Wow. This is something else. I know I express similar sentiments on lots of these tracts, but the level of pure, unfiltered delusion of persecution in this thing is waaaay off the charts. It's almost impossible to wrap your head around the idea that Jack Chick ACTUALLY THINKS that this could and WILL happen one day.

This tract would be worth covering in any case, but it seems especially relevant given that a particular sect associated with Harold Camping has predicted that the rapture will hit May 21st, 2011.

Post-Rapture addendum: Now that May 21st has come and gone without incident, Camping et. al. are placing their hopes on October 21st, 2011. We'll see how much backpeddling they'll do when the time comes.

Post-October 21st addendum: After Jesus failed to meet his appointment for the second time, it looks like Camping's folks have decided to get out of the prophecy game entirely, and all specific predictions have vanished from the Family Radio website. I would say that I hope this has taught a lesson to future doomsday prophets, but I know better than that. As it is, some of Camping's people think Judgement Day did in fact occur May 21st, and we somehow failed to notice.

UPDATE: Harold Camping has finally died at the ripe old age of 92. Guess now he will finally know for himself whether he was actually right or not.

Well now, that outfit is just plain goofy looking. It can't be that hard to come up with a decent, intimidating looking uniform for the enforcers of your dystopian, totalitarian future can it?

I've always felt that the design of the healer's uniforms was pretty cool in its own way. I'm not sure exactly what Fred Carter was going for here, but it's definitely distinctive.

That broadcaster guy looks like a younger Pat Sajak.

I like that "near future" label in the upper corner there. How Chick thinks we'll get from the world as it was in 1992 to this dystopian hell isn't at all clear.

Supreme Justice Mahoney. There's an Irish name if I've ever heard one. How much do you want to wager Chick is trying to insinuate that the future will be run by Catholics?

That's... extraordinarily specific. They aren't persecuting the Protestants or the Lutherans. It's just people who specifically believe that Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to the Father in Heaven. And violators will either be committed or executed. Is the difference whether they commit First or Third degree Jesus Worship? What's the distinctions here?

And that's... the U.N. logo. Real subtle, Jack.

Typically people who oppose the law are enemies of the state. That's kind of the purpose of laws. It's pretty rhetorical, actually.

Smug-ass prick. It's thinking like this ("Everything will be awesome when I die!!!") that leads to ridiculous things like all those Christian Scientists neglecting their children, sometimes with fatal consequences.

Very true. "The afterlife is better than life on earth" and "faith not works" can easily boil down to a "screw my fellow man, I'm goin' ta heaven!" mentality.

Everything to gain and nothing to lose... except, you know, your life and whatnot.

Of course! The Bible says that bad stuff will happen when Jesus comes back, and what do you know?!?! Bad stuff is happening right now!!! Holy crap guys! Jesus is going to come back, like, next week!!! Totes!!!

Yeah. Because there's never been mass persecution, new killer diseases, and wars everywhere before. This is all new, people!

Stuff like this walks a really fine line between two extremes: "Oh my god, the world is a horrible place full religious persecution!" and "Oh yay, all this persecution means the end is coming, and that means Jesus!"

Who is he talking to? Or about? Do people just walk around randomly spouting things like "I hate them!" Actually, I think there's a term for that.

"Bobby won't live long." That sounds like a threat. Like the narrator himself is going to come down from on high while he's sleeping and suffocate him with a pillow or something.

This raises the question, how do families work in the "Near future?" Do people get married, have kids and then get divorces as a matter of course?

I love how grandpa innocently asks this question as though he doesn't know how schools have degenerated in this awful future.

Well he seems like a respectable little Hitler Jugend, now doesn't he?

Wait, what? His teacher told him to sacrifice animals for Halloween? That's quite a step up from having everyone come in costumes and having a contest. How precisely does he expect public education to get from "A" to "B" on this one?

To quote Rational Wiki, regarding that left panel, "This panel from a Chick Tract makes even less sense in context. (It really does, check if you don't believe us.)"

And here's a jab at reincarnation. It's like they're trying to see how many of Chick's talking points can be unceremoniously crammed into one tract alone.

Who the hell is the "Mother Goddess?" Is this more of Chick's insane rambling on Catholics and Mary-worship? Or is he talking about that deprecated old 'ho Diana again?

Yeah, sounds like Chick's standard "Samiramis and Nimrod" thing.

<giggle> This panel never ceases to make me smile. It's so ridiculously over the top in every way possible. What happened to that kid's face?!?

Oh dear. Someone had better wash this angry young man's mouth out with soap and send him to bed without any supper.

So what is this miasma covering the left panel? Ashes of the persecuted? I'd say it was the industrial smog  one associates with dystopian hell-holes, but Chick's never been one to be concerned about the environment.

...and now he's a little teapot.

Of course. Liberals today won't even let you smack your kids around. Pretty soon, you won't even be able to talk back to your child without the state coming to take you away to a concentration camp!

Oh, and it's totally not cool to just throw the term "concentration camp" around all willy-nilly like that. I think there are a couple of people who would like to have a word with you about it. Not cool.

Yep. Bobby's teachers ruined him. Better homeschool, folks!

Also called the rapture*.

I love how he specifically asks about the Blessed Hope*, as though he both knows and doesn't know what it is.

*Also called a delusion.

This is all so nonsensical. Most people don't realize that all of this rapture absurdity isn't even in the Bible. In order to come up with all of this you have to do a Grade-A contortion act with random snippets of Daniel, Isaiah, Thessalonians and Revelation with a healthy dose of lunacy thrown in for good measure. And even then it's still a leap.

So why is she telling them to shut up? Isn't she saved too? Or is she worried about Bobby "The Monster" overhearing?

So it seems Chick and his brood are clearly Pre-Trib Dispensationalists. LaHaye and Jenkins would be proud.

"It's with great pleasure I introduce a genuine, bonafide Ku Klux Pimp!"

...or maybe this guy is Santa's No-So-Little Helper?

This guy's so famous they don't even bother to give him a name.

I guess famous New Age Healers spend a lot of time at the gym. He's got the ripped physique typical of Fred Carter's work.

What?!? Huh?!?! Sickos??? Mother Goddess?!? The Queen of Heaven?!?!?! You guys need to slow down, this shit-parade is really hard to keep up with.

I can't completely argue that people who buy into this retardation aren't insane, but criminals? Believing in Jesus isn't in and of itself a necessarily bad thing. Ignoring your kid's illnesses because you think Jesus is going to heal them better than a doctor, now THAT makes you a criminal.

Actually, that panel on the left looks like it was cropped and enlarged from a larger illustration. Compare it with the right panel, and see how sketchy and low-detail Bobby is compared to the healer. The same image shows up (at a more normal size) in the last panel, as well.

If you can't trust a face like that, then who can you trust? Amirite?

Bobby looks like he's trying to claw the skin from Grandpa's shoulder there. If you're trying to entrap someone then you should try going about it in a slightly less violent manner, you know?

I think it is very much his business if Carnival Fascists are going to come and take him away... ha ha.

Oh, nevermind. Clearly Grandpa is an idiot. Proceed.

What's the deal with all of this random, unexplained hate over Jesus? People don't usually hate Jesus, it's his ass-hat followers that cause all the trouble.

And Grandpa is surprised, as though he didn't know this would happen. Maybe you bozos could avoid getting persecuted in the new world order if you'd exercise a  little common sense!

He likes it when she calls him "daddy."

Andrew:

Especially in the wee hours.

Are we making a pass on psychiatric medicine and Elecroconvulsive Therapy now? Is Chick a closet Scientologist?

"use it for food." It's simultaneously tossed-off and over-the-top. Have we heard any inkling of cannibalism elsewhere in this comic? Is this a Biblical thing, or just Chick's sensationalism? I mean, I know I haven't read Revelations all that closely, but I don't recall seeing "use it for food."

Soylent Green is made of people!

Wait a minute... did... did they? Did they attach electrodes to his nipples?!? Lex Luthor and Don Rickles play rough!

"Supplies" of course, is the term he uses to refer to preteen girls.

Paul bears an extraordinarily disturbing resemblance to John Holmes. That gives this whole "hiding out in the woods" thing a much more titillating complexion. Bow-Chicka-Bow-Wow.

Do those "Free Drugs" constitute the reward everyone keeps getting offered? And that seems to be a drawing of a lovely Pennsylvania Dutch Bed and Breakfast. Must boost morale or something,

Magic drugs make your problems go away.

I need to whip out this panel every time my folks start babbling about moving to a lob cabin in the middle of nowhere. See Mom?!? It's not all it's cracked up to be!

"We come in peace! Shoot to kill! Shoot to kill! We come in peace! Shoot to kill! Scottie, beam me up!"

Jesus clearly has impeccable timing. One more minute and these two would have been somebody's breakfast.

I bet that pile of unoccupied clothing contains at least one pair of horribly soiled underwear. I heard the original version of the panel actually had a bra in it.

Update: Yep. There it is. Looks like it was hiding behind the speech bubble the whole time.

Jeez, before it was just getting into heaven, but now it's also about meeting Jesus in the air?

They actually believe they are going to meet Jesus "in the air." Why not something a little more specific? Like Knott's Berry Farm or the Park and Ride at the corner of Rt. 24 & 7?

Jesus looks very sullen. He might as well be delivering a prognosis of terminal colon cancer or something.

"Don't be fooled, like this fictional character."

You know, if the rapture happens right then, and the tribulation lasts 7 years, Bobby would probably only be a teenager when he died.

If the rapture hit, I find it hard to believe Little Bobby will have the time to "grow up." Unless they mean at the Battle of Armageddon, in which case, isn't that a little redundant?

This tract is the embodiment and final form of Chick's paranoid fantasies. We've got all sorts of insanity going on, from unmotivated religious persecution and free drugs, to animal sacrifice and cannibalism.

The sad thing is that Chick thinks the world will get to that point without any of "the unsaved" knowing about it, or thinking that any of it is wrong, even though those ideas aren't part of any other major religion, including Chick's "Great Whore," the Catholic church.

Chick does leave himself some wiggle room by not trying to predict when all this craziness will happen, only that it's "soon". That saves him from the embarrassment of having to point out a specific date, like Harold Camping and May 21, 2011. I know I plan on having a party that day.