Dann Slator was one of Chick's early converts, having been turned on to Christianity by one of his early flipchart presentations. He and Chick would become friends soon after, with Slator frequently using Chick tracts in his own proselytizing. Chick would immortalize his efforts by having him preach directly to the main characters in two different Chick tracts, both drawn by Fred Carter. He would also have a character named after him in a Crusaders comic (Sabotage, the beginning of Chick's KJV Only wingnuttery) and later Chick would write a straight up biographical comic about his life.

He also wrote tracts.

This is actually a recurring element of his output: the text regularly dominates the panels, though arguably that’s a blessing. One notable exception is a “Native American edition” of Chick’s This Was Your Life which, of course, he did not write. His edition is definitely not racially insensitive in any way. From Carl to Carla to Christ is one of his less verbose tracts, and that did not do it any favors, as we shall see.

An important thing to note is that despite the, ahem, unique look of the artwork in this tract and others of his, he actually did not draw the art himself for several of them. At least three of his tracts, From Carl to Carla to Christ being one of them, have the art credited to an “R.S.L.” According to his “autobiography” From Cowboy Trails to Soldier Tales, this individual, inconsistently referred to as either “Rod” or “Rob,” was an ex-gay convict who, of course, “became straight” after finding Christ. Dann does not give a clear account of whether he himself played a role in the inmate’s “conversion,” although a later summary of the tract gives the impression that he did. Regardless, it is likely the case that Rod/Rob was the real Carl/Carla/Christ.

Well, this is certainly something completely different. Do you remember when you were young and your Pop-Pop would come on over for the holidays or family dinners or something and tell you just the most completely outlandish stories you've ever heard? But he managed to tell them with such absolute, heartfelt sincerity that your seven-year-old brain just totally bought it all hook, line, and sinker? Well, imagine your Grandpappy was also a YUGE fan of Jack Chick, to the point where he dedicated a large portion of his life to not only littering the globe with Chick's propaganda, but also tried to scribble out some of his own. Put all that together and you'd have “Chaplain” Dann Slator.

This is a man who claimed to have such an interesting life that Chick used him as a plot device in two different tracts and two full-sized comic books, one of which was a dramatic retelling of his life complete with abusive and neglectful parents, childhood hell-raising, military insubordination, and a whole host of accomplishments that most definitely really occurred. Also, much like your grandfather who had an unfortunate habit of mentioning how Obama was surprisingly articulate despite being… you know… “one of them”... and how he had absolutely no problems at all with that friendly and flamboyant gentleman who works down at his wife's hair dresser just so long as he stays away from kids and doesn't go around “rubbing it in everyone's faces”, Dann had some rather unfortunate and regressive ideas when it came to gay people. This led him to pen what is perhaps one of his most outrageous attempts to ape Chick's process and style with the subject of today's dissection. He was far better at hiding his disdain and contempt for LGBTQ individuals than Chick was behind a facade of good-natured concern and doddering confusion over some of the finer points gay culture. But in the end his work was no less condescending or harmful despite it. For easier reading by our audience, the original scans of this tract have been cleaned up and “remastered” by yours truly, and you can swap back and forth between the original and clean versions by mousing-over the images below.

But if you ask me, this is just yet another reason to give kids more leeway in what names they prefer to go by.

Also, fun fact: Chaplain Dann’s autobiography claims his own mother wanted him to be a girl, to the point of dressing him as a girl for a while. Apparently he went by the name “Bunn” during this time.

Train up a child in the way he should go: and when he is old, he will not depart from it.

The heart is deceitful above all things, and desperately wicked: who can know it?

What is that even supposed to mean? Is it referring to Carl or his mom? Speaking of which, I like how Carl reacts to his mother’s whining with such a face. “Eh, I dunno mom.”

“My God, Carl, why can’t you at least act like a man?” I told you to take him fishing!

And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

Remember kids, if you find a person of the opposite gender attractive, commit mutilation upon yourself!

So that just led to a whole lot of “I can't be trans, I'm not even gay” flavoured repression wheeee.

Uhhh, yeah… why didn't you? Realizing that being attracted to guys makes you something other than heterosexual isn't exactly Mensa-level trivia.

I know I'm putting in a helluva lot more thought and effort into this than Dann ever did, but I just… I can't even…

And Dann said, Thou canst not see my cutout face: for there shall no man see me, and not laugh.

Carla was pinched on a trumped-up prostitution charge and railroaded into prison. She's likely to have had direct contact and experience with drug traffickers, rapists, child molesters, and murderers. You'd think that would give her a bit of perspective on this whole thing… or is Dann's argument that homosexuality is as bad (or worse) than all of those other things?

This is such emotional manipulation bullcrap.

This one still stings though. The artist and apparent co writer is obviously speaking from experience and communicates the mistreatment that queer people are subjected to by homophobic justice systems and the horrors that we're subjected to in prison, but still just loops round to “Welp, that's what you get for being gay should have tried loving Jesus instead, you idiot.”

The life and works of Dann Slator is one of the lesser known chapters of the Jack Chick saga, and one not widely known to those who are not eyeball deep in the lore as we are. Hopefully by showcasing this we can help draw attention to what some of Jack's more zealous acolytes were capable of, and this can help us to better be on alert should similar figures appear again in the future.