVORITE weapons is religion. He uses it to keep billions in bondage." "Hey! Wow! You're right! I'll be sure to steer clear of that, then. Bye!"
Lita: Like many people I have been taught about evolution in my public school, but never once was it taught by pointing to a picture of a Gorilla with the word "Daddy" under it.
Lita: Typical straw man argument, though. They don't have much they can say about how evolution is actually taught (at least not in such a brief format), so they make up a blatantly ridiculous argument and say the other guy said it so they can defeat THAT.
wurwolf: Er.... those "young people" aren't particularly young.
Lita: And yet, those same "young people" could be the very saints that might encourage this young man to drop out of that evil school he's going to! The tract shouldn't be so harsh to them.
wurwolf: Yeah, really. Is the tract saying that peer pressure is keeping kids from accepting the theory of evolution?
Lita: His friends would probably encourage him to go smoke some crack or maybe rob a liquor stor or something and not think so hard about where we all came from.
wurwolf: That's kind of a weird tack for a fundamentalist Christian tract to take.
Lita: Great of the artist to give the money-chasing guy a big huge nose. What a Jew.
wurwolf: He can just smell the money!
wurwolf: Poor guy with the beer can on his head. I've been there, fella.
Lita: I do agree that Football Season was sent to us by Satan, though.
wurwolf: I'd be willing to go so far as to say that all sports are straight from hell.
Lita: Professional sports, anyway. No reason not to go outside with your friends to throw a frisbee around once in a while.
Lita: It is a little unsetting to find some common ground with a Chick Tract, though.
wurwolf: Yeah... you're right.
Lita: Come on, Chick Tracts! Say something crazy again so we can get back to more familiar territory!
wurwolf: So did Jesus come to earth on an arrow?
wurwolf: It's like the Father, Jesus and the Holy Ghost were playing a life-size game of Chutes & Ladders, and Jesus lost and slid straight down to earth.
Lita: It's a map of His journey. I bet Indiana Jones music played while Jesus came down.
Lita: And how incredibly awesome would it be if that were true?
wurwolf: Jesus is just that cool.
Lita scrolls down past the crucifixion scene because, SEEN IT.
wurwolf: We're getting so jaded about the crucifixion. Stupid Chick tracts.
Lita: The look on George's face as he tries to process this information is hilarious.
wurwolf: You can imagine him sitting there for several minutes with that expression.
Lita: "Can't... understand.... concentration... painful.... must... think.... George.... think!!"
wurwolf: *FART*
Lita: Those who believe that Jesus died for their sins and trust Him as their Saviour are born into God's family. Others wear filthy clothes and carry bedpans around with sour expressions on their faces.
wurwolf: What? Oh... that's a busboy and we're back in the restaurant. I was like, What does this guy have to do with trusting Jesus?
Lita: Still others join the mob and creepily peer in from the edges of frames of religious comics.
wurwolf: Others are personally escorted through the Space Mountain ride at Disney World.
Lita: That angel is totally using the Superman pose while flying. I love that. If I could fly I'd totally fly in Superman formation.
wurwolf: Totally.
wurwolf: I have to wonder what the point of drawing George and the old dude so close together. George looks like he's going to lick the old dude's ear.
Lita: "Well, as long as I'm going to Hell, we may as well have a little fun here on Earth..."
wurwolf: But not in a diner, guys. Jiminy crickets.
Lita: Yikes! A troll has come down from the mountains and is roaming the town trying to pass as human!
wurwolf: I think that lady just swallowed her teeth when she saw the bill.
Lita: Even now she's planning to cheat her waitress out of a decent tip.
Lita: Yeah, buffets don't have waitresses, but they don't bring a bill to your table when you're done either. You pay upfront.
wurwolf: Well, this buffet has a Mennonite waitress.
wurwolf: Hearing that you don't choose between God and the devil has really thrown George into a panic. His whole world is falling apart.
Lita: Or maybe he looked out the window and saw that Badcat made it with a squirrel and produced some horrible mutant cat/squirrel/pig baby.
wurwolf: I know, I was going to say that was Badcat but then I got a better look at it. Ick!
Lita: Wow. That face. This is a really frightening depiction of a man's descent into madness.
Lita: All that's missing is the line of drool running from that slack jaw.
wurwolf: That's why these tracts are comics. You could probably draw that in yourself.
wurwolf: The woman Jesus is preaching to is wearing deely-boppers.
Lita: She's gonna catch a party in New Orleans as soon as the sermon is over.
wurwolf: She's one step away from a macaroni hat.
wurwolf: Yeah, George is upset and outraged, but that hasn't stopped him from putting his fork down.
Lita: Ok. So it's not a choice between God and the Devil. It's a choice between Choosing God or staying with the Devil. Thanks for the ridiculous argument in semantics, bald dude.
Lita: George finds it irritating that the waitress is passing the check right in front of his nose. She really should respect his personal space. Just put the bill on the edge of the table!
wurwolf: Well, can you blame him? She's practically slapping him in the face with it.
Lita: True. But on the other hand you'd think he'd be thankful for the interruption in this conversation.
wurwolf: The King James Version: The only version heavy enough to squish the devil.
Lita: Wow, the Devil is tall. Or maybe the Bible smooshed him out a little bit.
Lita: All that dialogue is dribbling right out of George's mouth.
wurwolf: That's the craziest series of word balloons I've ever seen.
wurwolf: Is the old dude a robot? His expression hasn't really changed at all.
wurwolf: George has gone from indecisive to smug to stark raving mad, but the old dude looks like he drank a bottle of Cherry Nyquil before heading out to the buffet.
Lita: Poor George. We know his salvation won't take because he couldn't be bothered to get out of his seat and roll around on the floor during his prayer.
wurwolf: Frankly, I think his salvation won't take because Bob Williams wasn't handling the conversion.
Lita: I think his salvation won't take because he's a clearly insane person.
Lita: Seems to me George would be pretty easy to convert. Tomorrow he'll be shaving his head and marrying a group of goats in homage to the Great and Powerful Messiah George Roberts.
(All the comic panels are copyright Chick Publications 1999 and the images were used according to Fair Use laws in the US.)
