Who's Missing?

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

Thanks to Rimmi for contributing!

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

wurwolf: Evidently she's a suicide bomber.

wurwolf: They were hit by a YAAAAA bomb.



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

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

wurwolf: Whoever he is, his hand is HUGE!

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

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

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

wurwolf: What does sarin gas do?

Lita: It kills you.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



wurwolf: Father Damien must really hate his sister.

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

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

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

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

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

Lita: She's totally



wurwolf: Psy-yi-yi!



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

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

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

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

Lita wonders how Mary Anne pronounces "thermonuclear"

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

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



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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

wurwolf: Can you blame her?

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

Lita: Or tequila.

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

Lita: That or ralph.

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

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

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

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

wurwolf: Hee! Dirty!



Lita is looking for something...

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Lita: No. We've heard it.

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



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

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

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

wurwolf: Those were the days....

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

wurwolf: Billy Graham has led so many people astray.

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

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

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

Lita: Wait... Is Billy Graham dead?

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

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




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

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

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

wurwolf: Have a steak on Friday!



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

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

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

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

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

wurwolf: The first one's free, Piado.

Lita: Wow. The resemblance is uncanny:





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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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



Lita: Catholics hate the Bible. Check.

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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



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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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


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