Archived Dissection
Originally published at Enter the Jabberwock. July 9, 2007. A Demon's Nightmare. Tract #002. Art by Jack Chick - © 1972, 2005 Chick Publications

Originally published at Enter the Jabberwock
July 9, 2007

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A Demon's Nightmare - Tract #002 (DEMN)
Art by Jack Chick - © 1972, 2005 Chick Publications

When a youth finds Christ, he becomes a nightmare for the demons trying to stop him.

 

Introduction ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock

What we have here is a guest Chick Dissection from fan Rarend. As in previous guest Dissections, I’ll be adding my own commentary as well, because, well, it’s hard to resist. Think of it as kind of like MST3K, with multiple people doing the mocking. Instead of italics this time, each paragraph of my added comments will start out with a “J:“. "When a youth finds Christ, he becomes a nightmare for the demons trying to stop him." Just another tract that tries to make Christianity look like some super cool awesome journey for salvation whilst fighting off the evils of Satan. I suspect. This tract is the only tract I know of that actually breaks the fourth wall. It exaggerates the effectiveness of preaching and just makes no sense to me whatsoever. This is somewhat of a soul-war rip off of Hogan’s Heroes. It also shows how quickly a disease can sweep the globe.

 

Cover / Page 1 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	Hey, the red background got ripped. A demon’s nightmare: getting printed on the title page of a Chick Tract.
Jabberwock	Nah, it’s not ripped. That’s just Demon Jesus.

 

Page 2 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	“Attention units 12-28-65 and 266 I have lost my radio.”
Jabberwock	I wonder if 12-28-65 is someone’s birthday. In any event, kind of an inconsistent numbering system, what with the dashes and no dashes and all. Might as well throw in some phone numbers, binary code, Planck’s Constant, the Dewey Decimal System…
Rarend	Once again we see somebody thinking “gulp” instead of saying it. Why in the world is that one demon transparent? It is bad enough that the Enemy is sighted, now he is fading away from the material plane? What city is this? The skyline consists of only one building and there is nothing to be seen for miles around except a white oblivion. I guess this must be Regina, Saskatchewan. Where’s the trouble? It must be behind that queer in the suit. What could he be up to now? He is up to walking and whistling! Oh the horror! He kind of reminds me of that demon-in-a-man-suit from “Somebody Goofed”. One and the same?
Jabberwock	I don’t know what he’s up to now, but he apparently just scored a point in Wii Tennis. “Stand by for action!” Oh, and what an ‘action’ I’m sure it will turn out to be!

 

Page 3 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Oh, there’s Waldo. Finally. I’ve been looking everywhere.
Rarend	Woah! Hasn’t kid noticed that his friends are demons? Probably not, since he looks blind.
Jabberwock	Old goat? I thought demons revered goats.
Rarend	Yes I have head that story. It is called “The Rise of Atheism.”
Jabberwock	Actually, strangely, I recently read a blog post discussing the apparent increase in secularism in the United States, speculated to be — at least in part — the result of people’s desire to distance themselves from the likes of fundies. If this is the result of such rabid proselytizing, perhaps fundamentalists should take a step back and recognize that they’re actually — at least from their perspective — helping Satan win souls. Then again, rousing such introspection in them would be a feat akin to reaching into a lion’s mouth and tugging out from it completely intact the wildebeest it ate six days ago. Anyway, hard to kill something you can’t even prove exists.
Rarend	What a great conversation starter. He just sits down and out of the blue he starts talking about religion. “This is a nice spot to sit. Hey! You! Ever hear about that extremely popular Christian story of the crucifixion of Jesus?” You can tell that this tract was written by Chick because the boy listens. In real life he would just point out how strange he is acting. Odds are, in real life, that kid would either already have a religious background or feel threatened by this strange man.
Jabberwock	Wow, so they’re going to sit around being all passive-aggressive at a couple people who seemingly can’t even hear or see them? What action! Thrill as they mutter under their breath at passersby long after they’ve passed! Find yourself on the edge of your seat when they make concealed obscene gestures when the intended recipient’s head is turned! Daring feats of general unperceived grumpiness!

 

Page 4 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	That is right folks! Every time you see a hot woman, it’s merely Satan and his minions playing a trick on you, because we all know that women are tools of the devil. But seeing as how this kid is blind, I suppose hot ladies would not work on him anyway.
Jabberwock	Just as there’s no such thing as a secular person, there’s also no such thing as an attractive woman. They’re all either demons, or illusions manifested by demons for the purpose of distraction.
Rarend	The kid looks frightened in the second panel, probably because the man’s hand just grew to monstrous proportions. And wow, the preacher just made the blind kid see! He’s got the power of Jesus in his hands.
Jabberwock	“For all have sinned and come short of the– aw, hell, why’d I have to have that ‘Eat Me’ cupcake for lunch?”
Rarend	Here we see Insta-convert(tm) in action. It is a mind control virus that inhabits your brain, gives you feelings of ecstasy once you accept Christ and turns you into a dull Christian.
Jabberwock	And Insta-grow(tm), apparently, as well.
Rarend	“Next time, I want to be the foot rest!”
Jabberwock	Actually, looks more like: “Fine, fine, get it over with. I should’ve never had this vagina-shaped fistula installed between my lung and armpit. How the hell drunk was I that night, anyway?”

 

Page 5 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	“AIEEEE! I just realized that I have no nipples!” “Don’t worry about it man, we’ll go up this way (points) and get some” He’s hopelessly lost. That means that there is no way to save him so why bother wasting your time? If he’s hopelessly lost, then he has NO HOPE.

 

Page 6 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	I thought the greatest love story was Romeo and Juliet, the story about how Jesus died is more of a Christian myth. Anyways, if god LOVED me that would make him a homosexual and an adulterer.
Jabberwock	I always thought the greatest love story was Titanic. *sigh* Ahh, Leonardo DiCaprio.
Rarend	So these demons are the same ones that helped crucify Jesus? The very same ones out of an entire Hellfull of them? Cool, they must be like, celebrities.
Jabberwock	I think the implication is supposed to be that all Jews are demons. So, adding them to the list of secular people and attractive women and correcting for overlap, that leaves roughly 2/5 the population as real people. Of course, if the demons incited the mob to crucify Jesus, then, uh… weren’t they doing God’s work? I mean, that kind of needed to happen in order for Jesus to be, y’know… the savior and all? What would have happened had there been — as this Tract states is the cause — no demonic influence among the crowd that crucified Jesus?
Rarend	How dare that demon say “shut up” instead of @$%!#*! No wonder he’s a demon

 

Page 7 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	Apparently this panel takes place in Hiroshima during 1945. Wait a minute, that kid just surrendered to Jesus just because someone asked him to, so I guess this is somewhere in France.
Jabberwock	HOLY SHIT, THE DEMONS HAVE THE BOMB! WE MUST PRE-EMPTIVELY INVADE HELL! SMOKING GUN (OR AT LEAST A SPEECH BUBBLE) IN THE FORM OF A MUSHROOM CLOUD! RABBLERABBLERABBLE!
Rarend	“What will Jesus do with my life if he has it mister awkward preacher?”
Jabberwock	I don’t know, but I’m guessing you’ll probably want him to have it dry-cleaned before he gives it back.
Rarend	New insta-convert(tm) the most effective way to recruit Christians! First you spit shit into their ear then they will become Jesus slaves. Just hand them a bible laced with the Insta-convert ™ mind control virus and watch the rest. We will soon see more of the affects this virus has on the victim.
Jabberwock	“How the fuck do I read a sword? What, s’it got, like, Elven engraved onto it all Lord of the Rings style?”
Rarend	Now the kid is enjoying a bit of ecstasy from the virus in his brain. That’s a sign that he’s infected.
Jabberwock	“Something wonderful has happened! I’ve become addicted to the effects of emotional neurochemicals that are produced in my brain from ‘powerful’ sensations like total submission, in much the same way as people can become addicted to the neurochemicals produced during sexual intercourse!”
Rarend	This would never have happened if only units 12 and 28 had showed up.

 

Page 8 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	New demon: “MY BROTHERS HAVE ESCAPED YOU, er, I mean, YOU’RE TOO LATE, HAHAHAHA!” (if you do not get this refrence, look up Diablo II or Mephisto lord of Hatred). “Matt 13:18-22? No! In other words, kill him. I said ANYTHING goes.” That is not a very good demon. He knows exactly what a section in the book of Matthew says and can casually bring it up. Are they not supposed to be bible haters? I mean, does not it make him look like some kind of priest? “Sure chief, I’ll kick his ass just like this section of the bible describes. I’ll even tell you what verses they are in case you want to look it up later.”
Jabberwock	Nah, the best way to hate something is to become fully familiar with it. I guess Jack didn’t actually want anyone to read the text at the bottom.

 

Page 9 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	The dad is screaming because he just suddenly burst into flame while the kid is wondering how spontaneous combustion is possible.
Jabberwock	And mom’s having an aneurism. Ooh, and she’s Jane Hathaway! *checks card* I think that’s BINGO.
Rarend	Stuff like this almost never happens in real life but Chick is trying to make it seem like the norm. I have a creeping suspicion that Jack Chick loves to be persecuted.
Jabberwock	Wow, a fundamentalist with a martyr complex? How surprising.
Rarend	His new faith couldn’t ruin their good name socially unless of course this family is living in ancient Rome in which case they should be wearing togas. Well, that woman’s apron looks enough like one. That woman looks out of place. She belongs in the 60s.
Jabberwock	Well, this is copyright 1972. Sweet merciful fuck — it’s always a bit of a surprise to think about how long he’s been doing this. Goddamn.

 

Page 10 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	Oh, so the boy is that demon’s brother, I get it now. The mother is angry with him becoming a Christian because her family is composed of demons. What was that kid doing? Uh oh, was he strangling the snake? It certainly would ruin his trousers.
Jabberwock	I think he’s pissing the bed from the inside out. …”[P]oor fish”?

 

Page 11 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	Hey! Don’t drink and drive, four-eyes.
Jabberwock	Simultaneously, no less.
Rarend	Since this tract obviously is taking place in the days of the Roman Empire, how can there be a car?
Jabberwock	The Empire Never Ended.
Rarend	“I’m the Pawty Poopah” -Schwarzenegger, Kindergarten Cop “WTF? How did all these other people suddenly teleport into our car? There were five of us and now there’s seven.”
Jabberwock	I think the sign on the right says “Jesus Davis”. I even zoomed in on it — that’s what it says.
Rarend	“Hey stop it! I can’t see where…” KaSmaSH!!!
Jabberwock	“HAW HAW HAW GIMME THAT EYE!” *slap, prod* “GIMME!” *grope, glasses-tug, slap, slap* “GIMME THAT EYE!” *slap, slap*

 

Page 12 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	That guy didn’t see where he was going because the girl was covering his eyes and he must have crashed the car through the wall of a very formal business banquet which is the place they are now.
Jabberwock	You know, if you have to live your life all stick-up-the-ass and oppressive toward all your friends in order to be acceptable in the eyes of the Lord, then I’ll take a one-way ticket for hell, please.
Rarend	“JESUS this is quite a party” Who the fuck says stuff like that anyway? And the scene depicted is not quite a party either, they’re all wearing suits and have table cloths! What a bunch of momma’s boys. Jack Chick probably went to Jesus Loves You high school and actually attended parties like this. Either that or he is out of touch with reality and hasn’t a clue what real teenage bashes are like.
Jabberwock	I read it as he meant his lord’s name was “@**!!!*”.
Rarend	“Sacrilegious!” That’s a very long word. I didn’t think he would be smart enough to use it.
Jabberwock	If it’s any consolation, he probably stuttered over it about a dozen times, ultimately mispronouncing it completely.
Rarend	“HAW HAW to you too” Why does the girl to the left have a talking necklace?
Jabberwock	I think she’s had a tracheotomy and has trained herself to use the hole to speak. Quite a trick, really. I can see why she’s so popular at these ‘parties’.
Rarend	This teenage party is extraordinarily formal. Obviously Chick has never been to such a party. In any teenage party nobody would wear a suit.
Jabberwock	Maybe Chick has some rare neurological disorder where he confuses “teenagers” with “Japanese businessmen and temp secretaries just getting out of work”.
Rarend	“Hey everybody, we’re all a bunch of momma’s boys wearing suits and dresses like a bunch of well scrubbed angels. Lets make fun of the Christian even though some of us probably are also Christian!” Hey, when in Rome…

 

Page 13 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	As you can see, everybody who becomes Christian immediately loses all their friends and are taunted by talking cars as they turn solid black in colour.
Jabberwock	“Wait, that’s all he told you? Seriously, what the fuck? Okay, here, let me try: James Brolin died for your sins. Look, I’ve changed your life!” “Here, let me have a go: You’re an unclean, filthy thing who will, when you die, be sentenced to an eternity having your flesh shredded and stitched back together, but good news! Eddie Van Halen died for your sins! All you have to do is listen to Eruption once a day, and thou shalt be saved! HAW HAW, it worked! Awesome! We’ll have to do this at ALL our parties!”

 

Page 14 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	What happened to their legs?
Jabberwock	They became speech bubbles. So in addition to secular people, attractive women, and Jews, speech bubbles are also all demons. So demons… are responsible… for sleepiness?
Rarend	Either that kid is talking to himself or he acknowledges that there is a demon in bed next to him and is talking to it.
Jabberwock	“Hey, it’s Sunday! I’d better get to church so I can learn who to hate! I can’t wait to listen to some smug, self-important, bloviating fuckwad rambling on about how much better our way of living is.” I’d like to think the demon on the left in the second panel started out with “There’s a bright golden haze on the meadow / The corn is as high as an elephant’s eye / An’ it looks like it’s climbin’ clear up to the sky.”

 

Page 15 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	Try this church, just make sure it is of the “right” sect. Because God won’t like it if you join the wrong sect (that’s why I’m not Christian). See how miraculously the Insta-convert(tm) virus removes your connection to reality. You will be able to ignore anything, like a baby clubbing your shoulder with a book. That woman needs to put that baby to death, just like Leviticus 20:9 tells her to. (Leviticus 20:13 condemns homosexuality. If those fundies want to ban gay marriage, they also must put rebellious kids to death.)

 

Page 16 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	The Insta-convert(tm) virus makes him an emotionless dullard in a suit, now he looks just like the guy who gave him the virus. It’s kind of like the werewolf affect. When someone is bitten by a werewolf they transform into one. When someone is accosted by a Bible-thumper, they transform into one. Not only does Chick have no idea what real people are like, he also thinks that there would be a film called “The Billion $ Movie”.
Jabberwock	Oh, yeah, I heard about this one. It’s a special, supposed to come on instead of Generic Sitcom this Weekday, right after News Program.
Rarend	“I’m going to lean my head in this IED over here and hope it doesn’t go off.”
Jabberwock	What is that thing, anyway? Some kind of oversized pork roast? A personal-sized keg? A washtub?

 

Page 17 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	Go ahead, go to church, we’re going to watch people groan and scream on TV.
Jabberwock	“We just love the Yelping Growling Channel.”
Rarend	“No wait don’t exit through there! That door leads the negative space between the panels!”
Jabberwock	Man, a Chick Tract is all negative space.
Rarend	Great, now that demon is sitting on the IED. If it goes off, it will blow him right into the next panel. “Let’s go inside and talk with the lord, somewhere quiet so I can take advantage of you because you’re just soooo cute”.
Jabberwock	Yeah, I’m betting “talk with the Lord” is definitely a euphemism for something. Like he dressed his dick up in a little robe and put a wig on it. “Have you ever seen the Lord? Know what he looks like?” “No.” “Good! *zzzzzzip* Well, here he is. Wanna talk to him? He’s a bit hard of hearing, so you have to put your lips really close. Feel free to just talk his ears off, even if he pukes at you.”
Rarend	That man’s Botox injections clearly didn’t work.

 

Page 18 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	Holy crap that’s a lot of diarrhea.
Jabberwock	What, you’ve never seen a Chick Tract befo — ohhh, that.
Rarend	(in a deep and evil voice) “It’s no commercial, it’s the smell of my misty diarrhea shitcloud, HAW HAW” Looks like Mephisto caught his pals in the middle of African Safari roleplaying. One plays the sexy lion while the other gets to be the scared, horny monkey that tries to hide from the lion.

 

Page 19 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	Hey it’s Chernabog! The demon from Disney’s Fantasia who’s sitting on top of the mountain and conjures ghosts and demons while “A Night on Bald Mountain” plays. Why underline “your”? I think Chernabog is implying he’s their gay love child. I guess homosexuality is truly of Satan then. It’s good that he hit the main power line along with the enemy. That means that both he and Jesus have been electrocuted.
Jabberwock	“But, sir, how could we have missed The Billion $ Movie? It starred Overpaid Actor, and Attractive Actress! You know how much we like them!”
Rarend	“Gulp, oh noo! To punish us, Chernabog is going to make us dance around on his hand while Night on Bald Mountain plays!”

 

Page 20 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	Oh no! the Insta-convert(tm) virus is spreading at an explosive rate! The kid is spreading the contagious virus to everyone he walks close to and they in turn begin spreading it. Those poor 28 people must be suit-wearing robots by now. I knew that kid was turning into an automated missionary and was spreading the virus, but 28! That insta-convert(tm) is working overtime.
Jabberwock	Holy shit. Does Chick genuinely believe proselytizing is THAT successful?
Rarend	Wait, if he was in a prayer meeting, that would mean that the people he was around were already Christian. But they were Christians unaffected by this terrible sickness and the kid brought it among them! Now they have “accepted Christ” by becoming sick with this mind control virus. It’s still the 1930s in hell because the elevator has an operator.
Jabberwock	Nah, it’s just someone really, really horny demanding oral sex. Y’know, “love in an elevator” and all that. “Going down please!?”
Rarend	“Sir, could you please turn back into a silhouette, you looked scarier then.”

 

Page 21 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	“This is CNN (Chernabog’s News Network) today dozens of people who were already Christian were infected by a mind control virus making them infatuated with Christ and thus became acceptable in the eyes of an extremist Christian minority of which the author of this tract is a member.”
Jabberwock	The guy on the left apparently thinks he’s TV. Or a robot with a picture of Josef Stalin taped to it.
Rarend	One demon on the elevator gets motion sickness while the one in the suit thinks about random symbols. “Start digging, we have got to escape this goofy tract!” I just had a horrible thought: what if all Christians converted to the same sect as the guy who wrote this comic? We wouldn’t have enough time in our whole lives to write Dissections for the Tracts that would be churned out if that happened. A few years later Insta-convert(tm) virus elevated its status from “outbreak” to “epidemic” when it spread across south Asia. Since this Tract is about an epidemic of Insta-convert(tm) I guess it should be called “Patient Zero” instead of “A Demon’s Nightmare”.
Jabberwock	How about “Devoutbreak”?

 

Page 22 ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	Hey, there is a fourth wall in the direction you are looking and you’re breaking it by speaking to me. Sure, I will burn this Tract for you. You’d better get out of it while I toss it into the fireplace.
Jabberwock	At first, I didn’t recognize that as the handle of a shovel, and thought for a moment that he was shaving his nipple. Like, he was sentenced to an eternity of shaving his own nipples or something.
Rarend	I don’t know who “you know who” is, but the last person I heard referred to by that name was Lord Voldemort, so I guess these people do not want you to join the Death Eaters. Just think, after you die you will be able to silhouette yourself on a fiery backdrop forever.
Jabberwock	And apparently surf rolling flames.

 

Conclusion ⇑ ⇓

Rarend	Moral of the story? Do not let whistling Christians sit down beside you on a bench because you will transform into a missionary against your will by means of a mind control virus and start a global outbreak of it. Do not let yourself get infected or else you will spend the rest of your life worshiping a creepy giant with a blank face.
Jabberwock	That, and Jack Chick lives in a fantasy world.
Rarend	This Tract also had the dumbest ending in the whole wide world. Since Chick believes everyone in the world to be gullible morons who cannot make their own decisions, wouldn’t he think that everyone who read that last bit would listen to it and burn the Tract? But then again, nobody ever accused Jack Chick of being too smart. In the end what I don’t understand is how someone can turn from a blind smoker into a fanatic in less than two minutes of conversation attempts from a fundamentalist (or were-fundamentalist since he transforms others into creatures like himself). The only answer that is possible is that the kid was sickened by a terrible mind-control virus. This Dissection was brought to you by Insta-convert(tm), “Don’t Ask Questions, Just Listen and Blindly Obey”.

 

Further Reading ⇑

• Vintage page at Enter the Jabberwock (Courtesy of Archive.org)


• Product page at Chick Publications