It’s God’s Cartoonist, a documentary about Jack Chick. That guy is a complete and utter loon, and a hateful ideologue, and a bizarre recluse…all of which would make him a fascinating subject for a documentary. I’m surprised the media haven’t been trying to track him down before.
It’s available on DVD. I think I’ll have to get a copy.
I already checked Netflix and Hulu. It ain’t there!
I’ve seen it. It might be one of the few documentaries in which the subject himself doesn’t appear, he’s that seclusive.
I wouldn’t mind see it but I’m not going to spend $21.95 to get it.
I’m with ‘Tis on this one.
Just find some Chick Comics and you can learn all you want about Jack. The comics are wicked, even evil, and they make Baby Jesus vomit.
If you ask about science in science class
Could a comic book save your soul?
If you like to smoke a little grass
Could a comic book save your soul?
If you’d like to try to cast a spell,
If you’ve killed a man, and you’re in a cell,
You’re a breath away from a trip to Hell–
Could a comic book save your soul?
If you’re Catholic, Muslim, Witch, or Jew
Could a comic book save your soul?
If there is no God, according to you
Could a comic book save your soul?
If you like to listen to Metal bands,
If you do your thinking with your glans,
If you don’t do all that God demands
Could a comic book save your soul?
If you’re curious while attending church
Could a comic book save your soul?
Are there pamphlets there, to help your search?
Could a comic book save your soul?
There’s a little screed, by Jack T. Chick
It will make you laugh; it will make you sick,
But it just might make your brain go… *click*…
Could a comic book save your soul?
http://digitalcuttlefish.blogspot.com/2009/12/could-comic-book-save-your-soul.html
If you’re a bit frustrated with looking for this and don’t mind struggling against a torrent of potential legal issues, it is available through less legitimate means.
So wait… I’m not the only person to think something is missing from this “people of the world” sort of approach the chick site is trying to propound… am I?
What’s missing? http://www.chick.com/images/head_bg.jpg
I’m currently watching it here
http://www.sling.com/video/show/161351/38/God's-Cartoonist:-The-Comic-Crusade
Really interesting stuff. Can’t believe the only 2 photographs of him are from the 1940s. This guy really went out of his way to BE out of the way.
Mike, you Infidel, I love ya. ;)
A comedy theater troupe in Duluth (“Colder By The Lake”) performs shows in which they use the Chick tracts as scripts. They are done totally straight, just as written by Jack, and the results are hilarious. To see some photos from past shows:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=2025015&id=1013730530&l=787409a517
PZ has stirred up a TORRENT of interest on this release. Not that an ISOHUNT of the title would yield any results or that I would condone getting this by any means other than by purchasing the DVD.
The people who made this documentary would know high weirdness, they are the brains behind the Church Of The SubGenius.
Say “Hi” to JR “Bob” Dobbs.
Chick publications. Very interestingly anti-catholic.
Be sure to watch the video. It’ll satisfy your craving for Christian crazy all day.
Here is an interview with Kurt Kuersteiner about being the curator of the Jack T. Chick Museum Of Fine Art.
I have always found Jack Chick comics to be fascinating. Like an accident so horrible you can’t look away. And I’ve never been able to make up my mind. What is Chick’s net impact? For every convert he brings to his own cramped and narrow understanding of Christianity, how many does he drive away? And does he drive them into a more humanistic religiosity — or away from religion entirely?
I like to think — but I do not know — that Jack Chick makes religion so ridiculous that he has been an effective antidote to belief.
@Dave Dell, can’t I use my wildcard here? Like:
Chick publications. Very interestingly anti-*.
Zeno,
Wishful thinking, perhaps?
Jack Chick would have been an antidote to belief if he were primarily targeting and dealing with rational, intelligent, sane individuals. But his fatuous screed appeals to those that are already ready to receive it – those who have, in place of a mind, a sieve of religion though which all finer aspects of humanity fall and are lost, retaining only the gross, unrefined, unsavory chunks that bind them to the cult of death.
OK, so, this has nothing to do with the parent, post, but did anyone else see Community last night? It’s one of the funniest new shows I’ve seen all year, but last night was a pleasant surprise when they had a Christmas episode, where it was revealed that the main character is agnostic and his love interest (they form the Ross/Rachel “will they or won’t they?” couple) is an atheist.
What was really interesting, to me, is it was at the end of the episode when everyone is fighting about religion, it was the atheist character that stands up and delivered the episode’s aesop about not letting religion divide people, and sticking together with your friends, etc, delivered to everyone but specifically to the Christian character.
I also give bonus points for them treating the religion of Chevy Chase’s character, who thinks he’s a Buddhist but is clearly in a cult, as being on par with the rest of the religions in a “all religions are strange” message (“You believe in some pretty weird stuff,” said Troy the Jehova’s Witness. “What else do you believe in, blood transfusions!?”).
Anyway, I just wanted to mention it, because I was actually pretty excited last night to see an atheist character get such positive treatment on a network show. While House has always been an atheist, he’s also a huge douchebag and doesn’t do much to assuage the “atheists have no morals” stereotype. Seeing the atheist portrayed as having the moral high ground and correct the Christian character was really refreshing.
Thanks WashingMachine0! (#9)
I remember the first time I found a chick tract.
I thought “How insanely bizarre.” and tossed it in the trash. The things seem to be the rubber ducky of religious zealotry.
A classic: Who Will Be Eaten First?
http://www.piratejesus.com/nerdcore/data/cthulhu/
Jack Chick must be really, really old. When I was at the University of Utah in the 1960’s the state legislature passed some bill that required creationism be taught whenever evolution was. My professor for Intro to Bio included a Jack Chick comic book in the required reading list. We all showed up with a regular big basic bio book and this three inch by six inch comic book called Big Daddy.
The professor said “Please look at your comic book.
This will conclude the state required creation portion of the course. You may now throw your comic book away.” The class was both stunned and delighted according to their religious persuasion.
He was born in 1924 and fought in Okinawa. Check out the link in comment #9.
There’s also the Hot Chicks DVD, a collection of nine very low budget but hilarious renditions of Chick tracts.
Daft Greg,
That’s awesome. Unfortunately neither of my local underground video rental shops have it, so it looks like I’ll have to pay $20 to see it. I’m guessing it’s worth it, though. Chick tracts are hilarious.
You can see it here.
http://www.ovguide.com/movies_tv/god_s_cartoonist_the_comic_crusade_of_jack_chick.htm
Kent Hovind is in the documentary. Calls Chick responsible for more people going to heaven than anybody. Ever. It’s good stuff.
They’re also segregated. And confusingly, he seems to say that black people have to work to get into heaven, but white people can just have faith. But I didn’t read all of them, so maybe he was just contradicting himself…
This arsehole’s comics piss me off on two fronts. A: all the usual stuff (racist, sexist, etc) and B: they’re crap.
I am offended on a professional level. His comic’s are derivative, show bad composition and display awful anatomy.
Yeah. I know where my priorities lie.
Jack Chick Parody website
http://www.weirdcrap.com/chick/
The first place I ever heard of Jack Chick was from a New York newscast in the mid 1980’s. It might have even been a 60-minutes piece, but I can’t claim to have been paying that much attention. Nothing really clicked until I came across an honest-to-gawd tract that dredged up all those bizarre anti-catholic slanders (far worse than the truth) which he had illustrated for the prurient evangelical soul.
Thanks Janine for the Subgenius reference. Stang is in on this, so it’s bound to be a really great send-up, he’s very clever.
The Subgenii are the absolute experts on all kook cults and religion
A friend bought me a membership a few years ago, I am Brother Ayatollah Scooter on the church rolls.
PraBoB
Lili @24: I think I love your professor.
Chick tracts! Now that takes me back in time! This whack job is so insane, that even most evangelicals think he is vile and disgusting. At one point, Chick Tracts were highly prized collectibles among comic book aficionados.
This is a thing of great beauty and delight.
Oh Crap, it’s online, link above #9, duhh.
Shit, there’s Hal Robbins.
BWAhahaha kENT hOVIND is LYING as usual claiming to have hung out with Chick, what a fraud.
The crazy guy with the glasses has the same voice as Bill Gates, looks like him, too.
Okay that was worth 77 minutes, not bad
————————————————
War on XMASS ’09 !!!11! Listen!! _ All-One-God-Faith! FAIL! Dilute! Dilute! OK! FAIL! Dilute! FAIL! OK! OK! Chipmunks Die!!!11! 2 minutes !!!11! Use for Douche!!
Chipmunks Listen!!
I have a DVD copy of this documentary which I bought about a year and a half ago. It’s a really great film, but I’ve been fascinated by Chick Tracts for a long time.
At the time that I bought the DVD, I exchanged a few emails with Kurt Kuersteiner (the filmmaker). He’s very nice, so I encourage anyone who watches the film online and likes it to also buy a DVD or at least join the Chick Tract Club:
http://www.monsterwax.com/chickclub.html
Are you sure about this?
I ask because I just searched, and I find nothing that suggests that Utah ever passed such a law, or even proposed one.
http://www.antievolution.org/topics/law/
It could be that I’m missing something.
You could also buy Kurt’s book:
http://www.monsterwax.com/bookbuy.html
WOW, Chick tracts are online now. I read a ton of these when I was a kid, when my Sunday school teacher would pass them out. Childhood propaganda inundation right there.
I really couldn’t imagine watching something like this. It seems like it would be 90 minutes of infuriation.
Kel, OM:
I’ve watched it and it’s really very good. It’s very fair, it provides a lot of history on Chick’s publications, and it lets the viewer make up his or her own mind (though it seems to be aimed primarily at pop culturalists who love the kitschy aspects of Chick Tracts, but disagree with the philosophical content).
If you can’t appreciate Chick Tracts ironically, then this documentary might not be for you.
So one of the cartoonists is black guy, but all the angels he draws are white, the dude gots some issues, I prescribe some P-Funk, STAT!!!
Yeah, I’m not at that stage yet. I’ve only ever come across them on the web and they seem to be nothing more than an evangelical wet dream smeared onto paper and drooled over by people who really really really need to go back to kindergarten.
Perhaps someday I’ll get past all that, but it took me two sitting to get through Jesus Camp so I’m not at that stage yet.
Washing Machine #9: Thanks for the link. Perfect background for tedious grading.
I am amazed at the strength of character of some of the commenters here. I have read about two pages of a Chick Tract by which time I was ready to gnaw my own leg off to escape the stupid. I take my hat off to you!
And I love your poem Cuttlefish,OM.
I was actually surprised by how much I liked this little documentary (thanks, Washing Machineo! Good use of 77 weekend minutes); I implore people who think they wouldn’t enjoy it because they can’t stand Chick tracts to reconsider. They do a great job of pointing out how ridiculous the philosophy is, and a better job of pointing out the significance of the tracts from an artistic and societal perspective. Good work!
Jack Chick lives to 85, but Carl Sagan died at 62, Isaac Asimov died at 72, and Stephen Jay Gould died at age 60.
Proof that God is evil.
This Is Just to Say
I have burned
the goats
that were in
the garden
and which
you were probably
saving
for Jesus
Forgive me
they were delicious
so bright
and so warm
–badgersdaughter@#51–
Perfect. Wrong thread, but perfect. I was trying to figure how to combine both “Goats On Fire” and E.E.Cummings, but now I can stop; you have set the bar too high.
Cuttlefish! Oh, no. no. That was a high-school exercise at best (though re-reading it this morning I’m ROFL at its air of loving psychopathy, exactly the same way I laughed at the original by WCW)…
I did go look at a volume of the works of ee cummings but I got way major distracted and wrote two poems instead. Nothing you’d be interested in. Please go right ahead.
A SubGenius reviews the film at the High Weirdness Project:
http://www.modemac.com/cgi-bin/wiki.pl/God%27s_Cartoonist_-_The_Comic_Crusade_of_Jack_Chick
Destlund @ #29:
Presumably the deceased “got to heaven” by dying of laughter while reading the tracts. ^_^
TypePad is still failing because the OK email address dialog is not appearing, OpenID via Yahoo yields a ridiculous name… ???
Bestest Chick Comic ever: Angels? Concluding admonition? “Burn anything you have associated with rock music.”
I doubt a Fender or Gibson guitar would burn easily.
Bonze, A fix for your typepad problem.
Sighs… Join the bloody queue. Everyone seems to want to cut bits off or spit-roast me, with a few hangings, stonings, whippings, beheadings, firing squads, and crucifixions thrown in. Usually badly spelt and written in crayon L1K THIS5!!1!
Indeed. Even Jimi could only scorch his Strat.
Thanks for the suggestion… but that’s not the problem. Either Scienceblogs or TypePad is failing to present the “share email” dialog, with the resulting error from scienceblogs:
“An error occurred: This weblog requires commenters to pass an email address. If you’d like to do so you may log in again, and give the authentication service permission to pass your email address.”
I checked out my TypePad account, but can’t find any way to make this happen automatically…
Bonze, the dialog box will not come up. Hence my work-around. But checking the box to automatically share the e-mail address works. Go directly to typepad, say from Google (not here). Login, then click (upper right) to look at your account information. Mine shows my screen name and e-mail, and just below that is a line with a radio box that asks if you want to share the e-mail. Check the box, then make sure you save the change with the save button below that. Now the e-mail address is automatically shared with SB when you sign in from SB. I suspect the change was made at TypePad, not SB.
This has played on the Documentary Channel a few times that I’ve noticed but I’ve yet to have the stomach to actually watch it.
Nerd of Redhead #62
Aha! Thank you!
I failed the persistence test in my first go-round with the TypePad interface… something to do with, uh… failing to click on “Save changes”… :-)
You probably did not see it earlier, because there are more than the famous “6 degrees of separation” between those Gawd clowns and sanity – but only a single degree between any two of them.
Did you notice that one of the young earth creationism humbug cartoons displayed on http://www.godscartoonist.com/ proudly refers to another figurehead of YECH, decorated with a doctorate by Patriot Bible University (and a 10-year prison sentence for tax fraud by the district court of Pensacola)?
Yes, the very “Hello, my name is Kent Hovind” http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Kent_Hovind,
now sadly an inmate in the Edgefield federal correction institution until 2015 – no doubt just another pebble on the stony path to martyrdom.
Yep – be sure to watch the trailer on the website. Everyone’s favourite Dr Kent Hovind Ph.D is in there in a Dinosaur Adventure Land t-shirt.
For anyone who doesn’t merely want to watch a pirated version or streaming in your browswer, this site offers a lesser expensive ($3.99) download version that you can purchase & play on most any computer:
http://www.filmbaby.com/films/2946