Introduction ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock

They were just fantasy games … all in fun. But they influenced Harry to make the biggest mistake of his life. You gotta be fucking kidding me. Just… you’ll see.

Cover / Page 1 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	HAW HAW, I GET IT! A FAIRY (QUEER)!

Page 2 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	*poke poke* “Stand back, tubby. No, they’re not going to let you eat him when they’re done.” “Live, Live!” “Kill, Kill!” “Faster, Pussycat!” I think “Death to the Monster” could be kind of a cool band name. Huh, I didn’t know they let overgrown sewer rats be newscasters. Yeesh. And how does she know the governor isn’t going to call in at the last minute? “Hi, folks, just wanted to stop you right there and warn you there’s a Chick Tract up ahead. You might want to find an alternative route. And no, this isn’t a glove — I, uh… got drunk once and tried to juggle a campfire.”

Page 3 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Aaaagh, zombie! Hurry, find someone to fight it. Hey, don’t I recognize that nose somewhere? Man, Joe Camel’s fallen on some rough times if this is all he can get for work. Wait a second… why isn’t he visible from behind in the second panel? The rat-woman reporter’s face is even worse up close. It’s like she fell asleep onto a welding torch or something. My, what an assortment of hideous people. “So why do they call him Incredibly-Generic-Nickname-for-a-Killer?”

Page 4 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	His story began, as most things do, with the Tooth Fairy. What an incredibly spacious bathroom. You could train an elephant in that thing. The kid looks incredibly drowsy in the first panel. “Mommy, look! I was taking all this meth, and, uh… and my tooth fell out.” Here, let’s change things up a little: “Oh, my! Let’s see, honey. That means the Tooth Jesus is coming tonight!” “Tooth Jesus? Who is he?” “He’s a magical man. He doesn’t give you any money for putting your teeth under your pillow, but he walks around on water, and gives you everything you ever wanted after you die if you say the magic words.” Oh, yeah — that’s totally more believable a story.

Page 5 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	“Mommy, I know your talking nipples also possess encyclopedic knowledge and all, but could you at least finish your own sentences?” “I know you’ll come Tooth Fairy! *kthunk* I’m even punching myself in the face — *kthunk kthun-crunch* — to knock out the rest of my teeth, to be — *kthun-crunch* — extra sure!”

Page 6 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Starring John Astin as ‘Daddy’. Hah, why such short notice? Apparently they don’t get that the most useful element of the whole ‘Santa’ thing is as a device to manipulate your children into behaving. “If you’re not good, Santa won’t bring you any presents. And Santa can see everything.” How the fuck useful is that if you only tell them a week before Christmas? Oh, good job, guys, you got him to clean his room once. I like his hand gestures. “Welcome home from work, dad! Here’s what you’ve won!” Okay, another little variation, here: “God lives in heaven, and he can see everything you do. He knows if you’ve been a bad little boy or a good little boy. If you’ve been good, when you die, he’ll give you everything you ever wanted.” Oh, hey, there’s that really neat dog again.

Page 7 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Kid has real dedication if he’s willing to wait in line for half an hour while Margaret from Dennis the Menace reads off her scrawled-on-a-roll-of-toilet-paper grocery list of wishes. “Hey, I know what’ll make the holiday season merrier: let’s paint lusty, psychotic eyes on all the nutcrackers!” Oh, come on, like holiday mascots are the ONLY lies parents EVER tell their children.

Page 8 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	“Just what I always wanted! Godzilla, a telescope, and a radioactive Superman crucifix!” Well, of course it’d break his heart to reveal the secret and piss all over his parade right after he opens his presents on Christmas morning. But seriously, what a couple of whiny fuckwits. If you don’t believe how evil this all is, think about this: “Santa” is an anagram for “Satan”. And they both wear red! See? EVIL!

Page 9 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	“Wow! I farted so hard, it blew my legs off and rocketed me right out of the pew! Incidentally, the Easter Bunny is coming!” What the fuck kind of a stupid question is this, anyway? Did someone tell him the Easter Bunny is Jesus? Does he think the Bible tells of a gigantic nomadic rabbit born to a human woman that wandered around the Middle East performing miracles? Granted, the whole “Easter Bunny” thing would, I imagine, be rather confusing to Christian children, but seriously, doesn’t he think someone would’ve seen fit to at least give passing mention to the whole “Jesus was a giant rabbit” thing at some point? Either the church decided to rent the bunny suit with the most distressed, fearful expression, or that’s a genuine biped anthropomorphic rabbit. I’m drawn toward the latter, given that it also appears to be sweating.

Page 10 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Oh, no! Run! He’s transforming into a Super Saiyan! Or maybe the other kids have pyrokinesis. I mean, they’re speaking without speech bubbles, which I can only assume means they’re just projecting their thoughts. After all, in Chick’s universe, black magic really works, too, so hell, why not say kids have super mental powers? “Santa gave me this jacket and you set it on fire with your minds! Seriously, what the fuck? I’ll Kill you both before you take over the world with your superhuman powers!” Yeah, nobody’s parents ever lie to them. No parent ever exaggerates the actual dangers of a situation in order to keep their kids from doing something with a slight possibility of being unsafe, or creates a convenient fabrication when they feel they need to somehow bend the truth to protect them. “If you watch too much TV, you’ll end up needing glasses.” “Hide your money in your sock if you ever walk around in a city.” “The Stork brings babies.” “Step on a crack and you’ll break your mother’s back.” “If you use the microwave, you’ll burn yourself.” “If you masturbate too much, you’ll go blind.” “If you get that BB gun, you’ll shoot your eye out!” Not to mention all the lies fundamentalist parents spew forth like a mighty volcano of hot, clumpy bullshit, especially when it comes to sex. “Fifty percent of gay teenagers are HIV positive!” “Condoms barely do anything!” “Regardless of circumstances, if you have sex EVEN ONCE, you can get pregnant! Even using any form of birth control!” Are all these kids going to kill the first person who tells them otherwise? “No, seriously, when used properly, condoms are effective about 97% of the time.” “Noooo. YAAAAHHH! I’ll Kill you! My parents would never lie to me!”

Page 11 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Gee, lady, why the long, hideous face? “We now go live to the scene of the crime, where reporter Mr. Horse is on the scene. Mr. Horse, what do you think of the tragedy that took place at the school today?” “Hrmmmm… No sir, I don’t like it.” They set him on fire! I mean, come on, they were fucking asking for it. “A terrorist act”? Okay, so the kid just happened to be carrying around some kind of weapon of mass destruction in the event he might ever need to commit an act of terrorism? I thought he just attacked a couple students, killing one of them. I guess we’re reclassifying every crime as “terrorism” now, including pummeling someone to death with your bare hands. Though, I suppose, if he actually did have Super Saiyan powers… You know, I’d say a good half of terrorism is ramping up the fear yourself after the act takes place and making people afraid that similar things might happen in the future. That said, Jack Chick is a great terrorist. Take this very Tract, for instance: Jack’s taking a currently popular “scary” term - “terrorism” - and using it to propagate his message. “If you tell your kid there’s a Santa Clause and an Easter Bunny, he/she will commit terrorism!” It’s not necessary for him to say “terrorism”, because it’s not fucking terrorism. It’s just murder. But it helps ramp up the fear. Surprise cameo by Martin Landeau, second panel, on the left. Oh, and fun fact, by the way, everyone: No terrorist act has ever been committed for religious reasons. It’s all little kids finding out there’s no Santy Clause.

Page 12 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	“No! Not for his protection! I disagree with your explanation!” So, uh, wouldn’t he have also killed his classmates, then, if they said his parents were “liars” for telling him there was a Jesus? He was “defending” their reputations — does the accused lie itself really matter? And what if his parents told him about Santa themselves? Would he have killed them? I know it’s an extremely tough competition, but this is probably the most ridiculous Chick Tract to date. (Second only to the discontinued Tract “Wounded Children” — that one’s so ridiculous, even Chick discontinued it.) It just fails on so many levels. The message from this isn’t so much “telling your children fairy tales about Santa and the Easter Bunny is dangerous” as much as “psychotic, aggressive children will kill people over just about anything”. I mean, come on — obviously there are greater underlying issues, here, that would exist regardless of the Tooth Fairy. More than that, though, there’s an implicit message in this - which is undoubtedly completely unintentional - to always question authority, and anything other people (including parents and religious figures) tell you. Oops!

Page 13 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	“Yeah, you got us — we pretended to be Jesus, too.” Who thinks “Gulp!”? That’s like thinking the word “yawn” when you’re tired or bored or “blink” when someone says something particularly stupid. “Well, son, y’know, we have just as much concrete evidence for God and Jesus as we do for the Easter Bunny. I mean, we could tell you there’s an enormous, invisible bee the size of a planet sitting in the middle of the sun and it controls every subatomic particle in the universe with its infinite arms of infinite lengths, and then, three weeks later, tell you we were lying, and there’s no real way we could demonstrate whether we were telling the truth with either report. So for now, for all applicable purposes, let’s just say ‘yes’, God and Jesus are fairy tales, too, since somewhere down the line, someone could tell you we were lying, and there’d be no way we could prove we weren’t, and we’d all end up with another massacre.” Wait, I think I may have figured it out: They had him on methamphetamines for hyperactivity, but they got the dosage wrong, so he’d been overdosing the whole time. This led to amphetamine psychosis, which could also explain his strange gestures, his obsessively cleaning his room, his hyperactivity, and his teeth falling out (”meth mouth”). Of course! I mean, it couldn’t just be that Jack Chick is completely fucking insane and incapable of constructing even a single, consistent, believable narrative, right?

Page 14 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	So he turned into Liza Minelli? Is that why they call him The Monster? If so, I completely understand.

Page 15 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Apparently Harry is turning into God, here. Why else would he have the Batman Action Lines? “Last night, you strangled your cell mate! I’m clichéing the cliché at you!”

Page 16 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	“Hi, Harry. Hi, Stereotypical-Black-Juvenile-Hall-Inmate. I told you I’d be back!” Trouble must be afoot — Harry’s spider-sense is tingling

Page 17 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Eight year olds, Dude… eight year olds mess around with Jesus. “500 eyewitnesses! The Bible even says so! I mean, how convincing is that, huh, guys?” Jamal will apparently believe any story that any person tells him, I guess. This isn’t juvenile hall, it’s a prison for retarded kids. “Admittedly, I don’t really have any way to back up this claim, at least, not any more so than I would if I told you the Easter Bunny wasn’t just a fairy tale.” Now Lorenzo’s becoming a Batman Action, too. What the fuck?

Page 18 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	It’s such a boring story, he’s even falling asleep as he tells it. So let’s see, we’ve got a scimitar-wielding, growling, hipster Arab, a biker with curly ears and a bad, poorly-placed star tattoo (are five-sided stars evil in themselves?), a Communist Chinaman in full uniform, a child’s idea of a witch, an Oriental caricature librarian who advertises that she doesn’t like prayer, and… uh… an… archaeologist. (”Grr! Bone!”) The ridiculousness of this panel really just speaks for itself. (Scientifically examining fossils and applying critical thinking in any way is evil!)

Page 19 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	He doesn’t explicitly say “the Jews did it” here, but you can tell he really wants to. Instead, he uses “the religious crowd”. What does that even mean? Blah blah blah, for God so loved the world, 3:16, John, all that.

Page 20 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	“Why, I’d be a fool not to completely buy into some random story that I person I know from prison is telling me without presenting any real, observable evidence that it might in any way be truthful. An absolute fool, I tell you! Sign me up!” Hey, not even three minutes ago, Jamal had no idea who Jesus even was, and now suddenly he’s all Mr. Jesus. And, yeah, Christians never commit crimes after they find Jesus. NEVER! Because, y’know, religion equals morality!

Page 21 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	See? You tell your kids there’s an Easter Bunny and a Tooth Fairy, and they’ll grow up to be just like Ozzie Bin Laden. (WHAT) Who are the other two people to the left and right? I take it Jack only knows one person from the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted list. You know, arguably the most famous, and the one most likely to invoke fear in the people who sincerely read these Tracts. I like how he also just sort of generally “made the ‘10 Most Wanted List’ of the F.B.I.” Harry - an undoubtedly simple-minded kid who beats people to death with his fists - doesn’t exactly strike me as the type of cunning criminal mastermind capable of evading all law enforcement and pulling off crimes on a grand enough scale to be anything more than some two-bit shithead who gets caught in the oven duct at a Wendy’s trying to break in to kill the night window clerk for claiming he ordered the breaded chicken sandwich, not the grilled, thereby implying he was a liar. P.S. - I very, very much doubt “accepting Jesus” can cure people of lifelong psychopathy and homicidal tendencies. Nobody with any semblance of sanity knocking around in their heads could possibly believe the outcome would’ve been different had Harry accepted Jesus back in juvenile hall. Oh, wait a second! Hold on. I see what’s going on here: This Tract is stupid. I get it now! That explains everything.

Page 22 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	“Jesus still loves you! So much that he’ll torture you for the rest of time if you don’t choose to accept him this very instant! Hey, that punishment fits the crime, doesn’t it? Surely, he is a just and loving God.” Wow, this is one of the rare Chick Tracts where the main character doesn’t get “saved” at the end. And you know, I’m a little disappointed that we never really did find out why they call him “The Monster”. “The Easter Bunny is no fairy tale! You will face his painted eggs on the day of Easter!”

Conclusion ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock

Okay, I want to know something: Has anything even remotely like this ever fucking happened in the history of mankind? Has any child even seriously injured another child for claiming there was no Santa, let alone wound up one of the F.B.I.’s Most Wanted? Nothing even close? So why did Jack feel the need to create a Tract to apparently attempt to prevent things like this from happening? Gyah, I just… gyah. This one was particularly hard to mock, simply because it’s so ridiculous that it practically mocks itself. Sometimes I wonder if Jack really is some kind of sage of irony, and that getting gullible people to swallow shit this unabashedly ridiculous is all just a big joke to him. By the way, I mentioned this Tract a little earlier: I’ve been having a hard time tracking down the ‘Wounded Children’ Tract online. If anyone has a copy they can scan or mail me, or if anyone saved the page before it was taken down (if it was ever on his site to begin with) and could mail me a zip or tarball of it, it’d be greatly appreciated.

Further Reading ⇑ ⇓

Other Reviews & Commentaries ⇑