Do you think it was a smiting?

As many people would have noticed immediately if anybody read this blog, we've been having technical difficulties lately. For whatever reason, Blogger borked Javascript and then our little "Read More" links that collapse and uncollapse the individual blog entries refused to open anymore rendering most of the blog unreadable.

I have some finals coming up this week that I do not want to study for, so this became the ideal time to hunt for a solution that doesn't require Javascript. I found one, and now the problem seems to be fixed. Click on the roasting Sodomites above for the link.

Like last time, not every post was willing to go along with the new changes (Last Judge, appropriately, was the most willful) so if you go through the archives you'll see a lot of posts aren't collapsed. I'm sure I don't know why they don't work, but at least you can read them at all. That's the main thing, right?

You may notice that this version of the collapsible post opens the full post in a new page instead of opening it right there on the page you're viewing like the old one did. This isn't ideal, but it's what we'll have to live with at least for now. As always, if you find any posts that are just plain broken, let us know, won't you?

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Li'l Susy

I have to admit, this may be the first tract that nearly broke me. Divorce is a subject that hits close to home and I had a hard time with the tract at first. Lucky for me, the anti-single parent sentiment expressed early on in this tract gave way to a skeevy pedo vibe. With Lita's help I was able to rise to the occasion of making fun of a tract with a character slightly cuter but no less creepy than Bob Williams. Ladies and gentlemen, we introduce to you....



Lita: I wish that cover picture were larger. I can't see what she's doing with all those birds and bees.

wurwolf: I was thinking the same thing. It does look, however, like she's a fun-loving and happy-go-lucky scamp, the kind of easygoing live and let live girl who loves all people no matter what their color or creed.

Lita: Not at all the kind of horrible little creep that readers will eventually discover her to be.

wurwolf: Not at all.



wurwolf: I'm trying to distract myself from the offensiveness to come by looking at the picture. Is the fire hydrant off the sidewalk?

Lita: Perhaps, but if you look closely it appears she may be sitting on stairs.

Lita: Stairs that lead to a brick wall, like all well-thought out staircases do.

wurwolf: I think that's a stretch. Like you said, she's got a wall behind her.

Lita: I think the hydrant is on the sidewalk and she's sitting on the first step of a two-step staircase that leads to a wall.

wurwolf: I think you're making excuses for shitty artwork.

Lita: It's a metaphor for her life as a child without a mother.

wurwolf: Oh wow, that's good. Well, if that's the case, well played, Chick tracts.

Lita: My poor English major is going to waste.

wurwolf: Clearly Lil Susy doesn't have a mom. What mother would dress her kid in a t-shirt and short pants when it's so chilly out that the other girl needs a turtleneck and heavy stockings?

wurwolf: I'm assuming that between the first and second frame the two girls got up and walked from the city to the country.

Lita: Maybe there's a park on Chipmunk Face's side of the street.

wurwolf: If that's the case then the tree is awfully close to the brick wall.

wurwolf: Maybe the brick wall is a fence of some sort.

wurwolf: With a fire hydrant on the inside of the wall....

wurwolf: My head hurts.

Lita: Maybe it's the same poor city planning that led to the brick wall behind the stairs.

wurwolf: Possibly

Lita: Maybe the wall is to keep the gays out of the park. You know you can't trust the gays around little children.



wurwolf: That's right, Lil Susy. There's no way parents who are divorced love their children. Clearly your friend needs to get that through her thick skull, feelings be damned.

Lita: "No, Cathy, my mom wasn't like yours. Mine loved me."

wurwolf: Lil Susy's mom loved her so much she died.

Lita: Lil Susy is pretty cheerful about the fact that she killed her own mom.

wurwolf: She's probably cheerful because her mom loved her to death. Unlike Cathy, who is a waste of a human life because her parents are divorced.

Lita: If only Cathy had loved her mother enough to kill her like Susy did. Then she wouldn't have this problem.

wurwolf: It's her own fault, really.



wurwolf: Lil Susy's got so much love, she offed her father, too.

Lita: "My heart... pills.... Susy.... For the love of God... give me my... heart pills...." "No, Father. It is for the love of God that I cannot. You're going to go see Jesus now."

wurwolf: Alright, so now Susy's sitting on a wall, but there are no bricks.

wurwolf: It's like the artist started with a brick wall and then decided that drawing all those bricks was too much trouble.

Lita: Asslan must have warped them to Tardia. You can see the mysterious hydrant in the wilderness right there.

wurwolf: Any minute now Mr. Dumnus will show up.



Lita: Poor kid. Look at her screwing up her little chipmunk face. I wonder where Daddy is? Probably screwing some slut, no doubt.

Lita: Probably some dippy schoolteacher.

wurwolf: Most likely. Or the babysitter.

wurwolf: Cathy is so angry about her father remarrying that she's turning into a werewolf.

Lita: Man. It must be rough to only have your mom around, especially since, as Susy pointed out, said mother doesn't love you.

Lita: "If only your mom had loved you more, she'd have been able to keep your dad around."

wurwolf: Too bad Cathy is so unlovable.

Lita: Wuh-oh. I think Susy's eyeball has burst and is dripping out of her skull.

wurwolf: She looks like she's looking at a tick on the back of Cathy's head.

Lita: I do sympathize with kids who have a parent that leaves and then never wants to contact them again. Marriages break up for various reasons and it's sad, but however you may feel about your former spouse, refusing to have anything to do with your child is pretty indefensible. Unless... Maybe if the child is a psycho. Like that Bad Seed kid. I wonder if Cathy's a Bad Seed.

Lita: We know Li'l Susy is. Maybe that's why she's befriending Cathy. There can be only one!

wurwolf: It's a duel to the death! And Susy's had experience!

Lita: They'll end up fighting in some big abandoned warehouse or something.

wurwolf: It will be an epic battle, the tale of which will be handed down through the ages.

Lita: And Susy will swing her sword and Cathy will think she missed and smile... But then a gap will appear in her neck and her head will fall off.

Lita: And then all these sparks will shoot out of her neckhole and Susy will absorb all her powers, as well as the wisdom of the ages.

Lita: And we will all be lost.

wurwolf: You watch too much tv.

Lita: That was a movie. A very awesome movie.



wurwolf: This overhead shot of a bird feeding and caring for their young brought to you by Focus on the Family.

Lita: Check Cathy's teeth. It's like she knows a fight is coming. She's got her mouth guard in.

wurwolf: Smart girl.

wurwolf: Her face changes more than anyone else I've ever seen in these tracts, though.



Lita: Gah!!! She's turning into Chuckie!!! I think we're on to something with this Bad Seed theory!

wurwolf: I can't believe Cathy doesn't say, "Are you fucking insane?" when Susy proposes her daddy can be Cathy's daddy, too.

wurwolf: Unless they're in a polygamist cult. Then it makes total sense.

Lita: They better hurry up with the big reveal that New Daddy is Jesus, because the more they drag it out the more it's starting to sound like Li'l Susy's recruiting for a child prostitution ring.

wurwolf: Which really, isn't above Chick publications.

Lita: "Big Daddy says your income is slipping, Cathy. You're gonna have to lose those teeth."

Lita: I can't even begin to describe the face Cathy's making in this second panel. I want to compare her to some cartoon character, but I can't place it.

wurwolf: Like something out of Bedknobs & Broomsticks.

wurwolf: It occurs to me that we can't see Susy's face as she's talking about her "new father". I wonder if that's so we can't see the evil glint in her eyes.



Lita: Grandpa showed her how to get a new father? I know what she's going for, but my goodness does that sound sinister.

wurwolf: It does sound sinister, along the order of The Stepford Wives. Like Grandpa showed her how to build an animatronic father in the basement.

Lita: I was thinking more along like "Hey, Li'l Susy, this is Uncle Ray. He's moving in with us now. You can look at him like a new father."

wurwolf: Ha, like Uncle Ray is Grandpa's new lover.

Lita: Exactly

wurwolf: Finally! Cathy is now questioning Susy's sanity and motives.

Lita: Cathy doesn't want Susy's great grandpa to be her daddy.

wurwolf: Look at the expression of innocence on Susy's face. "But there's only one way you can meet him...."

wurwolf: BY DYING!!!!! MWAHAHAHAHA!

Lita: "...Put this gun in your mouth."

Lita: Heh! Li'l Susy's old Daddy also lives up in heaven. She's awash with dead dads!

wurwolf: It's a Daddy party up there.

wurwolf: Cathy, like everyone in Chick tracts, is stunned to hear that God did something for her. I guess I can excuse that, she's pretty young.

Lita: And she doesn't have any parents around who care enough to give her the "love gift" spiel.

Lita: Poor thing's really going to be in the woods when she discovers boys.

Lita: That'll be in about five minutes once Li'l Susy gets her roped into Big Daddy's family business.



wurwolf: Gross. How does Lil Susy know what a virgin is?

Lita: I'm telling you. Something isn't on the up and up with her and her grandpa and this Daddy thing.

wurwolf: I agree. I am getting the strangest sex vibe from this whole Lil Susy/new Daddy thing.

wurwolf: Seriously, this tract is hurting my heart. "God was inside the little boy." I mean, I know. I know about Jesus being both fully God and man, but.... blurgh...

Lita: Yeah. That along with a lot of the dialogue in this tract can be classified as technically correct... but why did they use this phrasing that makes it sound so sexual? Especially in a tract about little girls!

wurwolf: Perhaps because it's a tract about little girls. Yick.



Lita: What is sin, Cathy? You don't know what sin is? Oh, you will know.

Lita: I'm skipping around because we've read this song and dance before, but look at this here where Susy explains what sin is. It's the naughty things that people do? Naughty?

Lita: Yeah, "naughty" is a way to say "bad" to little kids, but come on. It's taken such a sexualized connotation in recent decades.

wurwolf: You're right. It's gross.

Lita: "Your dad ran off with some slut. He's so... naughty."

wurwolf: "She was a very naughty slut."

Lita: Take note, divorced people who remarried... Li'l Susy is sick of your shit and she is coming to get you.

wurwolf: She took out her mother, she took out her father... and you're next.

Lita: That face will be the last thing you see before you die.

wurwolf: Imagine lying in your bed at night with that looming over you in the dark, butcher knife in hand.

Lita: She doesn't need a knife. I fully believe she could just tear your throat out with her teeth.



wurwolf: If Susy's trying to sell this new daddy thing to Cathy, she's making the new daddy sound like a dick.

wurwolf: "You like to lie? Then I guess you're not good enough for the new daddy...."

Lita: "I lie a lot... Like all that business I told you about my dad leaving for some whore? I totally made all that up. Welp, I better get back to my happy home. Goodbye, you crazy orphan!"

wurwolf: Cathy shifts into McCauley Culkin mode.

Lita: Blah blah blah, overly graphic for children crucifixion story.



Lita: Cathy is Chuckying again.

wurwolf: She's really taking this story to heart.

wurwolf: Cathy, Susy's nuts. Don't you realize that by now?

Lita: "Nobody does that to my New Daddy!"

wurwolf: I gotta say, though, kudos on the teeth. Teeth are really hard to draw.

Lita: As evidenced by the whole rest of this tract.

Lita: She's gritting those teeth into fine powder. "What?" she growls, "This better be good or I'm going to go dig up those assholes and finish the job myself" remains unsaid.

wurwolf: "But then something happened three days later that made the devil want to faint!" She makes it sound like the devil got the vapors when Jesus rose from the dead.

wurwolf: "Oh I do declare. Abaddon dear, could you please get my smelling salts?"

Lita: Aaaaaaand.... more boring witnessing



wurwolf: I love the posture in this frame. Susy is sitting and Cathy is lying on the ground looking up at her.

wurwolf: Makes Susy look like a giant.

Lita: Their faces are kind of terrifying me.



wurwolf: You know what's terrifying me? Cathy on her hands and knees. Please stop, Cathy.

Lita: Just practicing for her new life once Susy gets her home.

wurwolf: Well, Chick does love to have people stick their butts in the air when they're about to undergo conversion.



Lita: Oh, hey! There's the brick wall again. They found their way out of the magical land of Tardia.

Lita: "You're in God's family now. And you better not disappoint the family, you know what I'm sayin'?"



Lita: Wow. The eyes in this panel. Don't look at your new sister's tits, Cathy. She's eight and she doesn't have any.

wurwolf: Everything in this panel. I have never seen two more skeevy kids, and we've covered a lot of creepy kids in these tracts.

Lita: There is no bigger creep than Li'l Susy. Except maybe Bob Williams.

Lita: Credit where it's due, though, I like that drawing of the Kingdom of Heaven next door. I'm thinking they woke up the Soul Story artist to do that.

wurwolf: If you look really close you can see Susy's parents giving her the finger.

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