Sabotage?
Sabotage? - Comic #012 (C11)
Art by Fred Carter - © 1979 Chick Publications
First Published: January 12th, 2018
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1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | 7 | 8 | 9 | 10 | 11 | 12 | 13 | 14 | 15 |
16 | 17 | 18 | 19 | 20 | 21 | 22 | 23 | 24 | 25 | 26 | 27 | 28 | 29 | 30 |
31 | 32 | 33 |
CommentatorsJessicaCate Introduction ⇑ ⇓
Cate | This tract is Chick's attempt to prove that any Bible other than the KJV has been messed with by demons and/or Catholics. So this is going to be a pretty history-and-theology heavy dissection. Lighter fare will follow, I promise. Still, the plot is as crazy as anything Chick has ever done: a good Christian boy goes bat shit insane and starts burning down Bible colleges after being told the King James Bible isn't the word of God by his professor. Anti-Catholic conspiracies, Ba'al worship, and other Chick staples all make appearances. |
Page 1 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | "Sabotage (It means to wreck or destroy.)" Thanks, Chick. Thanks a lot. If I didn't already know that this comic was drawn by Fred Carter, the shirtless muscle boys would have made that clear. |
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Jessica | Speaking of shirts, Slator here doesn't look like he's in any sort of prison uniform. I wonder why that is? | |
Cate | He's just disappointed it's not a Bible Thumper... (NSFW) | |
Page 2 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | Mrs. Slator looks like Helen from the Marriage Mess. Maybe they're related. | |
Jessica | Is that supposed to be a picture of Gary there in the foreground? If it is then years in prison have NOT been kind to him. | |
Page 3 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | One gets the sense that Mr. Slator doesn't actually want to leave prison, what with threatening... whoever that is... and stating his plans to commit further arson. In fairness, if given the choice between jail or being stuck in a Chick Tract, well... | |
Jessica | You get that flippant with a guard and next thing you know there would be 50 guys in SWAT gear carrying stun shields ready to "extract" you. | |
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Page 5 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | "My sparkler was lit!" Ewww. | |
Jessica | "I was really turned on!" Jesus will do that to you. | |
Page 6 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | God, these are some ugly people. "heh...heh..." Not quite "HAW HAW!" but it'll do. I...somehow doubt any professor of theology would say, "Yeah, we used to have the Word of God™, but it's gone now. For all we know, the cargo-culters are right, and Prince Phillip really is God." Also, how long had he been at Bible College to not know that the original manuscripts for biblical texts are lost? Did he really imagine Jesus spoke the king's English? |
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Jessica | *The man on the street. *Writings. With all of the footnotes he used in this comic you would think he was speaking a different language. | |
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Page 8 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | This guy's faith is really easily shaken, isn't it? Bet he'd fall for that Nigerian Prince thing, too. (And then burn stuff down when he was told it was a scam.) I like how this guy is talking about how much his mouth hurts and how he just swallowed his teeth. Chick's understanding of how humans act really make these tracts come to life, ya know? |
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Jessica | Gary's reaction to all of this seems to be just a tad overblown. Just because this guy doesn't believe something in particular about your sect of Christianity there's no reason YOU have to believe it too. Get a grip man! | |
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Page 10 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | There's nothing you jokers can say that will change my opinion. Dude, we've already seen how easily your opinion can be changed. 5 minutes with Tom Cruise, and you'd be a Scientologist. I have never been to Pea Soup Andersen's, and I have literally no desire to go there. Even so, I pity them for being featured in this tract. It's like reverse product placement. |
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Jessica | Jim is a master of reverse psychology. Either that or Gary really is as idiotic as he looks. | |
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Page 12 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | Adam appears to have boobs on his back. That is all. God, Gary is unbelievably hideous. |
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Jessica | He reminds me of Billy from Marriage Mess. All of these comics have a strong Marriage Mess vibe to them when you get right down to it. | |
Page 13 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | You know, considering this guy flips out over learning that texts thousands of years old can get lost, how badly would he spazz to hear that most scholars don't believe John of Patmos was the same guy as John the apostle? What, nothing about Mithras or Sol Invictus? I'm starting to think that Ba'al is the only pagan deity Chick knew, and I use that term loosely, as there were in fact multiple gods known by that title: "Ba'al" simply means "Lord." In fact, the Judeo-Christian god may have been called "Ba'al," on occasion, as well, at least until that particular term became too heavily associated with the Phonicians and their gods, in particular the god known as Hadad, a storm and fertility deity. Anyway, my point is: to say that the Romans worshiped Ba'al is ba'allocks. Also, that guy looks nothing like Nero. |
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Page 14 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | God, Snidely Whiplash was less blatantly evil than these guys. Look, not to defend burning people alive or throwing them to the beasts, but context is necessary. It's a bit like mentioning that the U.S. dropped two nuclear bombs on Japan without mentioning that World War II was going on: it may not justify it, but at least it makes clear that it wasn't just done for shits and giggles. It's the same sort of thing here. The problem wasn't that, oh no, these kind, wholesome Christians are really putting a cramp in our lifestyle of orgies and decadence, so let's throw them to the lions. To the contrary: due to Christians' secrecy, early on the Romans viewed the Christians as a bunch of depraved, incestuous cannibals. Anyway, aside from that, the Romans weren't overly concerned with what one believed or didn't so long as one would at least pay lip service to the imperial cult. To refuse to do so was as much as political offense as it was a religious one. Christians who were unwilling to do so were not just “standing strong for Christ” or whatever, they were in effect committing treason. Which brings us to the whole throwing them to the beasts thing: this wasn't just a Christian thing; Romans threw condemned criminals of all stripes to the beasts: runaway slaves, poisoners, deserters, and counterfeiters being a few. I mean, not like that makes being killed by wild animals any more pleasant, but it was hardly unique. |
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Page 15 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | That is one trippy looking cave. “Listen to them sing!” They're burning alive. Doubt that does much for one's musical abilities. |
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Jessica | *To hassle or make them miserable. Now if there is one word I am positive Chick's audience is familiar with, it's persecution. | |
Page 16 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | What is going on behind Dr. Hillman? It's like a wicker basket version of Cthulu. I like that Satan was responsible for Christians *not* being persecuted this time. Guy can't get a break. His name was Cush, was it? Yeah, I can kind of see it. |
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Page 17 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | Nimrod, take that horn off. You look like a douche. And why is Chick dragging Gilgamesh into this? They're not connected. At all. “She was as beautiful as she was evil.” So, not very, is what you're saying? All of the above is found in The Two Babylons by Alexander Hislop... And that really says it all. Hislop was basically the David Icke or Alex Jones of the 1800s. (In fact, Hislop's work is often cited by Icke as well, with Icke claiming poor Semiramis set up the Reptilians.) Semiramis, by the way, is never mentioned in the Bible. Nor is she associated with Nimrod anywhere outside of Hislop's work and the works of those inspired by him. Rather, she was a legendary figure possibly based on Shammuramat, an Assyrian queen. Also, according to legend, she invented the chastity belt and eunuchs. Make of that what you will. |
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Page 19 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | So the Roman Empire was a bit of mess, in terms of rulers. There were co-emperors, junior emperors, senior emperors...basically, at this point, the Roman Empire was lousy with emperors. Both Constantine and Maxentius were emperors to one degree or another. Explaining who was emperor of what, how they became emperor (Hereditary? Proclaimed? Promoted?), and what their relationship to the other emperors was would require a spread chart, so on the one hand, I can hardly blame Chick for skipping over all that. On the other hand, Chick gets everything wrong, so I'm not inclined to cut him any slack here. Actually, by all reliable (i.e., non-Chick) accounts, what Constantine had painted was the Chi-Rho sign. |
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Page 21 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | Oh, yay, the Masons! I get Conspiracy Bingo! | |
Jessica | If the Egyptians were worshiping Isis and Horus, how could they be worshiping Ba'al? Or is this more of that "People really worship what I say they worship" crap? | |
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Page 24 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | O.k. This is John 3:16 from (duh duh duh) a CATHOLIC BIBLE (The Knox Translation of the Vulgate, should anyone want to double check): “God so loved the world, that he gave up his only-begotten Son, so that those who believe in him may not perish, but have eternal life.“ And here it is in the Douay-Rheims version, which dates from the 16th century: “For God so loved the world, as to give his only begotten Son; that whosoever believeth in him, may not perish, but may have life everlasting.“ I'm...not seeing why Catholics would be “amazed to see Jesus loved them,” here. Dude. I learned about the Inquisition in school. If the Catholic church is trying to cover it up, they're doing a shitty job of it. |
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Jessica | What king is that supposed to be? King Fat-Ass the Fourth? | |
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Page 26 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | Ah, o.k.. When Chick writes about people not knowing about the Inquisition, he means they don't know his weird S&M dungeon orgy version. I like the spread-eagled Saint Andrew's Cross girl. | |
Jessica | We've got that "sharp, brittle cloth" torture that Chick likes to misrepresent again. | |
Page 27 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | Christ, that's a Wall o' Text. Again, the Catholic version: For the justice of God is revealed therein, from faith unto faith, as it is written: The just man liveth by faith. What exactly did Chick imagine was in Catholic Bibles? 'And verily,' said Ba'al, 'Go forth and pretend to be Christians, for centuries hence, it will drive a certain cartoonist up the wall.' And the priests temporarily ceased molesting alter boys and turned to each other and said, 'O.k.' Then they went and baked some death cookies. |
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Page 31 ⇑ ⇓
Cate | And literally all of that is in the Catholic bible, as well. | |
Jessica | Just wouldn't be a Chick comic without that bloody, suffering Jesus and a brisk John 3:16 enema to go along with it. | |
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Conclusion⇑ ⇓
Cate | So, that was painful. More painful than being torn apart by wild beasts? Who can say, but it certainly took longer. Still, this is pure, unadulterated Chick insanity, and so I give it 3 out of 5 Non-KJV Bibles. |
Jessica
Cate