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  It's All About You!. Tract #210. Art by Jack Chick - © 2009 Chick Publications

It's All About You! - Tract #210 (IAAY)
Art by Jack Chick - © 2009 Chick Publications

First Published: May 20th, 2024

Two ‘someones’ are watching you. And one has it in for you. Now, you have a decision to make.

 

Introduction ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	Christians are infamously known for supposedly loving everybody. Of course, when you really look into things it turns out they actually hate just about everyone and everything that doesn't look, act, talk and think exactly the same way they do. Some of the more obvious examples include inter-denominational conflict, Islamophobia, homophobia and transphobia, xenophobia, racism, and a whole list of other -phobias and -isms I lack both the time and strength to fully enumerate here. However, one of the oldest and perhaps most ingrained prejudices the engine of Christian hate runs on is a deep and unequivocating misogyny. Ever since some lady talked a dude into eating some suspicious fruit, women have been taking the blame for just about every horrible thing that has happened to humanity over its long and storied history. Some traditions even try to stretch the blame even further back than that. It's supposedly the reason pregnancy sucks so bad, why women are supposed to keep their traps shut in church, why you're supposed to take a seven day hike whenever you're visiting with Aunt Flo, and a whole myriad of other ridiculousness. Despite this, it's probably the one bigotry Christians still prefer to play close to their chests. Of course, a lot of Christian men think that women are naturally and inherently inferior to them (and some Christian women even somehow agree!) but they still don't like to make a huge deal out of it because if they pissed off their wives and mothers they'd have to do their own laundry and cook their own meals and manipulate their own genitals… none of which sounds like a particularly fun time except for maybe that last one. For this reason you don't see an awful lot of the kinds of hate literature we tend to cover that focuses on women and all of their terrible shortcomings specifically. While this true of Jack Chick as well, we were able to find this specific entry in his catalog which opts to use an absolutely vile example of a spoiled, bratty teenage girl to get across his typical message of just how rotten and contemptible all human beings are. So, it is with great aplomb we present: It's All About You!
Dot	Finally. A tract all about me. I knew my undying Chick fandom would pay off eventually.
Mingnon	I'll have to go ahead and spoil it now: This tract is not, in fact, all about you.
Dot	Aw!
Anna	Instead, the tract is trying to target young adult audiences by taking place in what appears to be a college, and in which a young woman is lectured by her grandfather about how God and the Devil are fighting for her soul. Well, one is fighting and the other is working in what some people love to attribute to ‘mysterious ways’. I do apologise for deviating from the usual introductions that I make, but there is not much I could say that has not been said already. And unlike other tracts in the past, this one, at least to me, does not seem to be worth writing another in-depth introduction for. At least, according to my intuition. Let us commence with the dissection, shall we?

 

Cover / Page 1 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	“Who, me?” Yeah, you… ya empty-headed bint.
Anna	It might just be me, but her hand seems to be a bit… unusual in relation to the rest of the drawing style. Given that the “bracelet” also kind of looks like a surgical scar, maybe it is in fact, not her original hand. And that alone would make the character more interesting - though I should not get my hopes up… it is probably a failure on both the art and the artist.
Dot	By the looks of it Anna, she's got one of the hands from Blood grafted on her. She can only hope that Jesus swallows her soul before it does.

 

 

Page 2 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	It's difficult to tell if she's asking “Why am I even here?” in a grand, existential sense. Like, why does she exist at all? The second panel seems to trim that back quite a bit to why she is currently at this college. I don't know if Chick was trying to avoid blowing his wad right out of the gate, though it's more likely he was trying to establish her “vapid bitch” persona as quickly as possible.
Dot	In all fairness, Chick has a GREAT deal of experience in practising a No Thoughts, Head Empty mindset.
Anna	I genuinely had hoped it was her asking in a grand, existential sense, since I have thought the same, and I have also had moments where I have thought that people do not understand the “inner me(s)”. I still get weird looks when I tell people that I often work from things like ‘hunches’ and ‘intuition’, and was often and still am demonised for it. But while I may be able to relate to that element of her statements, I cannot relate to the rest of her statements. For example, if the parents really wanted to get rid of you, you would not be in college, let alone alive. If you were not killed by them,  you would be displaced from your home by 18 at the latest and would have to work and earn money to survive. Being sent to college, living on campus, studying and getting to test your skills at living independently seems like a good thing, at least to me.

 

Page 3 ⇑ ⇓

Mingnon	Yes, you’re supposed to be grateful. Your dad is willing to bust his back to support the family in this nightmare economy. Though they’d have to be some lofty, high-paying jobs.
Dot	It feels like Jack is on the damn verge of realising that tuition fees are an inherently unfair concept that block further education off to anyone but the rich and privileged, but nah it's gotta be a Kids These Days Don't Even Know You're Born thing to him.
Jessica	Back in this guy's day, a semester's worth of tuition basically amounted to the equivalent of a C-note, a handshake, and a half-hearted blowjob. Even if she's at a “D” list public university, it's probably costing the equivalent of a brand new Tesla every academic year. So, yeah… I'd say just a wee bit of gratitude would be appropriate.
Anna	*sighs disappointedly, frowning* I can think of several other people who might love to have that opportunity in their life, but are unable to as they (and their families) are (for example) trapped in overwhelming debt, and had to forsake college to go straight to the workforce. Or whose parents would not refinance their house and work two separate jobs just for your college tuition. Be grateful for the kindness you are receiving... or should we let your doppelgänger/shadow self take your place instead? I am almost certain they would be grateful for the opportunities provided, since you are not.
Dot	Oh hey, we've got some bisexual representation in the second panel. Clearly all four people need to go on a double date, put this misunderstanding behind them and get a polycule going.

 

Page 4 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	Fang! I know you're in almost half of all the tracts Chick ever published, but you are way too good for this one, my dude.
Anna	These days, it would be more than two someones if you are a user of social media. Irrespective of what measures you take (like privating accounts), the companies themselves will always have access to the information you provide them... oh you meant “someones”, as in the deity types? Why would I be amazed by how much they know about me? It is part of their job to know - how else can they judge you?
Mingnon	Every god judges at some point, not just the “main two”. Zeus, Anubis, Thor… Actually Thor can be kinda chill.
Jessica	Gramps went to visit her on her college campus and decided to dress like a fucking English butler to do it. He's going to embarrass the hell out of her in front of both her boyfriend and her girlfriend!

 

Page 5 ⇑ ⇓

Dot	Well, this certainly is a familiar scene. The path is familiar, the park is familiar, the bench is familiar, and the stripy top the girls' wearing is certainly familiar. I guess where I'm going with this is congratulations to the kid from A Demon's Nightmare on her transition.
Jessica	This is almost a Rule 63 version of that tract, isn't it? Minus the chucklehead demons, of course.
Anna	It could be worse - you could have the other one having it in for you. And if He does, then you might not have long, given His record. Though He has used some methods that I would simply love to add to my repertoire of maledictions, curses and hexes... for example, casting people from off the face of the Earth.
Jessica	That is a pretty good point. Grandpa (and by extension, Chick the author) like to paint Satan as the real danger. But when you get right down to brass tacks and compare the number of people Satan is credited as killing with the number of people God is supposed to have killed, it isn't a contest in the slightest.

 

Page 6 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	Notice that he doesn't answer the question. I know God is supposed to be this metaphysical entity that transcends sex and gender, but given the patriarchal history of the Judeo/Christian/Islamic traditions, he's almost always depicted as a white dude with a beard. Feminine deities predate this stereotype by quite a bit of time.
Dot	To be fair, he DOES fit a pronoun into the very next sentence. He brushes the whole thing off to a ridiculous extent like “of course they're both dudes” tho.
Mingnon	You gotta keep your audience in suspense after all, keep them on the brink of having nightmares. “There are all sorts of horrible things this person wants to do to me, and grandpa still won’t tell me who it is!” You know what, I’ll pop the balloon right now: It’s Krampus. That goaty son of a bitch.
Anna	*sighs sadly, frowning slightly* I miss Krampus and what he represented. That there was a significant consequence if you were a naughty child. It is sort of a similar concept with the modifications made to tales (to use a popular example, The Little Mermaid) over the years to change their meaning and intention, supposedly under the guise of being more ‘palatable’ for modern children. Which is a pity that such changes were even considered. As for why this is relevant to this page of the tract, the woman character is presented as being of college age. I do not think you have to sugarcoat who or what Satan is, that he has demon underlings and so on. If anything, this is belittling her potential strength to handle the concept you are talking about and it reminds me of some of the reasons that women were not allowed to vote.

 

Page 7 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	Wow… Check out the size of that girl's hands. <shudder> Rocking the finglers, this one is. This certainly isn't the first time Chick has had trouble pulling off proportional hands, either. And you know what they say about ladies with big hands… …really big gloves.
Mingnon	When told that someone wants to steal the most valuable thing ever, of course a Millennial or Zoomer will jump straight towards assuming it’s something like an iPhone or PS5. But who will want to blame them when they see the price tags? Yeesh!
Dot	The Devil went down to Georgia, he was looking for iPhones to steal…
Anna	As I pointed out earlier, this could have been the basis for an interesting background to the character in which she lost her original hands due to some event and is now living with hands that do not match, perhaps due to a shortage of appropriate prosthetics or inventory of other hands. But instead of an interesting character with actual depth and personality, we get this. A stock character who is worried about her iPhone and has to have a male figure explain to her like she is a child who God and Satan are. Dare I say that the author of these tracts is perhaps projecting what his views of women are. As Jessica pointed out earlier, he has quite the record of it.
Dot	Let's get real here. The devil doesn't give a shit about your iPhone, although it's fair to say he probably has shares a plenty in both them AND Android.

 

Page 8 ⇑ ⇓

Anna	Watching from the spirit world? As opposed to running around as intangible, invisible spirits that seem to be able to directly influence the mortal world you live in? Please stop providing misinformation, especially in the confines of your universe. And case in point, the cat running away frightened from the demon that it apparently can see.
Mingnon	Yeah, maybe she should be watching her own cat!?
Jessica	Maybe she likes it when they watch. Don't kink shame the poor girl!
Dot	You'd think the demons WOULD be paying more mind to the topic at hand. “Raahh It's a war for the souls of every human on earth but lol whatever I'm gonna bully this girl's cat while she learns the secret truths of how we're going to steal her iPhone soul”. Maybe he's hoping this'll get the conversation to an end like “Hey this is lovely and all Gramps, but I gotta go check on my cat”.
Jessica	This is complete bullshit. Most colleges won't let you have a pet like that on campus. Is Goldie supposed to be an emotional support animal or something? Or is this supposed to be a feral stray instead?

 

Page 9 ⇑ ⇓

Dot	I'm not sure who's more sacreligious here. Me for singing “It's raining sin! Hallelujah” at this panel or Jack for setting me up so perfectly for such a riff.
Jessica	Chick just seems to love representing sin as this fetid, rancid shower of filth that just sort of… falls on a person unexpectedly, like they accidentally got caught in the rain or something. I get that he's trying to get across the concept of congenital, original sin. But this is one of the more insidious inventions of Christianity. You don't need to do anything to get on God's shit list, it just happens simply by virtue of being what you are. And, of course, the only prescription for it is more cowbell adherence to modern Christian dogma. Just like with the “discovery” of Halitosis, first you invent an illness, and then you sell people the cure for it.
Mingnon	Well who invented the concept of sin to begin with? We even have a helpful illustration of God pointing a black cloud over Adam. All the poor sap ever did was eat a fruit.
Anna	Humor me for a moment if you will, but how exactly is humanity held accountable for the sins of Adam? I would argue that what we inherited from Adam and Eve would have been their fallen nature (or in other words, the propensity to sin), since sin by itself originates from the Devil. Since you want to use your ‘beloved’ verses from Romans, may I add a metal spike or two under your fingernails? *smirks* How do you interpret Romans 2:5-16, which talks about God judging those according to their hearts, even if they do not know the Law of God? What about its applications for those who could not make a choice to choose Christ in their lifetime (for example, a four month old infant dying)? Your ruleset and interpretation on this page says they would be thrown “into everlasting fire, prepared for the devil and his angels”. Yet you have changed your mind from The Contract, where you state small children are not in Hell. So is everyone held accountable and damned to Hell because of Adam or not? And do not try the baptism route either - as far as I am aware, you and your ilk practice credobaptism (only baptising those who make a conscious profession of faith), so the four month old infant who cannot express their faith and subsequently dies would not be considered by your ruleset to be saved, due to the aforementioned ‘original sin’.

 

Page 10 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	“All kinds of wickedness*...” like mixing fabrics, and getting tattoos, and trimming your beards, and just having a period! These people don't really have a very high bar when it comes to things they consider evil and unnatural.
Anna	You seem to have forgotten about the previous page. A pity (for you) I have not and will glady pin the previous page into… hmmm… maybe a knee this time? That might work. If you are wanting to use this argument about the hearts of humanity being wired to hating God, that would mean that you just proved me right. What was inherited was the propensity to sin, and not the guilt associated with Adam eating fruit that God told him not to. Especially since you are talking about acts committed by humans, but still have not answered the earlier questions involving children who have yet to make a conscious choice to accept Christ.
Mingnon	If humans are wired to hate God, then does that mean Jesus is an electrician who has to physically come down to fix them? Moreover, it seems that God made humans to begin with, so that would mean the wiring is a crapshoot.
Jessica	Hiring a decent contractor is just such a challenge these days. * Leviticus 19:19-29

 

Page 11 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	“We will have no excuse…” Exactly! God actually loves you, it's just that you make him so angry! If you just did what he told you to do, he wouldn't have to hit you. If you think about it, it's really all your fault he's hurting you. He doesn't want to hurt you… it's just that he needs to correct you so that you can really be worthy of his love. …get the point?
Mingnon	You remember that Hannah said she didn’t ask to be born. You’re not really helping her case by springing this spiritual nightmare on her.
Anna	*sigh* You do realise that by saying that everything a person does, says or thinks is recorded by God includes whether a person who does not believe in Christ does what would be considered ‘good works’ right? I seem to recall that the Bible has a verse or two about how God will judge according to a person’s deeds and what is in their hearts, rather than their words. Speaking of their words… I doubt these tracts are ‘good works’ and could probably be considered ‘an action by the Devil to destroy your soul’. The Devil may very well do anything, including, for example, using the sin of pride to make people like Chick think they are superior to others and to condemn others based on said perceived superiority.
Dot	So we've already done enough to get thrown into hell and our sins are piling up anyway? Welp, might as well make that damnation as worth it as possible. TO THE FORNICATION STATION, BABES!

 

Page 12 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	They keep piling up, but to be perfectly honest that doesn't matter one whit. You see, in the completely unfair and lopsided system my god set up, any single mistake (no matter how small) will send you straight to Hell. Honestly, original sin guarantees you're going there even if you don't do anything wrong. So if you're gonna get toasted for something that supposedly happened thousands of years ago, why not go all out and do something really nasty? It's all the same in the end. 👉
Mingnon	You can come down to Hell a legend! Satan’s rotten crowd includes frat boys whose only goal in life is to throw the raddest parties, man. All to suck up everyone caught in the black hole of frattitude, inflicting gnarly hangovers and bogus acid trips in their wake.
Jessica	Way to trivialize eating disorders… very classy Chick. I am soooo glad you're dead.
Anna	*scowls, the lights dimming and flickering* If you want to continue down the road of trivalising mental disorders and how people can self-destruct from those, Chick, then perhaps I should give you a glimpse of what I see… What if the situation was reversed? Would you want others to trivialise your mental anguish, your suffering? Would you want what you do to others to be done to you? All eventually wither and die. I do not believe God would congratulate you, based on what I know of your actions, Chick. Rather, He may very well say to you something like: "You worker of iniquity! The blood of many are on your hands. You called my name but did not follow my commands. You despised the Word of God. Depart from me, into the everlasting fires that awaits the devil and his angels!" I do not consider myself to know the will of any deity. But for someone like Chick, who seems to love to twist the teachings of God and claim he is following the will of God, the idea of him being sent to Hell seems quite plausible.
Dot	*flips onto this page a second after everyone else* First of all Jack, you're a real piece of w… ah, I see you all have this page well at hand. Carry on... Actually no, I DO have something to add here, because yeah, the fact that he's so happy to just OFFHANDEDLY switch the topic to eating disorders, do his “funny” little picture of the demons encouraging it, and the fact that he makes sure the eating disorder thing gets projected specifically onto the girl character because hey that's a girl thing that girls do, right? There's all that shit and then there's the fact that he immediately drops it afterwards, like it's not actually a thing worth focusing on. It's just there drawing-and-all to trigger people and then he's off to the next thing. I guess I should be glad that I can't Monkey's Paw a Chick Tract all about eating disorders into being, we already know how completely useless Jack is talking about stigmatized health issues from his tracts about suicide and AIDS after all, but it feels super fucked that he's…just so casually mean about it (Funnily enough I've been reading recently about this guy who was surprisingly progressive about the stigmatized health issues of his day. Lived in First Century Palestine. Name started with a J. Had something of a following. I don't think Chick would have liked him)

 

Page 13 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	Here we get a cameo by gay old Reverend Ray, apropos of nothing at all. Same with Pope Ratzinger, the Dalai Lama, and… Abdulla Ab-Du-La for some reason. It's like a Chick-verse episode of Hollywood Squares or something.
Anna	It is truly humorous to me that the accusations you are making on the first panel can also apply to you, Chick. Also how are the other denominations of Christianity hiding the good news from God? Is it because they do not follow your exact belief set? Like the belief you have that says infants are automatically thrown into the eternal flames of damnation if they never made a conscious profession of faith?
Dot	Chick apparently isn't one for that Bible verse about giving people shit about dust in their eyes when you've got a log in your own. Also that is a HUGE freaking Death Cookie the pope is wielding there, like damn there is only so much body of Christ one person can take in them at once.
Jessica	Word. That is less of a Death Cookie, and more of a Death Pastry… perhaps even an entire Death Dinner Plate even. Of course, you can't take the entire body of Christ into you all at once. You need to slowly work up to it by starting out with something like the pinky finger of Christ and going from there. But with the proper tools, motivation, and just a bit of elbow grease you'll get there eventually.

 

Page 14 ⇑ ⇓

Mingnon	The whole massive thing about good deeds being worthless has been taken apart in the Flight 144 dissection just recently. But I will still say that this is a massive case of pot calling the kettle black: Any religion will tell you that you or a loved one will be in danger, and if you don’t follow their instructions or give them what they want, you will suffer forever. At least the example here gives you or that loved one some sort of posthumous out, however messed up it is. Chick’s brand of Christianity will happily explain that no, there is no backsies once someone’s died.
Anna	Quite insightful, Mingnon. I would love to invite you for tea sometime. If I recall correctly, you were interested in yokai, so we can definitely have a conversation about those, as well as other such spirits from other regions of the world. That aside… I get that this is aiming to demonise other religions/denominations (seemingly focused on the Catholics), but things such as masses, liturgies and prayers for the dead are not monetised. Nor are they a tool to hold deceased loved ones hostage if their living relatives cannot afford to pay. After all, for priests to deny prayers for the departed due to something material (such as money) would be in itself a sin. Also, I find it humorous (yet again) that the statement you made about religion putting their own followers into bondage can be applied to your facsimile of Christianity. After all, are you not putting people into a form of bondage by saying “Accept my interpretations of the Bible or go to Hell”?
Jessica	RELIGION IS DANGEROUS. I think this may be the first time Chick has written something that I 100% agree with.
Dot	You're right, Jack. It sure IS bad when religious organizations exploit people's faith to get themselves paid, and when capitalism and religion combine to bring out the worst qualities in both. Maybe if the Catholic Church offered a periodic 50% off sale on masses that would make them okay.

 

Page 15 ⇑ ⇓

Mingnon	Is this the good news we’ve been waiting for? Then get on with it! Though I will have to say, that’s some malicious slandering on Islam. “Of course we’re doing it for Allah! I’ll be back over in the distance to praise your sacrifice! We’ve even brought popcorn for a hearty feast in your name!”
Jessica	They also try this weird method of undermining of suicide martyrs in The Sky Lighter as well. As if the worst part of suicide bombing is how hypocritical it is that it’s only the young who blow themselves up in such attacks. Of course, the average age of the 9/11 hijackers was just shy of 24 years old, so I don't know what point he thinks he's making here. That kid looks to be about half that. Way to miss the forest for the trees.
Dot	I mean, if he wanted to make a point about religious extremists using child soldiers to fight their battles, it would seem that an obvious example would be something like Joseph Kony and the Lord's Resistance Army. It would certainly make a point about the kind of horrors that they commit in the name of their professed religion, which is…*checks notes*... Ah. I can see why Jack Chick would not choose to use them as an example.
Anna	I am very well aware that religion can be cruel and murderous. Though I would also suggest that you take a look in your own home first, both in a country perspective and under the banner of American Christianity. Consider this my proclamation of your impending ruin. But I suspect that like Cassandra, you will not heed my words.

 

Page 16 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	Their “dead, religious works…” You mean all the religious works you dictated and demanded of them back when you first set up Judaism? Those works? You're being kind of hypocritical here, don't you think?
Mingnon	Yes, people are trying to get into heaven through good works, so just let them! No need for this blood-shedding loophole! *sigh* Like all religious works, this comes close to recognizing what’s wrong with its own theology, but it still doubles down anyway.
Jessica	Yet another Sin cloud. Is it, like, acid rain or something?
Anna	Given Chick’s seeming condemnation of the value of good works, his view seems to instead be that you never do good works, never help the less fortunate and so on. Or in other words, do the very behaviours and actions that both James and Matthew were critical of in the Bible.

 

Page 17 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	Was it really the “perfect time in history”, though? Think about it… that was a time when a majority of the world's population was illiterate, geographically isolated, and culturally and politically atomized from one another. If he were to appear today instead, he'd find himself in a world where photographic and video proof are not only possible, but readily available world-wide. Today, anyone can comprehend a message delivered in any language with very little effort, and the ubiquity of the internet means that both the unfortunate Game of Telephone early Christians were forced to play and the ambiguity in the message that resulted from it could have been easily avoided. Isn't it odd how the preponderance of miracles declined as the general reading and writing aptitude of the population increased? When's the last time you heard of the sun standing still?
Dot	So you're saying Jesus should have held off until AFTER Hannah got her iPhone? At least then if she filmed any miracles the devil would have a good reason to try and steal it.
Mingnon	On a similar and also worrying track, this also makes evangelicals think they have free reign to make claims of both world-based and divine nonsense where there would really be none. Such as believing that since there were no records made millions of years ago, the Earth can’t have existed for such a long time. Also similarly: Conspiracy theorists believing that aliens made everything.
Anna	I might be wrong, but who is “God the Son”? I know you are referring to Jesus, but try to at least use proper English. It would be “Jesus (the Son of God)”. That aside, I have always been bothered by the seeming trope that everyone who does not believe in God is essentially flabbergasted at who God/Jesus is and what He did. People as a whole are not so clueless about God and Christianity as you seem to think they are.

 

Page 18 ⇑ ⇓

Dot	Ugh. They're never gonna find a way of making all this “I've chosen YOU to be pregnant with ME because you are my Chosen Vessel, which makes you a thing and not a person” crap NOT creepy, are they?
Jessica	The misogyny of this religion is baked into its very fabric, that's for sure. “God put His Son into her.” This is one of the grossest ways I can think of this concept being worded… with the possible exception of that unfortunate example from Li'l Suzy, and of course, that cartoon about the Mormons where God the Father manifests physically just so he can make a booty call.
Anna	I find it kind of funny that you are willing to use this element of the story to push your narrative, but then had previously written an entire tract showing how those who praise Mary as ‘the Mother of God’ are evil and accusing them of making her cry. I submit that you and others like you make both her and Jesus cry for demonising Mary for having a title.
Mingnon	And by that above logic, does that mean that worshiping Jesus and not God is Idolatry?

 

Page 19 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	This insistence that Jesus was “in complete control” even while being horribly executed has the same kind of energy as a teenaged dipshit wiping out down a flight of stairs on his skateboard and busting his face completely open, just to stagger up and swear through a mouthful of blood that “I totally meant to do that.”
Dot	Jesus is fine. He DEFINITELY hasn't forgotten his safeword or anything. He's well into this.
Anna	Jesus tried to teach you to love, but all I see when I look at you and your kind is hate. How sad and pathetic you must be to twist the teachings of the God that you claim to believe to push your own hate-fueled views. Why else would you publish things like Wounded Children, Lisa and Doom Town?

 

Page 20 ⇑ ⇓

Anna	It is not the only way to get to Heaven. It is the only way you believe, Chick. And yet, we find that there are in fact other ways. Such as that combination of faith AND good works that you seem to resent so much, and which both the other major denominations of Christianity believe. Also, if I recall correctly, I thought when Jesus was explaining his upcoming tribulations to His disciples in Matthew, one of things he mentioned was that he would reward every man according to his works.
Mingnon	This is the first I’ve read of Jesus deliberately ordering the angels back. Which means that if those angels still have a grudge on humanity for killing Jesus, then well, we’re screwed.”
Jessica	Again… it's like “Oh I could soooo get my big brother to kick your ass for me, but I'm going to be the bigger person here and turn the other cheek. You dodged a bullet though, buddy!”

 

Page 21 ⇑ ⇓

Mingnon	As much as you’re protesting, gramps, this is religion. You know how every workplace tries to insist nowadays that they’re not a company, they’re a family? …A family that demands you sacrifice yourself to keep it going, I mean.
Jessica	A completely one-sided relationship, sure. Saying you have a “relationship” with God when you've never actually seen him in person, never heard from him directly, and can only perceive his influence on your life in the most ephemeral of ways is really no different than the parasocial relationship one might form with your favorite musician or YouTube content creator.
Dot	They're always all “Oh, it's not a religion it's a relationship” but they're never gonna put themselves down as having “no religion” on the census, are they?
Jessica	That’s right, Hannah. Get down on your knees and tell him you love him.
Anna	*sighs disappointedly* Aside from my commentary on the previous page, the only addition I would make here is to actually say “thank you”. As for why… *giggles and smirks* Do you perhaps remember a question of mine from earlier in the dissection, the one that has been persistently hounding you here and there throughout the dissection? The one about the fate of those who cannot make a conscious decision to accept God? At this point, with the fact that this came out after The Contract, I can conclude that you are a fan of condemning infants to Hell. Though I have a question… The ‘average’ person who holds views such as this typically objects when their standards and beliefs are applied to them. I wonder, for those who believe like Chick does, what if it was reversed? What if your four month old infant dies before they could make a decision to accept Christ? Would you be as willing and accepting of them being condemned to Hell? Or would you perhaps go against your own beliefs? An interesting experiment to be sure…

 

Page 22 ⇑ ⇓

Jessica	The devil lost his battle… until, of course, you experience the tiniest bit of doubt or commit the most inconsequential of transgressions. Then the whole process starts all over again. This scam wouldn't be nearly as effective as it is if you didn't have to expend constant effort to maintain it.
Mingnon	And let’s not forget the very-last-second scare tactic.
Anna	I wonder how long it will take a person who simply says the words once and never aims to do good works to fall. One who believes that a once off act of repentance and atonement for their sin is sufficient enough. I have yet to see any of these types actually strive to be better individuals, and genuinely atone and repent for any sins they commit after.
Dot	Poor old Jack just can't help but make his preaching sound like a crappy sales pitch. “Don't let THIS happen to YOU! Buy into NEW! CHRISTIANITY CLASSIC (classicality may vary) and save yourself a HELL of a bother. (may cause fanaticism, trauma, and unhinged bigotry)

 

Conclusion ⇑ ⇓

Anna	This tract is effectively a glimpse into the dregs of Chick’s work. To clarify, it has common tropes and elements from earlier tracts, such as almost no-one having any idea who God and Jesus are and the condemnation of ‘good works’. It also has a few elements that perhaps point to an out of touch person trying to appeal to the young adult demographic of 2009, such as Hannah and her concern that Satan cares about stealing her iPhone, the standard affair of how you are most likely hell-bound and the trivialisation of mental illness *frowns slightly, making the lights flicker briefly* Yet for its efforts to appeal, it is missing distinct elements of what makes Chick tracts infamous. Like the belief in conspiracies involving new world governments, his various views on homosexuals or that the Catholics are evil and are aiming to take over the world. And with the absence of those absurd elements, you are left with a tract that is run of the mill at best. It has the artstyle of Chick, but at least to me, it is missing that (for lack of better phrasing) ‘soul’ - a trend which, to my knowledge, continues into his later work. And while it does try to attack other religions (with more focus on Catholicism), it feels as though it is lacking ‘passion’. Almost as if it is there because it is expected of him at this point and he is going through the motions. In spite of this, the tract itself is still drivel. It is still not worth the paper it is printed on, and indeed, I am saddened by the loss of nature that occurred to facilitate the printing of it. Without the wackier elements of Chick’s belief, we are left with something that is mediocre and dull at best. And for what little praise I can give, dissection gave it life and made it seem more than it truly was. I do need to be leaving, but I will hope that life and fate are most kind to you in your upcoming journeys, and that your visits to the dreamworld are enjoyable and pleasant. Until we meet again, dear readers. *curtseys and bows slightly, before turning to leave*
Dot	Yeah I'm with Anna on this one. I honestly found it even harder though to find anything to really latch on to for material. The problem with Chick is that you kind of desensitize yourself to his bullshit after a while, so while you could show this to someone at random and for sure they'd more likely than not call it out as the unhinged nonsense it is (optimistic, I know), I'm just at the point where I'm just like “Oh, sin rain again? How quaint.” I don't know how much he's delegated writing duty to Daniels by this point, but honestly it feels like an entirely phoned in job, like Jack's just spinning his wheels until he finally dies. Even the casual sexism and the Old Man Yells At Cloud disdain for kids these days guarding their iPhones from the devil doesn't really feel like his heart's in it.
Jessica	That does really seem to be what this comes down to in the end. It contains all of the general ramblings Chick felt compelled to tick off of his bingo card at this late stage in his career. But ultimately it still just boils down to a crotchety old man who just doesn't get the youth of today, and who's pissed off at their loud music, and their skateboarding on the sidewalk, and their Nintendos, and whatnot. The fact that he decided to focus this piece on a female specifically really says a lot more about him than it does about his audience, and just allowed him to direct his frustrations and hate at a demographic he didn't frequently focus on. He didn't even have the stones to back-handedly accuse our hapless heroine of something actually cool… like lesbianism or witchcraft or of being a “backbiter”… Still, he felt the need to make his protagonist start out as an insufferable little shit, and this still managed to be one of the rare tracts where the character eventually pulls an about-face and repents. Chick clearly didn't think much about teenagers, college students, non-believers, women, or any combination of those categories. But even with all of those wrapped up in a single, terrible character he still only barely managed to fart this one out. Color me unimpressed, but in my opinion this one isn't even bad enough to hate. Until next time, everyone.

 

Further Reading ⇑ ⇓

• Comments Section at Boolean Union