Holeee Cow

Evil Eyes

2009-06-25T16:51:00.012-04:00

Arrrrrrrrrrrriba!!! Hola muchachos! Today we take a run for the border and learn what those loco Catholics are up to this time in...

Lita: I know we're supposed to think that rooster is scared because somebody is glaring at him, but I have chickens and I happen to know that they look like that all the time.

wurwolf: I can hardly blame them. There's never not a good reason to want to kill a chicken.

Lita: Except it's kind of gross.

Lita: And it makes you feel bad after you cut their heads off and they keep running around.

wurwolf: Spoken like a woman who's seen a few chickens slaughtered in her day.

Lita: Never witnessed it personally, but I've heard enough about it.

wurwolf: "Why have you come to me?" I would have liked to see the guy answer, "For a gallon of milk" or "For some miracle floor cleaner" or even "For a hand job."

Lita: "It will cost you"? What kind of a sales pitch is that? I'm no practitioner of Santeria, but even I know that it would be better to go with, "Good magic does not come at a low price," or something like that.

Lita: "It will cost you" is just as likely to make somebody turn around and walk out the door.

wurwolf: Not in a Chick tract.

wurwolf: And boy, that guy is stupid. "I've come into a lot of money. I can afford it." He might as well give her his social security number and his ATM card.

wurwolf: I like the friendly mannequin by the door. "Thanks! Come again! Have a nice day!"

Lita: I was just about to mention that. It's probably supposed to be a statue of some kind, but I'd like to think that there's just some half-naked black lady dancing around in the back.

wurwolf: I think I like that notion better, too. Shops would probably do a much better business if they employed half naked women to dance by the door as customers left.

Lita: You are assuming that the black woman would be paid. I suspect that that is just what the people at Chick Tracts think black people do when they come into contact with Santeria.

wurwolf: Good point.

wurwolf: The Santeria priestess looks like Bob Hoskins in a wig.

Lita: I would like to suggest that making the guy a vegetable is not the best form of revenge if you want him to suffer for a long time. A vegetable is not aware of his plight or his suffering.

wurwolf: Exactly. Give him heartbreak of psoriasis or irritable bowel syndrome. Something creative.

Lita: Make him like Stephen Hawking. His body is shutting down but he's still fully aware of what's going on. He'll be in a wheelchair and completely unable to communicate except through computers that read his eye or tongue movements or whatever but he can't afford those computers so he's stuck.

Lita: The picture Santa gave the Santeria lady is just of some bats flying in front of the moon. I'm not sure that'll help her identify Carlos.

wurwolf: I think that's the side of Carlos' bald head, but kudos for creativity there.

Lita: Oh, I see it now. Ok.

Lita: Poor Mama. I can tell from her decor that she's Catholic.

wurwolf: Yep. Crucifix. Picture of Mary. Flowers.

wurwolf: Looks like my in-laws' living room.

wurwolf: Is Carlos not Roberto's uncle? I assume Aunt Maria just married some dude?

Lita: How'd he get to Mexico? Are we even in Mexico? Where are we?

wurwolf: We've been kidnapped!

Lita: Oh wait. The sign says we're 300 miles away. Thanks, sign.

Lita: Hey! There's Fang!

wurwolf: Fang's looking at that bus the same way I am. Is that what buses look like in Mexico?

wurwolf: I know that's what they look like in the Philippines:

wurwolf: I guess Mexico does the same thing with their buses.

Lita: I don't see chickens on the bus. Mexican buses are filled with chicken in movies.

Lita: We should do that with our buses.

wurwolf: I agree, I love jeepneys

Lita: I get that Mama is sad about Roberto getting religion. Because, as we all know, Catholics aren't in any way religious.

wurwolf: Mothers everywhere mourn when their children become religious.

Lita: I need to learn to read. I though that woman said "Spray paint Lazarus for me." I was thinking, "Wouldn't that kind of tick him off?"

wurwolf: I'll bet Jack Chick has spray painted a few saints in his day.

wurwolf: You just know he's tipped over at least one Mary on a half-shell before.

Lita: I'm not into the Catholic religion, but I dig their art. I'd be so sad to hear somebody's awesome saint picture got defaced.

wurwolf: I will agree that I like the craftsmanship involved in Catholic artwork, but I'm not so thrilled to be checking out Mary or a dead Jesus every two seconds.

Lita: This is the only picture of Lazarus I've found in the old style I like, but it's also the only one I've seen where he's not all old and decrepit and leaning on a couple of crutches. I guess the Catholics think Jesus didn't do a very good job resurrecting him.

wurwolf: Eh. Too Catholic for me.

wurwolf: Well, time to blow on a chicken.

Lita: That chicken has the exact expression I'd expect anybody to have when a large woman lifts him up by the legs and sprays booze up his bottom.

Lita: Don't tell me about Carlos. That chicken has no defense for what's coming.

wurwolf: Is it wrong of me to think that the dance party going on looks kind of fun?

wurwolf: Give me a few drinks and blow some booze up my butt and I'll be there dancing with the spirits, too.

Lita: I think the dead cat would kind of kill the fun for me.

wurwolf: Gosh, I didn't even see the kitty there.

wurwolf: I'm being positive and telling myself that the cat at the party is just sleeping.

Lita: He's having a siesta.

Lita: They do look like they're having a good time, though. So far Jack Chick isn't making much of a case against Santeria.

Lita: Unless you like animals, I guess.

Lita: That poor rooster looks so resigned to his fate. He's like, "After what I've been though, death is a release."

wurwolf: That picture of Carlos isn't flattering. Plus, he has no body. Just a head.

Lita: We see the picture of Carlos in the cauldron, but who's the black guy on that other picture? Is Santeria Lady cursing extra people on Santa's dime?

wurwolf: They draw the bad guys in pictures that way every time. It's how you know they are bad guys, whether it's a mug shot or photo on someone's mantle.

wurwolf: The frog in the cauldron is like, Wait a minute, I thought I was just hopping into a pond here. What's all this shit?

Lita: Santeria Lady isn't very good at her job. She wasn't supposed to kill Carlos. She was supposed to make him suffer.

wurwolf: He's not dead. It's just like he's dead.

Lita: Oh, I see. Literacy is nice.

wurwolf: Not that you would know.

wurwolf: Goodness. Father Dominic's face looks like a slab of beef.

Lita: Why is Maria holding a shrunken head?

wurwolf: I thought it was an eggplant with a face carved in it.

Lita: Where Carlos is going they don't need eyes to see.

wurwolf: I just assumed he was on a tanning bed.

wurwolf: Why do all the women in this tract look like scullery maids from the 1800s?

Lita: That's not how women look? I read too many Chick tracts.

Lita is asking wiki about Santeria before she bitches that the tract makes it look like it's a Catholic thing

wurwolf: Santeria does have a lot of Catholic elements. The tract isn't far off to equate the two.

wurwolf: From what I understand by watching Angel Heart starring superstars Lisa Bonet Cosby and Mcikethy Rourke, Santeria is a combination of African voodoo and Catholicism.

Lita: "It is a system of beliefs that merge the Yoruba religion (brought to the New World by slaves imported to the Caribbean to work the sugar plantations) with Roman Catholic and Native American traditions."

wurwolf: Oh. And Injun shit.

Lita: Ok. I'll let you off the hook THIS time, Chick tracts.

wurwolf: The next panel makes me LOL all over the place: "Aunt Maria, get this priest out of here!"

Lita: Ray Romano to the rescue!

wurwolf: Is the priest making an obscene gesture at Aunt Maria?

Lita: He's throwing crucifixes? That's a bit far. Nothing wrong with a crucifix.

wurwolf: I like the crucifixes flying out of the house. Chick loves to shit all over the Catholic paraphernalia.

wurwolf: Yet the same man most likely was outraged by Robert Mapplethorpe's Piss Christ.

Lita: There are plenty of Protestants who keep or wear crosses. I personally find it offensive to throw somebody's cross out into the street.

wurwolf: It's not a cross if Jesus is still on it. Then it's a crucifix and something to be ridiculed and scorned.

Lita: Jesus on the Cross might not be dead yet. But even if He is, Jesus dying on the cross was a pretty important moment for Protestants as well as Catholics.

wurwolf: I agree with you, Lita, but the traditional fundie stance is that Jesus is no longer on the cross. The morbid fascination with Jesus on the cross is a Catholic thing.

Lita: Regardless, it's really crass to just throw the crucifixes into the street.

wurwolf: Again, I agree with you, Lita. I just think it's interesting that Chick Publications feel they have every right to disrespect a depiction of Jesus' death simply because they've classified it as "Catholic".

wurwolf: Also, I think the Protestant problem with crucifixes is that it is a graven image of Jesus. A lot of denominations are against that.

wurwolf: Catholics don't seem to have a huge problem with the graven image thing.

Lita: Not even most Protestants do. Except Baptists. And we've seen plenty of pics of Jesus in these tracts. Even Jesus on the cross.

wurwolf: The Baptist church I went to had a stained glass window of Jesus praying in the Garden of Gethsemane behind the baptismal pool, but they kept it covered because they felt it was a graven image.

wurwolf: Apparently a former leader of the church went temporarily insane and had it installed.

Lita: That's sad. I love a good stained glass window. None of my churches ever had one and I feel like I'm missing out.

wurwolf: Yeah, but now that I think of it, you're right about it not necessarily being a Protestant thing. I think it's really a fundie thing.

wurwolf: Wasn't there some comic or something we were supposed to be reading?

Lita: Oh, right.

wurwolf: I can't decide if the guy behind Father Dominic is David Crosby with less hair or a balding mustachioed Liev Schrieber.

Lita: I'm going with Yakov Smirnoff.

wurwolf: Also: Father Dominic? Wasn't that the name of the priest who was going to jump off a bridge?

Lita: The priest was Damien, I think.

wurwolf: Oh, you're right. It was Damien.

Lita: Ah. Father Dominic is rustlin' up a posse. Nothing like good old fashioned mob justice.

Lita: I like the dude with the enormous mustache in the middle. He looks like a pretty friendly guy to be planning to beat somebody to death.

wurwolf: That's the guy I thought looked like David Crosby

wurwolf: He looks like he's having his picture taken.

Lita: I thought you meant that bearded guy in the last panel holding the crucifix.

wurwolf: No. That guy I can see being Yakov Smirnoff. This guy gave me a David Crosby or Liev Schrieber vibe.

wurwolf: Pedro is offering his protection to Carlos.

Lita: The neanderthal dude has grown himself a beard between the first and second panel of this row.

wurwolf: He is one hirsute gentleman.

Lita: The one on the left wants to beat Carlos with his back scrubber.

wurwolf: Mmmm, how luxurious. I'd like someone to work me over with a back scrubber.

wurwolf: I like how this story changes from an indictment of Santeria and Catholicism to a retelling of the story of Elijah and the prophets of Baal.

Lita: Carlos is so surprised that they're all pissed off at him. Dude, you threw their crosses out into the street! And now you're like, "Jesus! Save me!" and Jesus is like, "Dude, you just threw me into the street."

Lita: Or maybe He just fumigates the house.

wurwolf: Not Carlos. Roberto.

wurwolf: Sheesh, Lita, do all these people look alike to you?

Lita: Chick Tract people? Yes indeed.

wurwolf: Tim Burton's Santeria Babies are flying from the house.

wurwolf: It's Basement Cat without ears.

Lita: Vampire Negro Sperm shoots out of Carlos's nose.

Lita: I swear, the only time Chick puts black people in his tracts they're hep cats, drug dealers, ministers, or demon sperm.

wurwolf: It's true, they're terrible with that.

Lita: Nice drawing of Carlos. At first I thought the pillow behind him was his shoulders.

wurwolf: I can see why you'd think that. It also looks like he's floating in space.

wurwolf: "Something horrible came inside me!" *snicker*

Lita: Such a thing to print in a religious publication.

Lita would like to skip the incoming conversion sequence

wurwolf: Please do.

Lita: Hey! Santa wants to beat Roberto, too! But he ordered Carlos zombified in the first place!

wurwolf: Santa's just looking to beat someone's ass. He doesn't care who.

Lita: Maybe he's annoyed that Roberto wants to undo his spell. Or maybe he's just covering his ass.

wurwolf: Or maybe he's just out for kicks.

wurwolf: Jeez. Could they make the mob look any more stereotypical? I expect to see the Frito Bandito or Speedy Gonzalez there.

wurwolf: Suddenly Carlos is looking pretty smug. I think he's up to no good.

Lita: I'd trust him.

wurwolf: Wooo! Carlos pulled the ol' switcheroo!

Lita: Noooo! He looked like such a decent guy!

Lita: I think we're starting to see why Santa put a hit on him.

wurwolf: For reals.

wurwolf: I like that the demons are flying back. You can almost hear them shouting for joy.

Lita: That is a nice touch.

Lita: Completely ruined by the angry mob just letting the guy go. It's like, "WE KEELL YOU!!! WE KEEL YOU YOU GRINGO BASTARD!!! Or you can just get on the bus, that's ok."

wurwolf: And then immediately regretting their decision to let him get on the bus.

wurwolf: Mr. Dominic. That's just the best.

Lita: I enjoy the little asterisk to draw our attention to Roberto not calling him "Father."

wurwolf: Hey! It's a Mexican bus after all! There's a chicken!

Lita: Hee!! That chicken in the front seat is so freaked out! He just knows he's going to end up in somebody's witches brew.

wurwolf: He wears the expression of every chicken you've ever seen.

Lita: This is true. They all just know they're going to end up in somebody's witches brew.

Lita: Very paranoid, your average chicken.

wurwolf: Amazing how Father Dominic had no problem with what he was doing over the years, but one look at Carlos un-zombified state and he's ready to throw it all aside without any sort of reflection or soul-searching.

wurwolf: He is immediately on board with the fundie line of thinking that his church has hurt people and destroyed millions of souls.

Lita: No need to soul search when you believe in an obvious SCAM. Protestantism and Catholicism are so obviously different in every way that Dominic clearly would have no problem once somebody pointed out Protestantism exists.

Lita: His problem was he never heard of Jesus.

wurwolf: Or at least not Roberto's Jesus.

wurwolf: Roberto so cheerfully informs Mr. Dominic that Jesus called the Catholic church a big stinkin' whore.

Lita: Jesus so regrets that poorly planned night with the Catholic Church in Italy. It was only about $5 but He's been itchy ever since.

Do you think it was a smiting?

2009-05-16T18:34:00.002-04:00

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?

Li'l Susy

2009-05-13T16:53:00.011-04:00

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.

Soul Story

2009-04-24T16:16:00.015-04:00

Hey there all you soul brothers and soul sisters, honkeys and honkettes. It's time for us to get down and chillax and read us a story about a man. A strong man. A man of action. A man who gets all the chicks. A man you don't want to mess wit, ya dig? A real cool cat. This here's our first ever blaxploitation tract and, dig this, we were more blown away than anybody to discover that we...

We... didn't hate this one.

Weird huh? So catch us on the flipside and see what's shakin' as we check out...

wurwolf: Okay, so with this tract, as opposed to the last tract we covered, we get the truth about the date this was published. Clearly, even from the front cover alone, this tract was written in the 70s.

Lita: I love this cover. I love everything about this cover. This is the best cover ever.

wurwolf: The 70s was rife with blaxploitation films, from which I suspect this tract got inspiration.

wurwolf: And only blaxploitation films.

Lita: If I could get this cover blown up and in high res and put it on my wall, I'd do it so fast.

wurwolf: I have to agree with you, I think that this is the most badass cover we've ever seen. And I include the Dungeons & Dragons tract in that.

Lita: Can the tract itself possibly live up to the cover's badassery?

wurwolf: We shall see!

Lita: Hey, it's a return to The Contract style art!

wurwolf: That's right. It's nice to switch back and forth sometimes, although we sadly will not see the usual Fang/Badcat hijinx from this artist.

wurwolf: Wow. You just know it's an emergency -- look at that Code Blue font. If that doesn't say emergency, I don't know what does.

Lita: What tipped him off that the riot is phony? Are they throwing foam rubber bricks at the guards? I guess when they bounce off their heads, that would be a clue.

wurwolf: I'll bet the warden thinks there's a riot going on, but it's really just the prisoners practicing their "Thriller" dance moves.

Lita: One thing that this artist does well is the rage face. It makes the rage faces in other tracts just look poorly drawn and stupid.

wurwolf: I agree, the rage face is pretty extreme.

wurwolf: Alright, I'm calling bullshit. How did the prisoners get a baseball bat and a knife? The most prisoners would ever have is a spoon chiseled into a shiv.

Lita: The black guy's name is Jackson.

wurwolf: It was a toss-up between that or Washington or Lincoln.

Lita: The guy in prison is a black guy. The other guy in prison appears to be some variety of Asian.

wurwolf: I thought the other guy was Latino.

wurwolf: I'm guessing they'll be breaking out the @!**! a lot in this tract.

Lita: Suppose that's a stirring indictment of our justice system for unfairly targeting racial minorities, do you think? Or a society that contrives to keep minorities down while glorifying the criminal lifestyle to the point where they feel they have no other options?

wurwolf: No, I think it's just Jack Chick lumping in as many stereotypes as he can fit in one panel.

Lita: Oh, ok. I guess that makes more sense.

wurwolf: At first I thought the guy kneeling over Jackson was holding a wineglass until I realized it was a stethoscope.

Lita: I thought it was a razor. I was thinking, "Oh! That nice man is going to give Jackson a shave!"

wurwolf: Is it wrong of me to think that Jackson's chest looks really hot and sexy?

Lita: That depends. Is Jackson still alive?

Lita: It's not good to get yourself all worked up over a dead guy.

wurwolf: I think he's dead, which is why I'm keeping a lid on getting worked up. That, and he's a cartoon.

Lita: Good call.

Lita: Leroy, though, he's alive. Golly.

wurwolf: Enter bad, bad Leroy... well, I don't know if he's Leroy Brown or what.

Lita: That is a mountain of a man.

wurwolf: For reals, yo. Tru dat!

wurwolf: (Just getting into the spirit of the tract.)

Lita: Is this happening now or are we in flashback mode?

wurwolf: I am not exactly sure. We've been given no indication that there's a flashback going on. No wavy lines or word boxes.

wurwolf: So I guess it's safe to assume that Leroy's grandmother is in prison with him?

Lita: She's on the other side of that glass you talk through.

wurwolf: Oh! I thought the artist was getting arty and showing a split screen, but she's on the other side of the glass. Yes, I see that now.

Lita: Aww, Leroy loves his Grammy. I like Leroy.

wurwolf: It's nice of him not to yell, "STFU, BITCH!"

Lita: That's why I think he'll get saved at the end. Usually people in these things who don't get saved have no redeeming qualities whatsoever. They are unrepentantly evil all the way through. Except Broosey Woosey.

wurwolf: Leroy, I can't blame you. "Gotta go!" is usually my reaction when someone starts preaching at me, too.

wurwolf: I spend too much time on the intranets. At first I thought the guard said, "Sounds like your Grandma is a fanfic!"

Lita: That would be pretty insulting. Though not very sensical.

Lita: That is such a douchey smile on the prison guard's face. Whatever else happens in this tract, we can't fault the art. It's fantastic.

wurwolf: I agree, and I also think the guard's suit is electric. Like seriously electrified. Because the damn thing is glowing like crazy.

wurwolf: *GASP!* There's a ghost in the background!

wurwolf: Usually when someone is calling me a white @*!!! my first instinct is to do the total opposite of "C'MERE!"

Lita: Mine is to kick them out of the classroom.

Lita: His name IS Leroy Brown!

Lita: Baddest cat in the whole @**!!!@ town!

wurwolf: HOLY SHIT

Lita: I'm noticing a disturbing amount of variation in the swear censorship punctuation in this tract.

wurwolf: So this confirms my theory that regarding African Americans, Jack Chick only knows what he's heard in pop culture.

wurwolf: I guess being a lifer means you don't have to go to boring meetings with the warden.

Lita: They figure you have enough bummers in your life already.

wurwolf: It's nice of them to be so accommodating.

Lita: If I were the warden I'd fire that guy in the back. It is really unprofessional to grin and make jackoff motions during a meeting of this magnitude.

Lita: Now that is an OUTFIT, Leroy!

wurwolf: Leroy turned into Super Fly.

Lita: I know that this tract was just written a long time ago, but I prefer to think that (a) Leroy's been locked up for a LONG time and these are the clothes he was wearing when they arrested him, or (b) this is what Jack Chick thinks black people really dress like.

wurwolf: I think both are valid conclusions.

wurwolf: Am I missing something? What does "Littlebit" mean?

wurwolf: Is that his friend's name? Or is he saying he'll go upstairs in a little bit?

Lita: Is that just what he calls his brother?

Lita: Or... wait? Is this guy really his brother or is he just calling him his brother because they are black people?

wurwolf: I honestly don't know. I'm not trying to be funny, I just don't understand what Chick is going for here.

wurwolf: Looks like his brother just finished up his shift at the Jesus Pizzeria.

Lita: This tract is a narrative mess. But the art is FANTASTIC.

wurwolf: Agreed

wurwolf: I mean, SERIOUSLY. Look at that outfit!

wurwolf: The man is a magnificent pirate!

Lita: Holy shit. He turned into a bullfighter or Zorro or something.

wurwolf: It's almost like you can just skip the crappy dialog and just look at the pictures.

Lita: That's what I've been doing. Has anything happened in this story so far?

wurwolf: Hell if I know.

wurwolf: Leroy is so badass, he ripped the door right off the hinges with one hand and didn't even break a sweat.

wurwolf: How did they make a prison that contained him?

Lita: This is a slum. The door probably wasn't screwed on so tight to begin with.

wurwolf: Shh! I prefer to think that Leroy is just that awesome.

Lita: The look on his face is wonderful, though. It's a look that says, "Yes, I'm the greatest. Drink me in, Ladies."

wurwolf: Seriously, the dialog is shit. "Jive turkey" -- WTF? Jack Chick must have been watching Good Times when he was writing this.

Lita: Is that Gloria peeking out from behind the Jive Turkey?

wurwolf: Possibly.

Lita: OH WOW!!! Wait... what just happened?

wurwolf: Cthulhu showed up?

wurwolf: An earthquake happened?

Lita: It's taking some time to parse.

Lita: I guess one guy pulled a knife and got punched out by the other guy. Not sure why the fat guy in the crowd is the one who's groaning with pain, though.

wurwolf: I think you're right. RD pulled a knife and Leroy was all, Oh hell no and punched the shit out of him. And then little tiny Gloria, who's a midget, is hanging onto Leroy out of fear.

wurwolf: Or maybe a truck rolled by and ran over RD.

Lita: That's what he looks like. Jive Turkey is spitting his teeth out onto the floor.

wurwolf: "Jive Turkey." Please. Don't you know their names yet?

Lita: Leroy's the boss. If he says that guy's name is Jive Turkey then that is what that guy's name is.

Lita: That bible verse seems pretty out of place. It doesn't seem to match anything we're looking at.

wurwolf: I'm not sure whether it's applying to RD's past or Leroy's future.

wurwolf: Apparently being the boss comes with an opulent office.

Lita: I always hear that gang bangers live a life of luxury.

Lita: Well... maybe not really.

wurwolf: Looks like Rudy from Fat Albert showed up to give some plot exposition.

wurwolf: The ghost of Leroy Brown is on his way!

Lita: Oh gross!!! I scrolled down to this row too slowly and thought we were getting a love scene and I was thinking, "Wow! Pretty racy for a Chick Tract!" and then I scrolled down more and saw he was with his GRANDMA!!

wurwolf: Yes! I thought the same thing!

Lita: "I'm glad you came!"

wurwolf: I'll bet she is. Leroy is a gang-banger!

Lita: Even when the art in a Chick tract is really good, it still manages to be really bad in its own special way.

Lita: Take Grandma, for example. Why is Leroy's grandmother an Eskimo?

wurwolf: I thought she was an elderly Chinese woman.

wurwolf: Man, Grandma just laid a smackdown on Leroy. "I love you too, Grandma." "Child, you don't know what love is until you know Jesus!"

wurwolf: Jeez. Sorry, Grandma. Next time I'll just keep my feelings to myself.

Lita: "Fine, then Grandma, I don't love you and I never did. Are you happy now?"

Lita: Grandma: *dies*

wurwolf: Oh, phone booth. How I am taken by your nostalgic whimsy.

wurwolf: "Are you thinking what I'm thinking?" Free funeral food!

Lita: Nowadays you're lucky if you get a flimsy little phone alcove.

wurwolf: Yeah, once in a while I'll see a phone booth still around and it's always beat to hell.

Lita: I don't think I've ever seen an actual Superman's Changing Room phone booth.

wurwolf: You're not missing a whole lot.

wurwolf: Second tract in a row with a funeral scene.

Lita: How could he miss? The car's aimed right at them. Keep driving straight and you can bulldoze them all right into Grandma's grave.

wurwolf: I don't know, but I love the pencil work on this tract. Look how it conveys the feeling of motion. Beautiful.

Lita: I agree. I really can't say enough times how great the art is in this thing. It's really refreshing after the drek we've looked at in the past.

wurwolf: I guess Leroy and friends have an aversion to someone yelling "BUDDA BUDDA BUDDA!" out a car window at them. Knocked them on their asses.

Lita: I don't blame them. I was never a big fan of Mike Meyers' portrayal of Jewish women.

wurwolf: I like Leroy's Harry Potter scar. Yet another thing JK Rowling lifted.

Lita: I guess she was as impressed by the art as we are

wurwolf: Aw, Gloria's dead. Not a surprise, really.

Lita: Hooking up with your late girlfriend's sister while looking at her corpse in the morgue? I'm sorry, Chick Tracts, I know you're all, "uppity black people!" but I do not believe that Leroy is that sleezy.

Lita: Or the sister, for that matter.

wurwolf: And then they take it to a whole other level of skeeviness, because Gloria's sister not only reminds Leroy of Gloria but of his grandmother, too.

Lita: "Why do I feel this way? She's not at all like Gloria... She sort of reminds me of my grandma!"

Lita vomits all over her keyboard

wurwolf: Yeah. I know the feeling.

wurwolf: Oh those two crazy kids, from two different worlds wanting to cross over. It's like the battle of the TV show titles.

Lita: Well, Leroy isn't the first guy to "find religion" in order to get into a girl's pants, and he won't be the last.

Lita: Jive Turkey seems like a fine upstanding young man to me. I don't see any reason why Leroy shouldn't put his complete trust in him.

wurwolf: I'm too busy checking out Leroy's half-naked bod as he's lolling around in bed. Nice.

wurwolf: Also, nice padded headboard.

wurwolf: Jeez, AK-47s and grenades? Leroy is the final boss in a video game.

Lita: Hey! They all brought guns! Can't I trust any of you guys???

wurwolf: I'm a little confused about exactly who is shooting who.

Lita: Everybody's shooting everybody.

wurwolf: I mean, I assume Leroy just strolled into the church with no weapons on him and got stabbed in the back (literally) by RD, but I can't really tell.

wurwolf: Wait... Leroy brought a gun with him?

Lita: Leroy brought a gun, Jive Turkey brought a gun, EVERYBODY brought guns. And grenades! KAVOOM!

Lita: That's just the way you are if you're a black person in a Chick tract.

wurwolf: Yeah, good point.

wurwolf: So Chick is saying that black people are just toting around guns and grenades all the time, I guess.

Lita: They been spendin' most their lifes livin' in a gangsta's paradise.

wurwolf throws her shoe at Lita.

Lita: OW!! You know, I guess I shouldn't expect more from you. You come from such a violent race.

wurwolf: You're just lucky I don't sue your ass.

wurwolf: Okay, so we're skipping some panels where everyone's bleeding all over the place, some dudes might not make it to the car, blah blah blah

Lita: Moving on.

wurwolf: Was Joyce getting ready to become a Russian bride or something?

Lita: Yeah. That is really some hat.

wurwolf: And dress.

Lita: And those are really some arms on Leroy!

wurwolf: Well, he did spend a lot of time in jail, probably weight-lifting.

wurwolf: Okay, the dumb dialog boxes are covering way too much of the awesome artwork, so I'm skipping the gospel message.

Lita: You know, in the white person tracts the person telling about Christ doesn't feel the need to explain everything in parentheses. If I were black I'd be so insulted.

wurwolf: Like black people are all, "Buh?" when someone says "believeth".

Lita: That's all I have to say about the gospel, part, though, so you're right. We can safely skip it.

wurwolf: We've heard it a billion times before anyway.

wurwolf: You know, I can't help but think that if Leroy hadn't been saved he'd still be alive.

Lita: If he hadn't been dying he wouldn't have gotten saved.

Lita: I really like this last panel, though.

wurwolf: Huh.

Lita: I don't know if I've been reading too many tracts or if it's because I'm on the rag or what, but I find this panel genuinely touching.

wurwolf: I think it's because you're on the rag. I find nothing touching about it.

wurwolf: Or maybe I'm just a cynical asshole.

Lita: She's crying because he just died, but he has this faint smile because he's finally at peace. It's kind of nice.

Lita: I can see how this tract would be more successful than any of the others we've looked at before on this blog. You know. If it weren't so racist.

wurwolf: Yeah. They must just use it for white people.

Lita: I think this is seriously the best tract we've ever done. And it's all in the artwork. See, Chick Tracts? See what happens when you hand the pencil to somebody with a little talent?

wurwolf: And it's a tract where the message can be taken seriously.

wurwolf: Oh, who am I kidding.

This Was Your Life

2009-04-02T21:54:00.021-04:00

Wow! Have we been out for over a year? Sorry about that. The fact of the matter is, wurwolf and I had very different work schedules, not to mention living in different time zones, and we found it hard to find large enough blocks of time when we were both able to sit down and write for the blog. That's the trouble with collaboration, you know. However, thanks to the economy taking a nosedive, I have suddenly found myself with all kinds of crazy time where I can just sit and read and discuss religious tracts to my heart's content. Clearly, God had a plan for me. (Yes, I am implying that He engineered the entire economic collapse just to get me and wurwolf to update our blog.) Truly, God never slams a door in your face without shoving you through a window... shards of glass cutting your once-perfect skin to ribbons...

In other news, today's tract is a classic! You can't even go to the Chick site without this appearing almost every banner ad you see. It also happens to be one I gave to my brother many years ago when I was trying to get him to accept Christ. It didn't work. See if you can figure out why, as we take you through...

Lita: Eat, drink and be merry! Now there's a bible verse we can all get behind!

wurwolf: At first I thought this tract was drawn in the 1960s. Silly me.

Lita: 2002?? I gave this to my brother waaay before 2002.

Lita: 1993 at the latest.

wurwolf: Well, that date looks awfully suspicious anyway. Like they pasted it in.

Lita: Chick Tracts, how can we trust you to tell us the truth about the afterlife if we can't even trust you about the date?

wurwolf: That house and the car... the angles. It's like an MC Escher house.

Lita: Is he in an alcove with the car sticking out through a wall or is he at an outer corner of a really wonky house?

wurwolf: That's what I've been trying to figure out, and I'm going to have to stop because it's making my brain hurt. Also, the guy is nearly as tall as his house. WTF?

wurwolf: I think the guy on TV is robbing a bear at gunpoint.

Lita: It's well known that bears are loaded.

Lita: I like the smug look as our hero smokes his pipe and drinks his gin and tonic.

wurwolf: And wears his Dick Van Dyke sweater.

Lita: I'd look smug too, if that were my car.

wurwolf: I think it's a Datsun 280ZX.

wurwolf: His eyebrow is in the same curve as his mouth

Lita: He has a new flashy car but his TV has knobs down the side.

wurwolf: That's because it's not 2002, but 1993.

Lita: So how is our hero dying here? Did Death taze him?

wurwolf: Perhaps. We can't see. Maybe Death just put the whammy on him. Death can do that.

wurwolf: I like that his pipe and drink are still hanging in mid-air while he falls to the ground. Even in death, the wacky hilarity of comic hijinks is apparent.

Lita: Sudden death can cause spontaneous telekenesis. That's why the pipe and drink are levitating.

wurwolf: Frankly, I'm just glad they spelled judgment correctly

Lita: I like the bible verse calling the priest out on saying Boyfriend was a good man. Like priests should be truthful and slag on the deceased all through the funeral.

wurwolf: "He was an unclean thing!" God, I want someone to say that about me at my funeral. I would love it.

Lita: "His iniquities, like the wind, have taken him away!"

wurwolf: Okay, he's in the ground. I can't tell if they've thrown the dirt over him yet or what. I do appreciate, however, the cutaway view, like looking at an ant farm.

Lita: I do like that effect. Credit where it's due.

wurwolf: I also like how spread out the people are. The dude in the striped tie just isn't sure if he wants to be a part of this funeral.

Lita: "He wasn't THAT good of a man..."

wurwolf: "I'm just here for the buffet."

wurwolf: That boy may or may not be pitching quarters into the grave.

Lita: He heard that Charon likes a bribe to ferry you across the River Styx.

wurwolf: Whoa, going all mythological there on us.

Lita: That boy is going to Hell.

wurwolf: Alright, I admit that I gravitate towards the naughty, but I truly thought that said "ARSE" and not "ARISE".

wurwolf: And I was like, Okay, so why is God calling Boyfriend an arse? That's kind of harsh.

Lita: Probably all the hot nude corpse action turning your head.

wurwolf: He looks like a grown-up version of the Love Is... dude.

Lita: The crack in the ground across his thighs looks kind of like the ripped hem of a skirt. It diminishes the mood somewhat.

wurwolf: His ARISING was so violent it tilted his gravestone. Haha, his AROUSAL.

Lita: The shading between his legs and the edge of the panel kind of looks like a lady.

Lita: A naked lady.

wurwolf: I wonder if it hurts to ARISE through all of that dirt.

Lita: Looks like mainly it's just eye-crossingly confusing.

wurwolf: Also, the poor man is nipple-free. I will agree that they are generally useless on men, but it seems kind of demeaning to be drawn without them.

Lita: He's like a Ken doll.

wurwolf: I'm going to skip the obligatory Belinda Carlisle reference; mostly because that song will be stuck in my head all day if I don't.

Lita: That song was stuck in my head from 1987 to 1991.

Lita: But I liked it, so it was ok.

wurwolf: Gross, Lita.

Lita: I was a child. What did I know?

Lita: Boyfriend, you're talking to a gigantic white dude with wings. I think maybe you should accept that he might know a little more about Heaven and Hell than you do.

wurwolf: Yeah, like where is Boyfriend going to go? He's dead and nude. He might as well go with the angel.

wurwolf: The angel dude's face and neck are freaking me out a little. He looks like he has buttons for eyes.

Lita: Something we've seen in these tracts before is angels carrying dead people to heaven and they always have their arms around the dead person's shoulders.

Lita: It looks sort of protective, and I admit I kind of like it. Can't really be a plum job for the angel, though.

Lita: "Time to take another child molester to be judged. *sigh* ...Ok, get under my wing."

wurwolf: I just hope the angels are genital-free. I honestly don't know if I'd want an angel boner in my ass crack while I'm being taken to see God.

wurwolf: Talk about embarrassing. "Hey God, yeah, me and the angel weren't doing anything. Just flying here to see you."

wurwolf: I don't really have anything new to say about this panel, except I always like when they try to get arty in these things.

Lita: Me too.

wurwolf: So Beetlejuice was right. There is a waiting room in the afterlief.

Lita: That poor angel has to wait with his guy until he's gone through the whole process? Man, this assignment is getting suckier by the moment!

Lita: I have to imagine it's a really long line.

wurwolf: Well, thanks, Romans 3:10, for ruining the ending for us. You could have at least done a spoiler alert.

Lita: How come Boyfriend has to stand behind the cube-seat thing? Come on, Mr. Angel, you can scoot your scroll over and let him sit down.

wurwolf: No one wants to see a dead guy's weiner.

Lita: Poor Boyfriend is so nervous. He's pulling on the angel's arm like, "Come on, it'll be ok, won't it?" The angel just doesn't give a crap.

wurwolf: The angel is so stoic.

Lita: It's the not caring that got him this job.

wurwolf: I like that "A REAL GOOD LIFE" is in arty font. They downloaded that font from the internet.

wurwolf: We've seen the throne scene a million times. Let's skip that panel, shall we?

Lita: We shall.

Lita: THIS WAS YOUR LIFE!

Lita: That must be where they got the title!

Lita: And the cover art, now that I look at it.

wurwolf: Hey everybody, the movie's starting! Shhh!

Lita: Yes, Boyfriend, it means they're going to review everything you've ever done. It also means that this will be a really boring movie.

wurwolf: Are Boyfriend and the angel holding hands?

Lita: I think he's just clutching at his arm. He's so scared! The angel still couldn't care less.

wurwolf: He was a grumpy baby.

Lita: "The stitching on this bunny is a bit wide."

wurwolf: Kid, you've got the Velveteen Rabbit and Raggedy Ann for toys. Quit being such a little dick.

wurwolf: This is awesome, it's like a drive-in movie.

wurwolf: It would be great if God would let you make a party out of it. Invite your friends. Serve drinks. Have a barbecue.

Lita: My whole unedited life? We would need a LOT of drinks. I am not an exciting person.

Lita: And I would think that even the most action-packed exciting life would have a lot of downtime that nobody really needs to see.

Lita: God, can we at least cut out all the times we were asleep or just reading a magazine or pooping or thinking about pooping or whatever?

wurwolf: I refuse to believe that God doesn't edit at least a little bit.

wurwolf: Because seriously, it's bad enough we've got to watch EVERY person's movie who ever existed. I don't want to see how some dude in American Samoa swept his front porch or whatever.

Lita: I bet even if you cut it down to just a sin reel, it would still be a very long and intensely dull film.

wurwolf: He's best friends with Jackie "The Joke Man" Martling and James Dean.

Lita: Poor 90's teenager. He only thinks that's the dirtiest story ever. One day the Internet will be mainstream and then he will know from dirty.

wurwolf: "There were these two girls, and they had one cup..."

Lita: ATTENTION MEN: IT IS A SIN TO BE PHYSICALLY ATTRACTED TO MEMBERS OF THE OPPOSITE SEX.

Lita: Not a stance I expected Chick Tracts to take, I admit.

wurwolf: True.

wurwolf: He is just as flat against that wall as he could possibly be. I'm guessing he's just coming out of the men's room.

Lita: If he'd just stayed in that bathroom and checked out some of the people in there, we might not have to look at this clip.

wurwolf: Really. Doesn't he know all he has to do is jingle his keys a few times?

Lita: Wait... is that a thing?

wurwolf: Yeah. If you're a dude and you want other dudes to bone you, you go in a men's room and jingle your keys.

wurwolf: You don't know this? I thought everyone knew this.

Lita: I knew there was a foot tapping thing. I did not know about the key jingling.

Lita: I jingle my keys all the time! I like the sound! Have I been unknowingly soliciting sex this whole time???

wurwolf: Yes

Lita: NOOOOOO!!!!

wurwolf: But only if you're doing it in men's rooms and you're a dude.

Lita: Oh, ok. I mainly just do it when I'm walking to my car.

wurwolf: You should be safe. Just be aware that dudes may be coming up to you to ask about boning you.

Lita: They may be barking up the wrong tree. I don't do it in the butt.

wurwolf: Bummer. I was looking forward to your life movie where you get boned in the butt.

Lita: Nah, we'll just have to wait and watch your movie.

wurwolf: Rimshot!

Lita: Boyfriend is a whoremonger?

wurwolf: He's a whoremonger, alright. He was eyeing up chicks outside of the men's room and thinking, "Ummm... nice."

wurwolf: Is it terrible of me to think that all of those sins they have listed aren't really so bad?

wurwolf: Except maybe Hater of God, but God has a real broad definition of what constitutes hate. From what I understand, He includes indifference in His definition of hate.

Lita: Depends on if they mean whoremonger to be a buyer or seller of whores. Customers are one thing but I'm no fan of pimps.

wurwolf: I'm not supposed to be whispering, according to this wall o' sin.

Lita: Is that bible verse wallpaper in the background?

wurwolf: Yeah, Jack Chick's got it in his kitchen.

wurwolf: Honestly, where is the really nasty stuff? Child molester? Murderer? Rapist? Lawyer?

wurwolf: Oh, I kid. I work for lawyers. Fun!

Lita: Mind ever wander in church? TO HELL WITH THEE!

Lita: Heaven help you if you accidentally think about sex in church.

wurwolf: Oh, I know, that one used to get me all the time.

wurwolf: I'd be sitting there thinking about banging my boyfriend and be like, Oh shit, I am in for it now.

Lita: "Oh shit, I just thought shit! Oh, fuck I did it again-- OH FUCK!"

wurwolf: It cracks me up that the pastor is pointing RIGHT AT BOYFRIEND while he's checking his watch. Also, a ghost is peering over his shoulder.

Lita: As I've mentioned in this blog before, I don't close my eyes when I pray in church. It's because church is early in the morning and I'm sleepy by nature. I figure it's less disrespectful to pray with your eyes open than to fall asleep during prayer, so I just bow my head and look down at my lap.

Lita: As a result, I often end up thinking about my own cleavage during church. So you can look forward to that coming up on the big screen.

wurwolf: I can hardly wait!

wurwolf giggles at Boyfriend saying "Bunk"

wurwolf: I am so saying that from now on.

wurwolf: Bunk!

Lita: Why is Boyfriend at church anyway if he didn't want to hear about Jesus? He doesn't appear to be with anybody. He just woke up early one Sunday morning and said, "I think I'll put on my best suit and join a congregation for a religion I don't believe in!"

wurwolf: Only in the world of Chick Publications.

wurwolf: God's got the biggest telephone book in the world.

Lita: The angel looks so smug when pointing out that Boyfriend isn't in there.

Lita: He finally showed an emotion.

wurwolf: He's been waiting this entire time to do that.

*INSERT RELIGIOUS CLIP-ART HERE*

wurwolf: And once again, Chick recycles a shot.

wurwolf: That shot of God on the throne telling the sinner to beat it is stock footage at this point.

Lita: Pretty much the whole middle of the tract.

Lita: God points to hell, angel nonchalantly throws a dude into the fire, wash, rinse, repeat.

wurwolf: The angel looks like he's trying to roast marshmallows over the flaming pits of Hell.

wurwolf: Speaking of slackness, the artists slacked off on the THIS CAN BE YOUR LIFE panel.

Lita: So is this guy who's accepting Christ supposed to be Boyfriend again, or is he a completely different dark-haired non-descript average guy?

wurwolf: I'm not sure. I think the tract is telling us that we get do-overs.

Lita: I wish.

Lita: Even Hitler approves of the new Boyfriend. Is that a good thing?

wurwolf: Hitler's just calling it like it is.

wurwolf: The montage of good deeds really turns me off. What a boring life.

Lita: I like this summary of a Christian life. Thrill as Boyfriend eats dinner, reads to children, shakes hands with the elderly, and writes on a clipboard! Completely alien from the non-Christian life!

wurwolf: Non-Christians have it all backwards. They eat clipboards, write on the elderly, shake children and read to their dinners.

wurwolf: Frankly, I'd rather be telling dirty stories and eyeing up hot chicks outside of the men's room.

Lita: And then he dies. Roll the going to Heaven clipart!

wurwolf: Bunk!

Thanks to Rimmi for her contributions!

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

The Contract

2008-03-25T18:19:00.008-04:00

As promised, this time around we're coming back to the comic that caused Tommy the Elder to find God. What tract could possibly be so powerful that even a glance at the first page caused a hard rockin' hard rocker to hang up his guitar? Let us find out together as we read...

wurwolf: According to the cover, Satan will accept a big red X as a signature on his contracts.

wurwolf: This makes me uneasy, since that sort of thing is easy to forge. He would just need to write my name at the top and mark it with a red sharpie, and boom! Just that quick I'm destined for hell.

Lita: That guy sure has hairy arms.

wurwolf: He's a gorilla.

Lita: Maybe he's signing over his soul in return for the fame and love humans will give him when the evil school system tells them he's their daddy.

Lita: So. First row! Just one look at this page made Tommy the Elder realize that rock and roll is evil and give himself over to Jesus.

wurwolf: Frankly, I'm not sure what brought him to his knees. The bright light? The hail storm? The nightgowns?

wurwolf: Good gravy, just what kind of wattage does that kid's lamp have? The thing is going super-nova.

Lita: It's biblical. God lives in lights and that's why you aren't allowed to hide them under bushels.

wurwolf: So the light is symbolic, then. The kid is bringing the Light of the World to his father.

Lita: It's not an analogy. Every verse of the bible must be taken completely literally.

Lita: Bob taught me that.

wurwolf: Then you have been taught the infallible and unerring truth.

Lita: I think that second panel might make me seek God.

Lita: Look at those people.

wurwolf: I have to say, I like the artwork in this tract. Chick Publications isn't very good about letting us know who the illustrator is. I'm assuming the writer is always Jack Chick, though.

Lita: According to the Chick website he's really elderly now and doesn't do as much of the writing as he used to. He mostly putters around his kitchen and occasionally sends them something. But this tract is even older than the last one we did, which was from the 80's. So he might have had more direct input then.

wurwolf: I find it sad that they don't give any credit to the artists, though. At least none that I've seen.

wurwolf: But, in spite of the halfway-decent artwork, I'm confused about something. Is that dust rising from the ground or clouds come to earth?

Lita: That kid looks kind of bored. He must have been through all this before.

Lita: It's like in the Little House on the Prairie show. Every time Pa plants a crop it gets destroyed and then he has to borrow money or take some super dangerous job out of town.

wurwolf: Well, drama sells.

wurwolf: Love the crazy cross-hatching on the back of Dad's head, though.

Lita: Dad's head is plaid

wurwolf: Maybe it's a hunting cap?

wurwolf: Which would make sense, now that his crop has been destroyed. He's got to feed his kid somehow.

Lita: Nah. It's pretty hairy to be a hat.

wurwolf: So I guess it's just the father and son. Is this Courtship of Eddie's Father or something? Where's the Japanese housekeeper?

Lita: He's trying to get money from the BA. Because people who borrow from banks are a bunch of SHEEP!

wurwolf groans

Lita: Again with the haws!

wurwolf: The "HAW HAW HAW" is all in a jaunty, jocular font.

wurwolf: Do we know if the haws signify an evil person?

Lita: I've always felt so.

wurwolf: I have to agree. Anyone who would haw must be unrepentantly evil.

Lita: It's only ever pulled out when somebody is experiencing a misfortune.

wurwolf: And used with extreme scorn and ridicule.

Lita: "My cat ran away and I haven't seen her for days--" "HAW!"

Lita: And then the punching begins.

wurwolf: "Is it my fault the hail ruined your crop?" So, by contrast, does that mean that the bank will only loan out money in cases where they claim responsibility?

Lita: "You're right! Our interest rates are excessively high! Here's some money!"

wurwolf: Farmer: My son drowned in the pond. Bank: Oh wow, we totally screwed up there. Here's a hundred bucks.

wurwolf: We're coming dangerously close to a buffalo shot of the farmer here.

Lita: John Freeman. Think that name is supposed to symbolize something?

wurwolf: I'm just surprised the tract didn't call this guy Tom or Tim.

wurwolf: The banker is cross-eyed with rage.

Lita: The kid is crippled? I guess that explains his face. But he's still pretty good at swinging God Lamps around for a cripple.

wurwolf: Stupid crippled kid. Way to be a burden to your dad.

Lita: The whole reason people had kids back then was so you could get an extra pair of hands to work your farm. Way to ruin your dad's life, you ungrateful brat.

wurwolf: I hope that kid apologizes to his poor long-suffering dad every day for being crippled.

wurwolf: You know, I notice that a lot of the words in this tract are underlined. I wonder, if you took all of the underlined words, would they spell out a secret message?

Lita: So far we have "deep do money my our." Other than the first two words, I'm saying no.

wurwolf: I don't know.... I'm holding out hope for a secret message.

wurwolf: "I hate the ground you walk on... ELMER BOGGS!" Why the pause?

wurwolf: I suppose it was for dramatic effect.

Lita: That line. His reference to the ground Elmer walks on is only meant to focus our attention to his name, Boggs, which would be difficult to walk on.

wurwolf: Ooo, good point. This tract is chock full of subtext.

Lita: The part of Pa is being played today by Stacy Keach.

wurwolf: You know who gets paid for being loved, Elmer Boggs? Trixie, the town whore.

wurwolf: Or your wife.

wurwolf: If you take the underlined words in that second frame, Elmer Boggs is saying "Don't don't come back!" Which is a roundabout way of saying he wants John Freeman to come back.

Lita: Oh, @!!**!. You're like an old friend to me.

wurwolf: I like that every tract, no matter who the illustrator is, has to use the same exact cursing.

Lita: Oh dear. Did they make the Devil a black man?

wurwolf: It sure looks like it.

Lita: And they underlined soul because the black guy wants it. Black people like soul food.

wurwolf: The clouds on the horizon have been so distracting to me in this tract. Did some kind of nuclear fallout just happen?

Lita: I don't know why Pa would sell his soul for that farm. It's a really horrible farm.

wurwolf: No wonder he's broke. He's been growing weeds and wagon wheels.

Lita: The wagon wheels would be useful, except they ate the horse last week.

wurwolf: That, and they only have two wheels.

Lita: Maybe it's time for him and his cripple to move on.

wurwolf: Move to the city and put that kid out to beg on the streets. Can you imagine the bucks he'd rake in? Little crippled blonde white kid? Pfft. Crazy money.

wurwolf: Two panels in one frame. Arty.

wurwolf hopes Mr. B. Fox is knocking on the house door and not the outhouse door.

wurwolf: Especially since he's offering to shake John Freeman's hand.

Lita: So who's this guy? What happened to that nice black fellow?

Lita: He was so jaunty and not prone to mistake abject poverty for bountiful wealth.

wurwolf: That nice black fellow saw how sad John Freeman's farm was and knew he'd get no good soul food there, so he moved on.

Lita: Poor guy. He was my favorite character in this tract.

wurwolf: He's better than Malcolm, anyway.

wurwolf: Poor John. He's just one of a long line of poor white trash who are suckers for a get-rich-quick scheme. You know if they had Publisher's Clearinghouse back then he'd be right in on that.

Lita: I actually like the art in this first frame. The bottles in the window, the wheel, the axe in the stump. If you ignore the dialogue it's nice.

wurwolf: It is. Very bucolic.

wurwolf: Why would John go halvesies with B. Fox? It's his property. At least negotiate yourself a better deal, you dummy.

Lita: Totally. I'd take a good look at that map and then send Fox on his way. He's holding it open right there for all to see.

wurwolf: Never trust a man with a pinky ring.

Lita: Not if they hold their pinky out like that to make it shine at you.

Lita: Do you hold your pinky out if you're like holding a glass or something?

wurwolf: No, I don't. Do you?

Lita: Yeah. I don't even think about it. I just do.

Lita: I'm so snooty.

wurwolf: Snooty? Or lame?

Lita: Maybe both? I started doing it when I was a little girl and thought it was classy, and now it's just automatic.

wurwolf: I'm leaning more towards lame.

wurwolf: And here we get our first good look at B. Fox's face. I have to say, I'm disappointed.

Lita: He looks so piggy with those little eyes and the tiny nose.

wurwolf: I like how the hat is tilted to a rakish angle, though.

wurwolf: I think he looks a little like Gary Burghoff:

wurwolf: The "haw" rears its ugly head yet again.

Lita: I mostly want to slap people when I hear them say "Haw"

wurwolf: Oh, me too.

Lita: It just goes right around the brain and into the spine and pulls on the slapping nerves.

wurwolf: B. Fox waited until John got out the inkwell and pen before stopping him?

Lita: Asking for my soul is weird enough, but asking me to sign anything in blood would just put me over. I'd be like, "Oh, ok, you're a loony. You can either leave now or wait here while I get my gun."

Lita: Also, Freeman already told him he'd get half the treasure. Why would he throw his soul in as well? No wonder he's in so much debt if he's this bad at identifying a terrible deal.

wurwolf: Exactly. It's a wonder he's managed to hold on to the farm this long.

Lita: If I'm giving up my soul I want ALL that stupid treasure that's on my property anyway.

wurwolf: Not only that, but (peeking ahead) John is going to be doing all the hard labor to get this treasure.

Lita: And there had better be a LOT of treasure. If we start digging and only find a couple of silver dollars than I will be pissed.

wurwolf: If John was more shrewd he would have dug the treasure up first and then signed the contract. Some guy shows up on your doorstep with a crudely-drawn map, claiming that there's treasure on your property, and you totally fall for it? I'm surprised John didn't lose his soul before he hit puberty.

Lita: I hope he at least checked to make sure there was a clause that let him off if they don't find treasure or if the treasure is lame.

wurwolf: I'm sure he didn't.

wurwolf: Wow. Good thing John didn't rent that stump grinder last year like he was thinking about doing.

wurwolf: John became shirtless between the time they reached the stump and when he was digging.

Lita: "Don't you have a promise to keep?" Geez, Fox, he said "we." You're taking his soul, let him have a minute to jump around and be happy.

wurwolf: What's that on the ground next to B. Fox? Did Chluthu wander into this tract?

wurwolf: Maybe that's the artist's response to this tract.

Lita: John never promised Fox to fix Boggs.

wurwolf: Fox must've been hanging around and overheard him. I can totally see the devil wanting to hang out in a bank.

Lita: He really is dumb if he didn't pick up on Fox knowing about that.

wurwolf: John has never looked more like Stacy Keach than he does there.

wurwolf: You know, John, that's where the real money is. Stacy Keach impersonations. Just something to think about.

Lita: "There's nothing like revenge." And that was nothing like revenge. Not interesting revenge anyway. Any objections to skipping those "revenge" panels?

wurwolf: Yes, but you're going to do it anyway, aren't you?

Lita: Yes.

wurwolf: Well, I'm still going to talk about them.

Lita: Fine.

wurwolf: Once again we have a businessman fired for doing his job.

wurwolf: Chick seems to love to reward the boobs and buffoons and castigate the hardworking businessmen.

wurwolf: Honestly, I feel a little sad about this. Poor Boggs.

Lita: Oh, hey! It's Bob!

wurwolf: Bob Goode!

Lita: Must be one of Bob's ancestors. He's even good at shouting about souls at people who were just trying to have a nice conversation.

wurwolf: Bob's head explodes in a flash of light over John's stupidity.

wurwolf: "I believe in the 10 commandments... I do as much good as possible..."

wurwolf: "Why, I even changed my last name to 'Goode'! It used to be Miller!"

Lita: Bob never ever sins. Because the Bible teaches that that's possible.

Lita: The Bible is always going on and on about how you can get into heaven through good works and that's why we don't need any savior.

wurwolf: Yup, that's what Bob has always told us. And you don't argue with Bob.

wurwolf: Okay. Obviously this tract took place many years ago. So I can only assume that Bob Goode has traveled far into the future and brought back that sweet flat-screen tv there.

Lita: Beelzebub? Really, tract? You're going there?

wurwolf: And John is so dumb. "Beelzebub!", he cheerfully shouts out.

Lita: "Lew Siffer" was one thing, but "Beelzebub Fox" is just too much to handle.

wurwolf: Frankly, I think "Lew Siffer" was worse.

Lita: Next tract we'll see a guy sign his soul over to "Lorda Thefflies." And don't miss the one where some guy signs his soul, in blood, to "Satan McPrinceofdarkness"

wurwolf: Or "Mr. O'Scratch"

wurwolf: Well, John might be on his deathbed and doomed to hell, but what an awesome ride these last ten years have been for him. Look at that mansion! Although I do think the architect went a little overboard on the windows.

wurwolf: It kind of looks like John's mouth was sewn shut while he's dying in bed.

wurwolf: Is that a face on John's headboard?

Lita: It's a frowny face. Because it's sad to die and go to hell.

wurwolf: I thought maybe Beelzebub made him carve it there, to remind him of his impending fate.

Lita: Bob's a big Jesus expert and he didn't mention to John in the last 10 years that there's a way out of that contract?

Lita: He probably figured John deserved what he got. That's our Bob!

wurwolf: Oh, Bob. For fun!

Lita: "blahhdee blah, Jesus, blood, cross, blah blah." Moving on.

wurwolf: Looks like Bob's doing alright for himself, too.

Lita: "You look terrible!" That Bob. Always full of Christian love and kindness.

wurwolf: ONE HOUR LATER "Stop preaching to me, John!" Really. If my decrepit cousin showed up at my door and preached at me for a full hour, non-stop, I think I'd be a little grumpy, too.

Lita: I'm confused about Bob. He was set up as our Christian hero and now he's all, "I DON'T WANT TO HEAR THIS CHRIST STUFF!"

wurwolf: Chick tracts pulled a switcheroo on us!

wurwolf: Did they have baloney when this tract took place?

Lita: Skipping ahead, John dies and Bob thinks he's in hell, blah blah, hey look! Violence!

wurwolf: I love how Bob's legs are all splayed out under the tree branch.

Lita: A massive tentacle appears to rape Bob! Damn you, Japan!

wurwolf: It's Chluthu again!

wurwolf: His legs look like one of those Garfield butts that people hang out of their car window.

Lita: Why does this panel include an advertisement for a book about Satanism? Was that horse playing D&D?

wurwolf: Must have been. I just like that the tree crashed in Cooper Bold.

wurwolf: And Bob's leg says "Ugh".

Lita: He had a mantis in his pantis.

wurwolf: Perhaps you'll get a look at that mantis in his pantis in the next panel, because he's in hell and he's nude.

Lita: He's all sweaty because it's hot as hell in there.

wurwolf: Haw!

Lita slaps wurwolf

Lita: Sorry! Reflex!

wurwolf: It's okay. I'll just reflexively break your pinky sometime when it's sticking out.

wurwolf: Okay, so finally, Chick tracts gives little kids a pass. They won't wind up in hell.

Lita: Unless they wear dumb sweaters and hang out with bikerhobos.

Lita: Beelzebub Fox's head looks like a massive ham, and it's making me hungry.

wurwolf: A delicious, tasty ham with eyes and a hat.

Lita: No big finish for this tract. I'm disappointed.

wurwolf: "I've got everyone anyway.... except those who accepted Christ as their savior!" And the tract just kind of ends there....

Lita: As does this blog entry.

Angels?

2008-03-12T14:43:00.023-04:00

HEY HOLEEE COW-ERS!! ARE YOU READY TO ROCK?! This one goes out to our biggest fan, Springy!! WHOOOO! Rock on, you CRMFer! *chucks a beer bottle into the audience*

wurwolf: Good goddamn, I love it already.

wurwolf: We've had some great covers from Chick, but I swear that is the best cover we've seen yet.

Lita: They really captured the Rock spirit

wurwolf: Totally.

Lita: That guitar has a really long neck.

wurwolf: Not only that, the guy's mouth is abnormally big. I guess that's so he can get out all of his mad lyrics.

wurwolf: By the way, this tract was written in 1986, so judge their take on rock music accordingly.

Lita: Do you really think it's changed since then? I mean, it's barely been 20 years.

wurwolf: This being Chick Publications, I'm sure they won't be so current as to portray hair metal bands or even new wave. I'm guessing they'll be featuring some greasy 70s prog rock band.

wurwolf: You know what? I can't say that I blame them for being upset. $200 split four ways will barely buy dinner at a fast-food restaurant, let alone pay their bills.

Lita: No, I can see how the tract is making its point about these greedy little bastards. If they're so Christian and want to spread the Word they should Rock for free. And God loves it when His servants on Earth cheat each other out of money.

wurwolf: Well, God must be overjoyed then. Because these guys are clearly being cheated. If the agreed upon fee was $500 and they're getting $200? Pfft.

wurwolf: Frankly, I think they should trash the Sunday School rooms.

Lita: They couldn't do worse than Sunday Schoolers do.

Lita: Also, Green Angels is kind of a dumb name for a rock group. Even a Christian rock group.

wurwolf: Maybe. But how awesome would it be if that van was lime green and they had all that painted on the side? I would totally drive around in a van like that.

wurwolf: I'd feel like I was in a Scooby Doo cartoon.

Lita: I wonder if they're enviro Christians

Lita: I would not be surprised to discover that Chick Tracts is opposed to environmentalism too.

wurwolf: I'm sure some day we'll run across a tract against environmentalism.

wurwolf: How come that preacher stopped you? Maybe because you suck.

Lita: Yeah, guys, I get that a lot of Christian rock is regular rock, but you substitute Jesus for "baby." But I don't think that works so well if your song is "Superfreak".

wurwolf: Or "Milkshake".

Lita: "You're a very sexay Loooord! The kind you don't bring home to Mothaaaaa!"

wurwolf: "My Jesus brings all the boys to the yard..."

Lita: "My Jesus does the hanky panky!"

Lita: Hey, big dark shadowy guy, I don't think those little jerks can hear you if you're talking to them from the other side of the window like that.

wurwolf: How to Win Friends and Influence People, Rule #1: You won't get people to do what you want by calling them jerks.

wurwolf: "It's got to be my way." I'll bet he's Frank Sinatra!

Lita: Oh no! He's telling them to let go and flow! It's the beginning of the end when your Christian rock group resorts to public urination!

wurwolf: Get their name right, Satan. They're the GREEN Angels.

wurwolf: He washed us out? What does that mean?

Lita: Nothing wrong with being washed out. Lots of rock groups could do with a shower.

wurwolf: Yes, these guys especially. I guess their rent doesn't include showering.

Lita: Look at that guy. I bet he's Tommy's older brother. I mean, he's even a loser.

wurwolf: He does look a lot like Tommy.

Lita: I wonder if his name is Bobby

wurwolf: Let's start calling him Bobby.

Lita: Mr. Siffer gives spring cleaning a whole new meaning.

Lita: I bet this is how all Christian rock groups make it big. No true Christian would enjoy rock music.

wurwolf: I like the couple on the right in the restaurant. The man is about to order something, but his wife is so angry! I'll bet he's diabetic and he's trying to order some pie.

Lita: I bet every time the waitress walks away he swats her on the fanny.

wurwolf: This tract wants us to think that wanting $500 when you can't even pay your rent is a bad thing.

wurwolf: Oh no! Don't jump! You have so much to live for!

Lita: Five hundred dollars, man! FIVE HUNDRED DOLLARS!!

wurwolf: That could pay a whole month's rent in 1986!

Lita: I want five hundred dollars!

wurwolf: So with inflation, in today's rate that would be.... what? $1,000?

Lita: I want one thousand dollars!!!

wurwolf: Hell, I'd be happy with a candy bar.

wurwolf: Wow. Guys, you're in a Chick tract. Don't you know talking like your beliefs are no big deal means you're going straight to hell?

Lita: If you're not willing to die for your beliefs you're just not committed enough. And that's why you got into rock and roll.

Lita: Ok. So we haven't seen Siffer's face yet, but the guys have. And we know Chick Tracts like their devils to have horns and crap. So what are you thinking:

Lita: Did the tract go against its basic nature and make Satan all good looking like he probably actually would be?

Lita: Or did the tract do what it really wants to do and make Siffer all evil and ugly and covered in scales and horns and stuff and the guys are just really dumb?

wurwolf: Or high.

Lita: If one of them is related to Tommy I'm gonna go with dumb.

wurwolf: If this is a Chick tract, I'm gonna go with high.

wurwolf: Ooo! Maybe Mr. Siffer is actually Bob!

Lita: Check Siffer's profile. I think you're right. He's Bob.

wurwolf: I thought so!

Lita: "Hey, Christians! I can give you booze and groupies and drugs!" "We see no downside to this!"

wurwolf: For crying out loud, I still can't see why these guys are such villains. Isn't this what anyone in the music business would want? To be famous and to get ahead?

Lita: If they're so easily turned from their beliefs, why did they start a Christian rock group? Why not just start a regular rock group?

wurwolf: I know, right? "We're not such great Christians. We don't really care about our religion. Hey! Let's start a Christian rock band!"

Lita: "Nobody will buy our albums except hardcore Christians and if we ever sin and they find out even they'll stop buying our stuff! It'll be AWESOME!"

Lita: I have a couple of Christian Rock albums. I got them back in high school when my youth group was trying to convince me that we should only listen to Christian music. I tried out some, and it was ok. I could get into it, depending on the group. But I couldn't imagine giving up all my non-Christian music forever.

wurwolf: Yeah, I tried to get into it, too. I even went so far as to throw away all of my Pink Floyd albums, an action I regret to this day.

Lita: Finally I decided, "Ok. Maybe God does speak to some people to tell them that their music is getting in the way of their walk. But I've never gotten any impression that He's saying it to me." I never regretted not throwing out my music.

wurwolf: Eh. Sign in your own blood, pee in this cup. I see no difference.

Lita: No reason why the blood signing thing or the selling of souls should throw up red flags. The RIAA requires it of all its musicians, and most of its customers.

wurwolf: Told you they would be a 70s prog rock group. That blonde guy has Yes written all over him.

wurwolf: WHOA! There is a Bobby! How precog of you, Lita!

Lita: He's not the one who looks like Tommy's brother, though. I was off by one.

wurwolf: Well.... yeah. That and just about everyone in these tracts are named Bob, Tom or Tim, or some derivative thereof.

wurwolf: "Souls haw haw!" I love it.

Lita: Tommy the Elder has some Benicio Del Toro in him.

Lita: Lew Siffer. That's totally subtle, Chick Tracts.

Lita: Siffer doesn't have horns. Yet.

wurwolf: Well... Lew Siffer is quite clever, but I hope people call him Lewis Siffer just to mess with him.

wurwolf: "You can call me Lew if you like." No. I just want to call you Lewis.

Lita: He couldn't even be a Luis. He had to go with the weird spelling.

wurwolf: Oh, he's such an angel of light, with his white suit and glowing aura. *rolls eyes*

Lita: You know who Lew's reminding me of?

wurwolf: Satan: Master of the World, Agent to the Stars, and Sandwich Promoter.

wurwolf: Actually, I think Satan is John McCrea of CAKE. He shaved his goatee, but we all know that CAKE is the devil.

wurwolf: Are you kidding me? Is Chick Publications making the bold statement that music comes from Satan?

Lita: I'm not at all surprised.

wurwolf: Huh. I wonder what the difference between hard rock and heavy rock is.

Lita: I can't help but wonder why Mr. Siffer waited until the 1960s to unveil his master evil plan to destroy all souls. I mean, many Christians agree we're either in or approaching the End Times. Cutting it a little close, aren't you Lew?

Lita: If it were such an awesome plan he should have started in a lot sooner. We could be waltzing to Beethoven's "Janie's Got A Gun" right now.

wurwolf: Was Satan listening to the same music I was listening to in the 70s? I hardly think "Chick A Boom" and "Baby I'm A Want You" classify as heavy rock.

Lita: Sorry, wurwolf. Soft Rock doesn't exist anymore. It ended in the 60's. That's why you see all the kids headbanging to Michael Bolton and Butterfly Kisses.

wurwolf: I like that the crooners introduced the world to Satan. Damn you, Bing Crosby!

Lita: I was at the dentist last week and "Bridge Over Troubled Water" came on the radio and I was afraid for the safety of my teeth with all the moshing that suddenly broke out in there.

wurwolf: Satan has even inflitrated your dentist office. Shameful.

wurwolf: Lew's explanation of music sounds an awful lot like the song "Sympathy for the Devil"

Lita: All the Green Angels have the WTF expressions you would expect from watching Satan's little presentation, except Tommy The Elder. He's just like, "This is hardcore. Let's roll."

wurwolf: Absolutely. He's had a taste of what $500 can bring, and he's not going back.

wurwolf: Motley Crue was around in the 70s? I'm calling bullshit on that.

Lita: Wait... Satan's trying to destroy education? But I thought education was his baby. On account of all teachers hating god and pushing Evolution and dinosaurs and gays and stuff.

wurwolf: Perhaps a different writer wrote this tract.

Lita: All music made after the 50's sounds the same? D... Dad? Is that you???

wurwolf: I'm having a hard time following Lew's reasoning there.

wurwolf: Sweet! They're part of the wolf pack! AWESOME!

Lita: If you think pastors who let rock music in are wimpy just try rocking out the worship service in any church service my dad attends.

wurwolf: "Let's move on" I love the way Lew talks. He's quite the motivational speaker.

Lita: He must have sensed that we were running out of things to say about that panel. He's very considerate.

wurwolf: So let's track the progression of Satan's music. It starts in his Satanist church, then straight to the Catholic church, then onto voodoo (which, I'm not sure how the Catholics and voodoo are mixed up), and then from voodoo to the entire world.

wurwolf: Yeah. Sure. I can buy that.

Lita: You never listened to Wall of Voodoo? It's great. o/` I'm on a Mexican radio! I'm on a Mexican, wooah-oh, radio! o/`

wurwolf: No, I've never even heard of them.

Lita: They only had one hit, but it was a good one.

wurwolf: "But they'll die for their rock and rolls gods." I gotta admit, Chick tracts isn't doing a good job of making me not want to be in Satan's band.

Lita: "Starting from my church*" "*The Satanist church" Thanks, Tract. I wasn't sure by this point who we were dealing with here.

wurwolf: Yeah really. Because the name Lew Siffer was too hard to figure out.

wurwolf: By the way, I don't know how many times I've read the name "Siffer" and thought it said "Stiffler". It's like, "This guy Stiffler is really load--" Oh. Siffer.

wurwolf: "Let's give them a big New York welcome." Yep. Because if you're going to sin, you should sin big. In New York.

Lita: When Satan labels you, you stay labled. Once a stupid little jerk, always a stupid little jerk.

wurwolf: Wow. That's a great panel. "We're gonna rock with the ROCK!" Prudential?

Lita: You know what I've always found striking about the Christian rock groups I've listened to? All the Satanic imagery. They always have demons flying around and stuff. Because Christians aren't sensitive about that kind of thing.

wurwolf: Yeah, they're big on that stuff.

wurwolf: "I love um!" Really? Um?

Lita: Is their animatronic demon saying "They're the greatest"?

wurwolf: Ha! It is! What brilliant promotion!

Lita: Oh, wait. I get it. They're not animatronic demons. They're real demons because demons love any song with a beat.

wurwolf: That Lew, he's the best manager ever!

Lita: They can't marry each other because it'll wreck their image? They can't marry each other because it's the mid-80's and it's illegal.

Lita: But check out Satan, taking a stand against homosexual marriage!

Lita: I have to admit, I'm genuinely surprised that a Chick tract would take this stance.

Lita: I now realize that as loving compassionate Christians we should stand up against the hate that Satan keeps spewing and legalize gay marriage. Thank you, Chick Tracts. Thank you.

wurwolf: You're reading it wrong. Chick wants you to know that NO ONE likes homosexual marriage. Not even Satan.

wurwolf: Satan can hand out AIDS for wedding presents? I thought AIDS was God's judgment against homosexuality.

wurwolf: Way to steal God's bit, Satan!

wurwolf: "He's skin and bones. He looks like death." "So he's got AIDS. Big deal!" Wow. Just.... wow.

Lita: That's something I've noticed about rock fans. They hate having friends.

wurwolf: It's part of the pact they sign with Satan.

Lita: Also tons of Christian rock fans wear leather jackets with a No Cross symbol on the back.

wurwolf: I see that jacket in all of the fancy clothing stores here in Manhattan.

Lita: Holy crap! Tommy the Elder's name really is Tom! I'm so psychic today!

Lita: Or else I've read way more Chick Tracts than is healthy for me.

wurwolf: I'm going with choice #2. Also, if you're psychic, that means you're going straight to hell.

wurwolf: I love that she's slipping a Chick tract into Tom's pocket.

Lita: Look how tall Tommy the Elder is. Rock Music has made him larger than life. He's a living legend.

wurwolf: You're absolutely right. Tall people are of the devil.

wurwolf: "Embrace me, Love of Death"?? What kind of crappy lyrics are these?

wurwolf: I like that one guy in the audience is wearing a Cream jacket.

Lita: Do you suppose Chick Tracts were aware of the band Cream, or is it just a coincidence?

wurwolf: Right away I want to say that it's a coincidence, because I seriously doubt that Chick tracts has ever heard of Eric Clapton, let alone Cream. But then I realize that this was written in the 1980s and it's not like Chick would be up on any current bands. If they had to pick one band to put on someone's jacket, I'm not surprised that it's a band from 20 years before.

wurwolf: Don is into vampirism? Really? That's the best they could come up with?

Lita: Yeah, that's a fairly common Rock and Roll lifestyle problem.

wurwolf: What tract is Tommy the Elder reading?

Lita: Looks like The Contract. We haven't done it, have we?

wurwolf: No, but we should. It looks fucking awesome.

wurwolf: And apparently it's so powerful that even after reading the first panel Tommy the Elder gets saved.

Lita: All I've seen is the first panel and I agree with Tommy the Elder. The first panel rules.

Lita: I knew it! As soon as Tommy the Elder gets wise we see that the devil is actually ugly with horns and a red face and stuff!

wurwolf: Yep!

wurwolf: "Not any more, Lew Stiffler!"

Lita: "I'm gonna go have sex with your mom!"

wurwolf: He's preaching to a bunch of old people. Like they're going to do anything other than agree with him by shaking their heads and saying, "Tsk tsk."

wurwolf: Oh great. Another call for a book burning.

Lita: And a call for self-crucifixion.

Lita: That's so punk rawk!

----------

Lita: Next time on Holeee Cow... The Contract!

wurwolf: You bet!

Dark Dungeons

2008-03-06T01:58:00.013-05:00

I bring you sad news, everybody. This week marks the passing of a great American hero, Gary Gygax, the co-creator of Dungeons and Dragons. It is because of this tragic event that wurwolf and I decided to take our fingers out of our noses and update the blog already. Join us as we find out why Gary Gygax is burning in hell in today's tract,

(By the way, you may be tempted to click on one of the bonus D&D articles listed on the tract page, but be warned; they're a snore and a half.)

Lita: Wow. I want to see a bigger version of that cover. What does Rocky Horror's Riff Raff have to do with Dungeons and Dragons?

wurwolf: I was hoping to see a bigger version, too. I thought it was General Grevious.

wurwolf: So is this a Bible study? The one girl there is praying.

wurwolf: Are they playing in the break room in their office?

Lita: These kids are all way too cool-looking to be playing tabletop D&D. Where's the realism, Chick Tracts?

Lita: Lets get some weight on these kids! And a few zits. Some glasses. Definitely a neckbeard or two.

wurwolf: Really.

Lita: I guess we can help the tract out a little if we imagine that everybody is talking in a high nasally voice.

wurwolf: They got the excessive soda cans right, anyway. Too bad there aren't bags of Cheeto's lying around, though.

Lita: At least D&D brings these jocks and nerds together.

wurwolf: Yeah. After this they're going to go out and throw a football arou.... oh, who am I kidding?

wurwolf: Are they playing this in the home of the Dungeon Master's mom? Because my mom has those same hanging plants in her dungeon.

Lita: I want to know what's in the cupboard behind them. Their fancy hi-fi maybe? Or is it a fridge?

wurwolf: That must be where they keep the souls of the righteous.

Lita: What's that on the corner of the table? Incense? Or did the DM spark up a J?

wurwolf: I was wondering that, too. It could really be either one of those things.

Lita: Marijuana is a gateway drug... to SATAN.

wurwolf: Jeez. The DM is SUCH a Mary Sue.

wurwolf: I don't think I could blame Black Leaf for being upset. This DM just totally God moded her.

Lita: That's what the DM is for. That's why she's the Dungeon Master.

Lita: That's the whole point of having a DM. They control the game.

Lita: If you can't handle getting killed in D&D you shouldn't play the game.

wurwolf: Oh shush, you nerd. Quit stepping on my lines.

Lita: It's the truth. And as Bob taught us, if you ever don't tell the truth, then you are a liar.

wurwolf casts a binding spell on Lita!

Lita: Oh no! I can't reach my Cheeto's!

wurwolf: Just as well Marcie is gone. Her shirt is ugly. And she's knocking the Fanta over.

wurwolf: Speaking of ugly shirts, where does Debbie get her clothes? At the Old Trading Post?

Lita: I never played an actual tabletop rpg, but I doubt most DMs would make you actually leave the building once you get killed.

wurwolf: GET OUT!

Lita: The worst I've heard is that they just make you wait until the current campaign is over before they let you create a new character.

Lita: Oh no... The DM really is evil. She's about to draw Debbie into the unholy horror that is... LARPing!!

wurwolf: How much longer until Debbie learns to speak elvish and paints her face?

Lita: Lucky Elfstar! Being a priestess and a witch sounds so cool!

wurwolf: Wow.... it's the rare pentagram that has a desk from Walmart as one of its points.

Lita: Oh dear. Debbie's only been a real live witch for five minutes and already the power's gone to her head. Look at her shake her tiny fist!

wurwolf: Frankly, I like Elfstar's Members Only jacket.

Lita: Check out Ms. Frost's hookah!

wurwolf: I like Ms. Frost's cool beanbag chair! She must not have cats. Cats can't help but pee on beanbag chairs.

Lita: Of course she has a cat. She's a witch.

Lita: She probably gets a new cat every week to replace all the cats she sacrifices to her lord Satan.

wurwolf: Ms. Frost: Fluffy, this is the last time you pee on my bean bag chair! It's sacrifice night for you!

Lita: I bet she uses magic to keep the fringe on that rug perfectly straight.

wurwolf: What dummy places vases in front of a sliding glass door? Those things must get kicked over every day.

Lita: Ewwww... Debbie's into bondage with her dad.

wurwolf: Is that why she looks like that....

Lita: Debbie's face looks like Chuckie from Child's Play.

wurwolf: Really. Did the artist look at that drawing and think, "Yeah, that's exactly how I want her face to look"?

Lita: I don't think D&D is her biggest problem anymore.

wurwolf: Maybe she's smelling cat piss.

Lita: It must be cool to be a witch, though. Debbie just got into the cult last night and already she knows how to do all kinds of spells and mind control and stuff. I guess Satan just shows up and dumps all that info right into your head the first night.

wurwolf: When does she get her Quidditch broom?

wurwolf: I like that the band on the hanging plant pot and the macrame rope combine to form a cross right next to Debbie's head.

Lita: An upside down cross. Because she's Satanic.

wurwolf: It's not upside down.

Lita: Yeah it is

wurwolf: No, it's not.

wurwolf punches Lita right in her face!

Lita:Don't hit! Don't hit!

wurwolf: How is it upside down? The cross bar is closer to the top than the bottom.

Lita: No, it's closer to the bottom than to the top.

Lita: The middle bar goes all the way up to her speech balloon.

wurwolf: Oh, I see what you're saying now. I meant the cross is only in the part with the black background.

Lita: I was looking at the big picture and taking the thing as a whole.

wurwolf: Well, congratulations.

Lita: Thank you.

wurwolf hits Lita with a confusion spell!

Lita: ?rehtom ym uoy era ,nibboB si eman ym,olleH

Lita: Wow. that's an impressive crop of pot Ms. Frost is growing.

wurwolf: So that must have been a joint in the first panel.

Lita: Oh man! Debbie got her dad to buy her all that crap?? I want to be a witch now!!

Lita: This tract is making witchcraft look like the awesomest thing ever! I gotta get on Amazon right now and buy some DnD books and find some local nerds!

wurwolf: Really! There is NO downside to witchcraft and Dungeons & Dragons!

Lita: Except I guess I'd have to buy some really tight jeans that go up to my ribcage and tuck my shirt into it.

wurwolf: That's part of the binding spell.

Lita: "May my victim be as tightly constricted as my torso is in these jeans."

wurwolf: Nothing says style like high-waisted jeans, a Members Only jacket, and Cindy Brady ponytails.

Lita: I can totally rock the ponytails. It's the jeans and the jacket that are holding me back. But I guess it could be worth it if I can use my badass magic spells to make people buy me some cool clothes later.

wurwolf: Oh wow. If "I'm fighting the Zombie" isn't a euphemism for sex, I don't know what is.

Lita: Wow, wurwolf. The more I hear about your husband the more I think he may need the healing power of Christ. Or maybe some caffeine.

wurwolf: Is she playing D&D all by herself?

Lita: I guess now she can conjure a DM with her mind.

Lita: I gotta say, though I'm not in love with all the macrame, I do like the art in Ms. Frost's house.

Lita: It's all abstract and stuff. Which I guess is evil.

wurwolf: It sure is.

wurwolf: I guess if you're a Dungeon Master you get to wear all sorts of awesome rings.

Lita: Oh geez! That tree in Marcie's front yard is terrifying!

wurwolf: It's like that tree in Poltergeist.

Lita: At first I thought it was some monsterous bird of prey swooping down to snatch Debbie away to Hell!

wurwolf: It looks like the Berenstein Bears "Spooky Old Tree."

Lita: I'd lock myself in my room for weeks, too, if there were a tree like that stalking me outside.

wurwolf: Hazel the maid answers the door. With her shirt on backwards.

wurwolf: "Maybe you could talk some sense into her." Sure. Your daughter is despondent because she was too caught up in an rp game. But you go ahead and let someone from that game in to talk to her.

Lita: If you're still mourning your D&D character weeks after he got killed then you really are getting too personal about it. You gotta go into the game knowing that most DMs are horrible people on power trips who will use their in-game omnipotence to kill your character as much as possible.

wurwolf: Lita, come on. This is a Chick tract. They never do any research for these things.

Lita: The function of the DM is to move the story along and make it interesting, but a lot of the time that translates to trying to kill everybody.

Lita: Marcie! Stop jumping on the bed! You'll ruin the springs!

wurwolf: And the dragon bows his head in sorrow.

wurwolf: She should have bludgeoned herself with her her pointy dragon figurine.

Lita: Or slit her wrists with that little dude's sword. Be symbolic when killing yourself.

Lita: That's an awesome dragon doll. You don't need to kill yourself if you have a rockin' dragon doll like that.

Lita: I'd look at it and be like, "Yeah, Glorflforf the Troll got killed in D&D last night, but that dragon doll rules."

wurwolf: I have to say that I like Marcie's artwork in her room more than Ms. Frost's.

Lita: Is that a barbarian fighting a robot?

wurwolf: Or possibly a backhoe?

Lita: I wonder if that horrible tree outside poked a branch through that window for Marcie to hang herself from.

Lita: It seems like the kind of a tree you'd find somebody hanging from.

wurwolf: We'll never know. The artist was too lazy to show us exactly how she did it.

Lita: Marcie's legs are still wiggling. Cut her down, Debbie!

wurwolf: You know that if it was the same artist that does the Bob tracts, we'd see the whole thing. Including Marcie's head at a sickening angle, blood dripping from her mouth and throat, her one eye hanging out of its socket and down on her cheek....

Lita: At least with this guy we get that rad dragon. Seriously. I want that dragon.

Lita: I gotta say, as suicide notes go, this one is pretty lame.

wurwolf: She wrote her note in Brush Script, size 48.

wurwolf: Boy, that background behind the note is all psychadelic. It's like that optical illusion with the bus tires.

Lita: I guess with all the weed paraphenalia we've seen in this tract so far we shouldn't be too surprised that Debbie got lit before she read the note.

wurwolf: It's all breaking my mind, man!

Lita: Wow! It broke Debbie's mind, too!

wurwolf: At first I thought there was an explosion behind Ms. Frost's words. I was like, Wow, she's really angry! And then I realized it was just one of her plants.

wurwolf: I was so bummed out.

Lita: I'm kind of conflicted about what Ms. Frost is saying. On the one hand, yeah, Marcie was a huge loser. On the other hand, look who's talking. Spiritual growth through the game? Seriously?

wurwolf: No need to be conflicted, Lita. They're all losers.

Lita: Big fat neckbeardy losers.

Lita: Nice sleeves, Ms. Frost.

wurwolf: Ooo! She looks like Vampira in Plan 9!

Lita: If she tries to raise her arms any higher than they are right now, her shirt will come untucked.

wurwolf: She's rocking the shoulder pads correct.

Lita: I want to see more of that art on the wall. Looks like Marcie isn't the only one with a battling barbarian poster.

wurwolf: Maybe their group got a discount on artwork if they bought in bulk.

wurwolf: Debbie's started wearing eye make-up -- a step in the right direction, to be sure, but she's still got those pony tails.

Lita: There must be some bright spotlights in Ms. Frost's room to project that heavy of a shadow behind Debbie.

wurwolf: Ha! You're right. She looks like she's in a play.

Lita: Gotta say, they didn't harm Marcie. Marcie harmed herself.

Lita: How is it Debbie's fault that Marcie went all psycho over a dumb game?

wurwolf: Really. I think Ms. Frost is on the right track.

wurwolf: Damn. I'd like to let Elfstar take care of things once in a while.

wurwolf: Elfstar, my laundry needs to be done!

Lita: Elfstar, get going on dinner, willya?

wurwolf: Dammit, Elfstar, I asked you to clean out the catbox this morning.

wurwolf: No wonder Debbie doesn't want to be Elfstar any more. It's too much work!

wurwolf: I mean, sure, you can mind trick your parents into buying cool shit for you, but you gotta pay the piper somehow.

Lita: And then if Elfstar gets killed in the game you have to kill yourself from shame. That's a drawback.

wurwolf: But still.... the thought of having Elfstar take care of everything for me is extremely tempting.

Lita: And the free loot, too. I do love loot.

wurwolf: Huh? Where did Debbie go? Is she having a dream?

Lita: Debbie grew up quite a bit between panels

wurwolf: Still wearing those high-waisted jeans, though.

wurwolf: And pony tails.

Lita: And hanging out with freaky trees.

wurwolf: I think it's the same tree. It's stalking her.

Lita: No wonder Mike is concerned.

wurwolf: She's walking down the street and she thinks something's following her. And the tree stands stock still and Debbie's like, Huh. And then she starts walking again and the tree follows her some more.

Lita: Sometimes the tree will hide behind a bush or a telephone pole and snicker

wurwolf: The tree wears a different hat and sunglasses every day, too.

Lita: The exact same filthy trenchcoat, though.

wurwolf: Why would Mike fast and pray for you, Debbie? Maybe he wants to get in your high-waisted pants.

Lita: Wowee! Look at Mike! Rowr! He can fast and pray for me anytime!

wurwolf: Mike flew in from the 50s to tell Debbie about Jesus.

Lita: Sure, Mike. I'll come to your "prayer meeting" tonight. *wink*

wurwolf: Meanwhile, the tree listens in. "Holy shit! Prayer meeting?! How will I blend in there?"

wurwolf: The tree pretends to be a ficus in the lobby

Lita: Oh man! They invited Burt Reynolds to their prayer meeting! Awesome!

Lita: And he's talking about bondage, too!

wurwolf: No way, that's not Burt Reynolds. It's Norm MacDonald doing his Burt Reynolds impression.

Lita: Even better. That's the only form of Norm MacDonald I can stand.

wurwolf: Wow. Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds can take me to his dungeon of bondage any day.

Lita: Me too, but only if Mike comes along.

wurwolf: So this guy was involved in witchcraft, huh? What powers do you think he had?

wurwolf: I'll bet he was banging all of the witches in his coven and telling his wife it was part of their sabbath ritual.

Lita: The power to grow a rad mustache.

wurwolf: He got that spell down pretty well.

Lita: Oh good! We get to have another book burning! It'll be so romantic, cuddling with Mike by the firelight.

wurwolf: Great, a book burning. Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds, go back to chomping your gum and spouting one-liners. Stop with the censorship.

wurwolf: If that's the tree in the back in the panel where Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds is raising his arms, it looks like it brought a friend.

wurwolf: I guess this is the kind of presentation where there are costume changes, since Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds changed his jacket. Either that or he totally pitted out his first jacket.

Lita: Maybe he found out his first jacket was in league with dark forces.

wurwolf: You'd think that his second jacket would be more in league with dark forces, since it's darker.

Lita: "My life's a mess!" Your blouse is a mess.

wurwolf: Why is she suddenly dressing like a junior executive?

wurwolf: At least she ditched the pony tails.

Lita: They're still there. But you can only see one because she's in profile.

Lita: That guy behind her is a robot from the future sent to protect the past.

wurwolf: I thought they littered the audience with mannequins to make it seem like there were more people there.

wurwolf: I see in the next panel that you're right about the pony tails. You're pathetic, Debbie.

wurwolf: I like that they refer you to scripture for their big warning. If it was so damn important, don't you think they should post the warning right then and there?

Lita: WARNING: This panel may not be suitable for less mature viewers

wurwolf: Oh, like us? Who feel the need to point out that Debbie is thrusting her boobs out at Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds?

Lita: And then Debbie lifts up her shirt.

Lita: I guess we're supposed to think those are demons being cast out of Debbie, but I know it's really just that tree sneaking up on her again.

wurwolf: The demon may have left, but Debbie's got that tree for life.

Lita: Nuh uh. Look at that next panel.

Lita: They're burning the tree!

wurwolf: Oh yeah! And it's thanking the Lord for setting it free!

wurwolf: Oh noes! Lita, brace yourself. I think that sweet dragon figure is at the top of the to-be-burned pile.

Lita: Oh hell no!

wurwolf: Goddammit, Debbie, fix your pony tails. They're all over the place.

wurwolf: Look at those humorless assholes behind Norm MacDonald as Burt Reynolds as he's casting out Satan. They look so bored, like they go to these things every weekend.

Lita: Hey, look! They're burning a black man, too!

Lita: I hope they at least bothered to find out whether the black man was a witch before they threw him on the burn pile.

wurwolf: Do you think that would make a difference?

Lita: Maybe they figure it's the dark arts that made his skin like that.

wurwolf: Looking at that crowd, I can believe they would think that.

Lita: They will not rest until the world is as pasty white as they are.

Lita: Which at least means they have something in common with the D&D nerds they're so intent on saving.

wurwolf: And the tract comes full circle.

Lita: "So. Mike. Now that I'm not D&Ding anymore I have most evenings free. How on earth will I fill that time?"

wurwolf: "Mike, you know, I've got a dungeon of bondage, just like the speaker was talking about. Interested?"

Lita: "Maybe we can try a different kind of roleplay. I'll be the dirty nerd girl and you can be the witchfinder general!"

(All the comic panels are copyright Chick Publications 1984 and the images were used according to Fair Use laws in the US.)

Thanks Rimmi!

Uh.... Is this thing on?

2007-12-20T15:28:00.000-05:00

It's sad.... and we're sorry. We've been so SO naughty about updating here. About once a month Lita and I look at each other (virtually) and say, "We should really do an update soon." And then the other person says, "Yeah..." and then the first person says, "Yeah...." and then we go back to talking about whatever we were talking about before one of us thought about Holeee Cow. It's not that we don't love Chick Tracts, and Lord knows I hate it when people whine about how much work it is to maintain a blog. But the sad truth is that making fun of Christian literature is hard work, people! I don't know how the athiests do it.

So don't lose hope -- we haven't given up. We still love Holeee Cow, and we will do our best to update again soon. We promise!

The Choice

2007-07-10T17:41:00.001-04:00

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.)

Party Girl

2007-06-06T17:19:00.001-04:00

We had a few ideas for which non-series tract we wanted to cover first. Without Bob ruling us with his immovable iron fist of hate we were lost at sea, struggling to find a guiding light to help us know where to turn. Would we take on another tract about Catholics? How about one written just for black people? Maybe one about the evils of rock music? And then we remembered all those crazy bitches in Hollywood, getting arrested and flashing their cooters and going to rehab and snorting lines of coke off each others asses and we knew which tract we should do:

wurwolf: I can't tell if Party Girl is dancing with streamers and balloons on the cover or if that's a chalk outline of her body amidst streaks and splotches of blood.

Lita: It's one of those vampire parties where they put blood in the fire sprinklers.

wurwolf: Rockin'!

wurwolf: It occurs to me that having horns would be a convenient place to hang your washcloth when you're in the bathroom in the morning.

Lita: Heh. Rock and Roll is the Devil's music. Because Jesus hates a good tune.

wurwolf: What I wouldn't give to get a peek at the roster of the "hottest groups". You just know Bon Jovi's on there.

Lita: I read on some Christian website that a bunch of scientists played rock music for some cows and the cows stopped giving milk.

Lita: The cows listening to classical music were fine, but the ones listening to rock all quit giving milk and, I don't know, commited suicide or something. It was supposed to be evidence that rock music is Of the Devil.

wurwolf: Sure, because the cows aren't interested in lactating when they could be rockin' to the sweet sounds of Pantera!

Lita: I have to admit that I have never lactated while listening to rock music.

wurwolf: And I know when I was lactating I mostly listened to Frank Sinatra. So there you go. Irrefutable proof that some Christian website is 100% correct.

Lita: Actually, if I were listening to rock music and I did suddenly start lactating, it might occur to me that something occult may be happening. Or that I should see my doctor. One of the two.

wurwolf: A doctor for each boob?

wurwolf: Low-grade condoms? So people can multiply and be fruitful? Sounds like Satan's stealing God's lines again.

Lita: He just didn't want to fork over for the good ones. Satan's minions are just gonna be handing out some Saran Wrap and rubber bands.

wurwolf: He could have just expensed it. I mean, if you're going to go through the trouble of putting together a festival with the hottest bands in the world, all in the name of world domination, what's another couple of bucks?

wurwolf: It's not like Hell's coffers are empty, what with all the rich people that wound up there.

Lita: Really, I think if he wants to promote consequence-free fornication he should pay up for the best condoms he can get, but what do I know? I'm not Satan.

Lita: I know it's not like Satan to be all short-term thinking by messing up people's bodies with STDs and not their souls by allowing them to get their mack on without worry. He's got a plan.

wurwolf: I'm sure this whole thing is well thought-out.

Lita: Aww. Satan doesn't want to lose a single one of his guests. It's good to see that he cares about their safety. He's going to make sure there is adequate lighting and hand rails on the steps and emergency exits are clearly marked and that there is no underage drinking and that there are plenty of designated drivers.

wurwolf: Next Satan will be promoting abstinence and prayer.

wurwolf: 3,000 miles away? From Hell?

wurwolf: Is Chick Publications saying they know the exact location of Hell, and this woman's house is 3,000 miles away from it?

Lita: She looks a little bit... I don't know. But I don't think if she called me up about some vision that God gave her that I'd be all that shocked. She seems like the type to hear voices at 4 in the morning.

wurwolf: I think Rita Jones needs to be praying for her little withered arm. Sick!

Lita: So is that Rita in both pics? Because it's nice to see that she felt it was ok to sit a few hours on God's important message.

Lita: God woke her up at 4 in the morning to tell her to warn somebody about imminent danger. But that's ok, Rita. You make sure your hair is all nice before you get on the phone. And obviously you can't make these kinds of phonecalls on an empty stomach. And get some makeup on too. It's only sort-of URGENT!

wurwolf: Unless maybe Rita's in California and her granddaughter is in New York? Or maybe she didn't really feel it was all that urgent until she got on the phone.

wurwolf: I can imagine God sitting there, tapping His foot and looking at His watch in frustration.

Lita: Then why is the time stamp over her head? That makes it look like it's that time at her place. If it's that late where Jill is, they should have had the guy on the phone like, "Lady, it's 7 AM here!"

wurwolf: I don't know, Lita. You're trying to make sense of a Chick tract.

wurwolf: Sometimes you need to let go and let God.

Lita: I think God needs to toss a few lightning bolts at Rita's procrastinating ass.

wurwolf: Hee! Bad Cat is giving Satan's minion the business!

Lita: Bad Cat better be careful! He's about to get reported!

wurwolf: The minion looks like Scarecrow from the Wizard of Oz, if he had his eyes gouged out.

Lita: @!!!**! makes its grand reappearance.

Lita: Satan just totally called Rita an old butt.

wurwolf: BURN!

wurwolf: Literally. Because he's in Hell and it's hot and... heh...

wurwolf: I love that the demons in Hell know believers by name, like they're celebrities or something. How vain of fundamentalists to believe that.

Lita: By the way;

wurwolf: Nice to see Satan making a biblical reference to Paul and the thorn in his side.

wurwolf: Wait.... how come she's only been a thorn in his side for 20 years? She's really old.

Lita: She probably had some wild times in her youth.

wurwolf: And now she doesn't want anyone else to have fun, especially her granddaughter.

Lita: Oh yeah. She looks like she was a slutty lttle Hellcat 20 years ago.

wurwolf: A crowd of people partying! Countdown to offensive stereotypes of gay men in 5... 4... 3... 2... 1...

Lita: What the hell is that thing on Gilda Radner's head?

wurwolf: I don't know, but it looks like something she made out of spaghetti and macaroni in art class. Also, I can see Gilda Radner, but I was really picking up Karen Carpenter there.

Lita: How about the guy in that other frame? He's going to party at Hotel Orleans despite his massive head trauma.

Lita: Satan. Master of disguise.

wurwolf: He is indeed. It's brilliant! I'm going out next Halloween as myself.

Lita: Very subtle how they dressed him kind of like a Catholic priest.

wurwolf: I may even go to the trouble of printing out a picture of me and wearing it as a mask.

Lita: That would be awesome.

wurwolf: So with that mask Satan has four horns? He's turning into an elk. What a rack!

Lita: Nice how Satan has to attend a party personally for just one soul.

Lita: He doesn't have any lackys to take care of that.

wurwolf: Satan's plan for world domination is off to a really slow start. You're right, he needs to learn how to delegate.

Lita: Oh, wait. I forgot he's personally interested in this chick because he doesn't like her grandma.

wurwolf: Satan's got all the classic symptoms of poor management style. He needs to attend some seminars. My boss is always getting stuff in the mail, I'd be happy to forward Satan some brochures.

wurwolf: On the plus side, he makes one mean apple-tini.

Lita: Ok, so what ignorant parent is letting their 7-year-old wander around unattended at what appears to be Mardi Gras?

wurwolf: He's not unattended. He's got Queen Victoria looking after him.

Lita: Hey! I finally figured out why Satan went for the low-grade condoms!

wurwolf: Oh yeah? Why?

Lita: If this is Mardi Gras, then that means there's probably a lot of poor black folk in attendance. Satan is hoping they all have a bunch of kids they can't afford, thus increasing poverty, crime, and negative stereotypes and keeping the black man down!

Lita: Satan is a brilliant strategist.

wurwolf: Clearly.

wurwolf: "To long life!" Oh, how deliciously ironic.

Lita: Wow!!! Grandma just totally pursewhipped Ron Jeremy!!

wurwolf: I think Gilda's hat is making her cross-eyed.

Lita: I think the booze is making Gilda cross-eyed. But I'm more interested in the purse whipping.

wurwolf: Well really. I don't know anyone's grandmother who wouldn't pursewhip Ron Jeremy given the opportunity.

Lita: What's grandma doing here? Smacking greasy porn stars with her purse. What are YOU doing there, Gilda?

wurwolf: You know what, I'm going to stand by my assertion that they're basing Jill on Karen Carpenter. Look at her tiny waist! What is she, a wasp?

wurwolf: Someone graffitied "GASP" on the wall.

Lita: Wow. I thought Ron Jeremy was wearing a cool set of rockstar shades, but it turns out it's just a dumb little robber mask.

wurwolf: It's probably all he could fit on his giant head.

Lita: "Call an ambulance!" "Too late... he's dead." "Ok, leave him there, then!"

wurwolf: Come on, they're at Mardi Gras. There are going to be bodies all over the place before it's over. He'll be picked up eventually.

Lita: I guess it is New Orleans...

wurwolf: I hope the tract readers appreciate the irony of Jill calling her grandmother crazy while wearing a macaroni hat.

wurwolf: Evidently Jill's friend belonged to the Stupid Hat brigade as well.

Lita: Jill's phone got tiny. She looks like she's lifting a barbell.

wurwolf: "Jill, you have an unseen enemy. His name is Satan." Is Grandma trying to get Jill to put her in a home?

Lita: She's changed back into her T-Shirt and Mom Jeans, but is still carrying that hat around.

wurwolf: She's got to maintain her party girl status.

Lita: Something about Grandma's assertion that Satan is using immoral sex on Jill just tickles me.

wurwolf: It is kind of a kick in the pants that your grandmother would know that you're engaging in immoral sex.

Lita: Repent, Jill! Put your hair in a bun, button your dress up to your chin, and sit around on the couch in the dark and nag your grandkids all day!

wurwolf: Don't forget to point and keep your knees apart!

Lita: Jill, I know you're bored as hell, but it's rude to yawn while your grandma is talking to you.

wurwolf: Or burp.

wurwolf: I'm wondering why we're getting a shot of the crowd while Grandma gives Jill the gospel.

Lita: That is frankly a disappoining picture of that crowd of sinners. They're just walking around happy. That's nothing to get your sup-hose in a twist for!

wurwolf: They must be sinning somehow.

wurwolf: You know, I'm just going on the assumption that this woman we've been referring to as "Grandma" is the same person in every panel. Because in every damn panel she looks completely different.

wurwolf: Jesus, to Satan: Does this bug you? I'm not touching you.

Lita: This is a pretty stock salvation. Let's skip down a bit...

wurwolf: Dirtiest panel ever: "Then you will receive God's love gift." "I want to do it right now, Grandma."

wurwolf: Grandma: There is only ONE way to get your sins forgiven. You stick your lumpy butt in the air! But not in an immoral sexual kind of way.

Lita: Poor Satan. He's so flustered that his poisoning ploy didn't work out that now he's just grasping at straws.

wurwolf: He's just shouting stuff out.

Lita: I think deep down he realizes that if he hadn't gotten all ahead of himself and tried to poison Jill she'd never have believed a word Grandma had to say about Jesus.

wurwolf: He really tipped his hand there, didn't he?

Lita: Look at his poor face. He's trying so hard not to cry!

wurwolf: So the person who is reading this tract is supposed to ignore the dude who's telling them to party hardy and listen to the woman in prairie garb. Right....

Lita: She sounds like she's selling crooked life insurance for old people on the TV. The tiny print disclaimer at the bottom doesn't help at all.

wurwolf: I think Chick Publications failed in delivering their intended message if we feel sorry for Satan at the end of the tract.

Lita: You kind of want to put an arm around him and say, "Buck up, Big Guy! You'll get the next one!"

Mad props to our own favorite party girl, Rimmi, for helping out! Thanks, Rimmi! We'll be over to snort coke off your ass later!

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

Welcome New Reader(s)!

2007-05-11T09:44:00.000-04:00

We're on a brief sort of hiatus while Lita wraps up the teaching year and prepares for another summer at the environmental camp. Once we get our schedules to coincide, we'll be back and ready to tackle the next round of tracts.

In the meantime, however, I thought I would provide a link to our introductory post. It's a kind of background for the reasons why we started this blog that might explain where we're coming from, which might be helpful for new readers (the additional two new readers to our previous three). I just reread it, and there is one thing I would change: we are definitely not bashing anyone's beliefs just a little bit. More like a lot. :o)

Here He comes

2007-04-24T17:49:00.001-04:00

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.)

Who's Missing?

2007-04-16T20:50:00.003-04:00

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.)

Hooray for New Technology!

2007-04-07T02:00:00.001-04:00

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!

Man in Black

2007-04-03T18:30:00.001-04:00

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!

Good Ol' Boys

2007-03-05T18:08:00.001-05:00

Yep, it's the Good Ol' Boys! Chick Publications finally busts out the truth about the Dukes of Hazzard, and it's about time -- oh.... Lita's telling me that it's about Freemasons. Dang.

wurwolf: Mr. T is here to kick ass and chew bubblegum, and he's all out of gum! NOW!

Lita: Wow. Looks like the entire back two rows of that church just pood.

wurwolf: They must be the Baptists in the church. Baptists love the back of the sanctuary.

Lita: Ok, Mr. T is making this hostage situation way too complicated. Everybody get on the floor because we want to kill everybody who believes in Jesus. So if you believe in Jesus, stay on the floor, but if you deny Him, stand against the wall. But isn't it easier to shoot people who are standing against a wall than those on the floor?

wurwolf: Those of you who are worried about your thetins can leave!

Lita: He should make the people who want to get shot take a STAND for Jesus and STAND against the Wall O' Death. Way easier to gun them down that way.

Lita is sorry to say she makes a way better terrorist than this guy

wurwolf: Just what is Mr. T's agenda, anyway? Does he and his merry band of rogues travel the country, looking for people who believe in Jesus to kill? I mean, doesn't Mr. T have anything better to do? What's in it for him?

wurwolf: Hey Mr. T, you might want to come to the United States! This place is lousy with people who believe in Jesus. Start in the midwest.

Lita: Heck. Go wait by PO Box 3500, Ontario California. You should find somebody eventually.

wurwolf: What's that?

Lita: That's the mailing address for Chick Publications on the side of the page our tract is on.

wurwolf: Whoops

Lita: I guess you hear about non-Christian governments that round up and kill Christians. I mean, I only hear about it in church, but I still hear about it. These guys don't look like government, though. I wonder if they're going to turn out to be Freemasons.

wurwolf: If so, Baldy there could use a fez.

wurwolf: The lady who's asking about her children looks inappropriately pissed off. You might want to be a little more afraid, sister.

Lita: Really. This isn't the time to shoot your mouth off. The gunman might do it for you.

Lita: Do you think people in this situation would so happily swap sides? What's with the "We're on your side"? What, dude, you like shooting Christians too? Were you just hanging out in the church to scout out people to shoot later?

wurwolf: "We support your war of terror!"

Lita: I like the message here. People may tell you to give up your religion and turn to atheism, but, like the man who gets you to put out before marriage, they won't respect you for it. Secretly they'll think you're a coward, even as they agree not to shoot you. Take THAT, all you bastards who want to change the Pledge of Allegiance!

wurwolf: They're sworn to destroy you, just like Omar was. Infidels!

wurwolf: Man. The pastor might want to think his career choice. Only he and his wife won't deny Christ. He's done a lousy job of leading the flock.

Lita: When is Bob going to swoop in on his Bat-rope and talk these guys to death?

wurwolf: Hee! He's Indiana Williams.

Lita: Heh. "You're going to HELL-- you loser!" I'll have to use that next time I'm held at gunpoint by a psychotic terrorist.

wurwolf: She's got bigger balls than her husband.

Lita: This guy's mom always called him a loser and told him to go to Hell. I can see how that would make him all teary eyed, what with the misty water-colored memories of the way Mama was.

wurwolf: The terrorist is totally captivated by the pastor's wife's gumption! He likes a filly with sass!

Lita: So now this guy doesn't want to shoot Christians? He wants to shoot non-Christians instead? What a flake.

wurwolf: He's as wishy washy as the people he wants to shoot.

Lita: I bet his cohorts are all like, "Damn, I like Ted's dedication to terrorism, but I wish he'd make up his mind about who the Great Satan is."

wurwolf: Jeez. Could just once Chick Publications come up with a believable character and a coherent plotline? Is that too much to ask? I mean, they're supposedly using the Bible as a guideline. How could they go so wrong?

Lita: Oh, wow! Look at that massacre! There's blood splatter and everything! The artist was all over this one!

wurwolf: "BUDDABUDDA BUDDABUDDA!" Is the gun shooting Land O'Lakes?

Lita: Look at the lady with the kids's eyeballs bulging out of her skull! The rictus of horror on her mouth! Look at the tensed veins and tendons in their hands! And somebody's getting his or her finger blown off while trying to shield him or herself from the hail of bullets!

wurwolf: Chick Publications luuuuuuuuuuuurves slaughtering backsliders and non-believers.

Lita: I bet the same people responsible for this tract go home after work and refuse to let their kids play video games because they're too violent.

wurwolf: Or worse yet, they want to stop me from playing a video game because it's violent.

Lita: This panel is so gross. Awesome. It's blood splatter for Jesus, yo.

wurwolf: But the preachers wife didn't really do anything. If she was as awesome as Bob, they would have had their lumpy butts in the air instead shooting up the church.

Lita: "Amazing story" guy looks a lot like Timmy (or Tommy) who wrote about the Ten Commandments and pissed off his teacher. The other guy looks like a chubby Marv Albert.

wurwolf: Robbie's face is all lumpy and misshapen. I think he's a tweaker.

Lita: Just like Tommy (or Timmy) of Ten Commandments fame.

wurwolf: Time for you to haul out your Chick Chart.

Lita: Yeah, ok. It's Timmy.

Lita: So all over the world people aren't getting shot for Jesus? That is an amazing story, Bob.

wurwolf: You'll think Bob's story is amazing, too, if he's got his hypno eyes turned on you.

Lita: I wonder if Bob went into all that detail about the shooting. "And then blood sprayed from that one guy's arm! The lady with kids's eyeballs popped out of her face! Somebody else, maybe the Asian guy, totally got a finger blown off!"

wurwolf: Bob was probably all, "And then you press the square and the x buttons at the same time to execute a triple machine gun move!"

Lita: Fang has a new owner! And Badcat follows them at a safe distance, trying to come up with a new plan for vengeance.

Lita: Perhaps Badcat will give Fang a chance to deny Jesus, and then when Fang does, Badcat will shoot him anyway.

wurwolf: Awww, Emma!

wurwolf: WTF, Bob was telling his gross story in a restaurant? I guess that's one way to get your guests to eat light if you're picking up the tab.

Lita: Is that Bob's penis on the table?

wurwolf: Yuck, Bob, put that thing away!

wurwolf: Wow, David Naughton has really fallen on some hard times.

Lita: Marv looks like he'll deny Jesus right now if it'll get Bob to shut up. Sorry, Marv, it won't help.

wurwolf: He looks like he's really considering it, though.

Lita: He looks like he's thinking of throwing his coffee into Bob's face.

wurwolf: Sorry, Marv, that won't help, either.

Lita: wurwolf, I know you love me. But if anybody ever holds you at gunpoint and tells you to deny that you love me or you'll get shot, you have my permission.

wurwolf: To get shot?

Lita: To deny me.

Lita: Then again, the people who denied Jesus in the church got shot anyway... Hmm. Use your own judgment.

wurwolf: Lita, little do you know I deny you every damn day.

Lita: When you have trouble fishing out a subway token you deny me, just in case it helps.

wurwolf: Sure. "Lord, if you'll help me find a parking spot I'll totally deny Lita."

Lita: "My mittens don't fit... I hate that Lita!"

wurwolf: Look at that Pharisee, hogging the front row. Just like a Pharisee would.

Lita: Why do Jesus and Peter standing against that brick wall make me think they're doing a drug deal?

wurwolf: "The first one's free, Jesus."

wurwolf: I love the "Cock-a-doodle-doo!" in the arch above the rooster's head. My mom had that in her kitchen.

Lita: Even though I know it's in the Bible (I checked), I do wonder about the logistics of Peter being outside denying Christ, while Jesus is inside. And then the rooster crows and Jesus looks at Peter.

Lita: Maybe I have a poor understanding of architecture in Bible times. Or maybe Jesus has X-ray vision. I don't know.

wurwolf: Personally, I'd like to believe that Jesus has X-ray vision. That's more fun.

Lita: He's God. He knows whereabouts Peter was standing.

Lita: So is that it for the Bible story? Way to slack off, Bible Series guys. They're totally getting lazy as we near the end of the series.

wurwolf: And we're only halfway through the tract.

Lita: Remember the old days when I'd have to spend all that time reading my Bible when we did these things because most of the tract was a bible story and the tract kept taking liberties? That's how you base a tract around your own special reading of the Bible.

wurwolf: Oh, for the times when Bob could take a toy dinosaur and spin a tale from the first several chapters of the Bible, all while blasting liberals and teachers. *sigh*

Lita: Oh no! Marv is a Freemason!!!!!

Lita: Just like Jack the Ripper!

wurwolf: I'm shocked to see Bob consorting with the enemy. Someone ought to report him to Fundies United.

wurwolf: Or, as it's better known, Focus on the Family.

Lita: I don't happen to believe it's possible to deny Jesus without knowing it. Denying somebody takes an active choice.

Lita: It's not like the Freemasons call their get-togethers the "I Hate Jesus Club."

wurwolf: Well, according to Bob, next to Jesus everything else is darkness.

Lita: Any attempt to leave darkness that isn't Jesus is evil? So... according to this logic if I turn on a light in my room so I can see, I'm spitting in Jesus's face?

wurwolf: You know those churros you love so much? Total darkness. Your computer? Pure evil.

Lita fully accepts that her laptop is pure evil

wurwolf: I think the guy spit in Jesus' face because he had a blindfold on and couldn't see who's face he happened to spit in.

Lita: And why does that Mason initiate have a pegleg? Is that part of the Freemason initiation?

wurwolf: John Baker is a real pirate-y name.

Lita: They tied a noose around his neck. Is that to cut off his circulation... to Christ?

wurwolf: I thought that was just John Baker's 80s tie.

wurwolf: Nice arty above-the-table shot, but what's Bob doing with his left hand?

Lita: The man plopped his dick out onto the table just a few minutes ago. What do you think he's doing?

wurwolf: Actually, every one of them has only his right hand on the table. Just what's going on here?

wurwolf: A diner is a really bad place for a circle jerk, guys.

Lita: It's traditional Freemason-discussion behavior.

wurwolf: So that's what happens in the meetings....

Lita: It's a secret. We're not supposed to know.

Lita: Bob's referencing all these books that nobody's ever going to look up. So if you're not a Freemason, there's pretty much no way to know how much of this is bullshit.

wurwolf: Certainly not the kids who are supposedly reading these tracts.

Lita: I mean... maybe it's true that the Masons say there are many ways to heaven, or that you're not allowed to pray in Jesus name in a lodge. But how do I know that? And these tracts have made up enough other things that I don't want to take them at their word.

Lita: Thanks to the Internet, I suppose I could Google it. But I'm not going to, because frankly I don't care.

wurwolf: You're on your own there, folks.

Lita: Maybe Springy can join the Masons and give us the skinny in the comments. We know he's a Catholic, so it's not like he's not already going to Hell anyway.

wurwolf: I like the plaque they have on the wall of Hell: "Robbie, all who die in their sins are lost..."

wurwolf: It's something to think about as an angel is tossing you headfirst into the Great Abyss.

Lita: Don't forget the asterisk.

wurwolf: Sure, why not. You have all eternity in hell to puzzle it out.

Lita: "What does the asterisk mean? And why did they call me Robbie?"

wurwolf: Robbie's face is getting progressively worse in this tract. It was just humorous at first, and now he's looking like the Phantom of the Opera.

Lita: Robbie is suffering from that same wasting disease that afflicts many of the sinners in these tracts.

Lita: It's like watching those Nazis melt in Indiana Jones, but in slo-mo.

wurwolf: If you take Robbie's face in this panel and the next one and put them together, they look like the masks of tragedy and comedy.

Lita: Considering what's been going on under that table, I think Robbie can be excused for not getting up to wave his lumpy butt around.

Lita: Marv is PISSED! Robbie can never be a Freemason now!

wurwolf: Marv is ready to deny Robbie!

Lita: But not before taking one last stab at sending Robbie's soul screaming into Hell.

wurwolf: Robbie has to get validation from Bob before he'll tell Marv that his church is wrong.

Lita: "Putting anything ahead of God is like putting a cart before a horse! A bad idea!!"

Lita: Ok... This is Bob's bible verse to prove that God hates secret societies:

Lita:

16 No one lights a lamp and then covers it with a bowl or hides it under a bed. A lamp is placed on a stand, where its light can be seen by all who enter the house. 17 For all that is secret will eventually be brought into the open, and everything that is concealed will be brought to light and made known to all. 18 So pay attention to how you hear. To those who listen to my teaching, more understanding will be given. But for those who are not listening, even what they think they understand will be taken away from them.

Lita: It's the "Don't hide your light under a bushel" parable, which has always been interpreted to me as meaning that if you love Jesus you let it show, and also that one day all secrets shall be known. Not that you should never ever have a secret.

wurwolf: That verse has nothing to do with secret societies.

Lita: Nothing at all.

Lita: Didn't think we'd actually look it up, did you Bob?

wurwolf: Gotcha!

wurwolf: Robbie's looking at Marv wave his lumpy butt around like, WTF?

Lita: Now that he's not a Mason anymore he can put his thing away.

Lita: He has no difficulty rolling around on the floor in his current state.

wurwolf: You know, I've heard the verse about being yoked with unbelievers before, but always in reference to considering a marriage partner. Although with Bob's "leave him!", maybe that's what Bob's thinking, too.

Lita: I've been through several pastors in my day, and with none of them did I ever have the faintest idea about whether or not they were Masons. I don't know if I even know any Masons. I think my grandfather was one, but you can't tell me he wasn't a Christian.

wurwolf: It's not like Masons are going out witnessing, trying to force people into conversion, Bob.

wurwolf: Poor Roger is forced to relive his judgment in every tract.

Lita: We should have known it was a Masonic turtleneck.

wurwolf: Roger is carrying everyone's sins.

Lita: Just like Jesus.

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