Archived Dissection
Originally published at Enter the Jabberwock. July 15th, 2007. The Last Generation #031. Art by Fred Carter - © 1992 Chick Publications

Originally published at Enter the Jabberwock
July 15, 2007

The Last Generation - Tract #031 (LSTG)
Art by Fred Carter - © 1992 Chick Publications

Big Brother's nightmarish world order is just around the corner. Christ is coming soon for believers. Will you be left behind?

Commentators

Jabberwock

Page Index
1	2	3	4	5	6	7	8	9	10	11	12	13	14	15	16	17	18	19	20	21	22

Introduction ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock

Big Brother’s nightmarish world order is just around the corner. Christ is coming soon for believers. Will you be left behind?

Yes, if George Orwell supported anything, it was the kind of religio-fascist state that fundamentalists want to implement, where art is “censored” to ensure that the people are protected from the vileness of the sight of a person’s genitals, where gays are persecuted into hiding or feigning conformity out of fear of unjustified punishment, where sexual deviants and subversives are treated as second-class citizens, where every miscarriage is accompanied by a murder investigation, where people are forced to worship a God they don’t believe exists, and basically every other message that has ever appeared in a Chick Tract. And for those of you who may not have read it, 1984 is all about a governmental system that exclusively persecutes fundamentalist Christian beliefs, and everyone is free to do whatever else they want as long as it’s not “believe in God”.

Give me a fucking break. Rather feeble an attempt at making it seem like being religious is somehow subversive, and that George Orwell was on their side, or something.

Not only that, but “just around the corner”? Hey, everyone! Be scared into believing in God before all the nations of the world somehow arbitrarily set aside their differences and agree to be governed by a central force of violently anti-God fascists! IT’S SRSLY GONNA HAPPEN 4 REELZ U GUYS! I MEAN IT!

Cover / Page 1 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Gyah! It’s like the Riddler meets the Ku Klux Klan: “Ngger me this*, Batman!”

Page 2 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Ah, religion in the not too distant future — this must be Next Sunday A.D. Glad to see they’ll still have smiley, soulless shitheels delivering our news reports in the future. It’s like he’s trying to perform fusion with his fucking teeth. And doesn’t he know it’s a bad idea to wear stripes on TV? Take away the beard, and the guy on the right is almost Dick Cheney. Or… wait… Gregory Peck?

Page 3 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Who the fuck would take orders from judges who wear plaid robes? Oh my God — the future is run by Scotsmen! So it’s still fine, then, for people to say that Jesus Christ is simply a way to get into heaven? This entire concept is ridiculous, by the way. I mean, just the way he phrases it. Why would this — this particular idea, that “Jesus Christ is the ONLY way to the Father in Heaven” — be so damned important? The amount of resources required to execute everyone accused of this, let alone to arrest and process them, is unfathomable. This strikes me more as a manifestation of Jack’s paranoid persecution complex, here. “Our government is going to specifically outlaw uttering this particular phrase. They’re targeting us! We’re victims!” I’m interested in their flag. What do the stripes represent?

Page 4 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	“Yay, guys! We’ll get all this stuff! It’s like this big game show hosted by Jesus! Come on, everyone — let’s play the ‘Believe In God, Die, and Get a Whole Bunch of Luxury Shit’ game!” Ah, hell, not Pascal’s Wager again. Just… just no. Of course, in this situation, it’s actually somewhat inaccurate and pretty stupid: The premise of this Tract is that overtly believing in God puts you in danger of losing your life. So, well, you kind of have your physical existence to lose. Believing and being right means you lose your life and go to heaven. Believing and being wrong means you lose your life for nothing. Not believing and being right means you live and lose nothing. Not believing and being wrong means you live and then go to hell. And, well, any God who wants people to die just to be overtly and obnoxiously faithful is not one I want to spend an eternity with. So believing is a pretty damn stupid thing to do across the board. “Hey, you guys think I should get that nose job? I’m just… this huge honking schnoz on the front of my head is just really distracting. Like… look… look, when I cross my eyes, it’s, like, right there just jutting out of my head. Speaking of eyes, do you guys think I should get my eyes bulged while I’m at it? They can do that now. I think they put plastic discs in the back of the socket. They’re just really beady and small — I’d like to have them bulged.” It’s almost the opposite of the “Jewify villains” effect common to Chick Tracts: The protagonists in this one actually have nearly no nose at all. It’s like he had a marathon make-out session with a belt sander or something. I think this is the first time I’ve ever seen a footnote before the asterisked referencing word or phrase.

Page 5 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Star Tract: The Last Generation! Chick: The final frontier. These are the voyages of the starship Proselytize. Its continuing mission: to convert strange new worlds, to seek out new life and new civilizations and scare or confuse them into believing what we do, to blindly believe whatever we’re told. You know, why couldn’t he have just used one large speech bubble in the second panel? Was it really more important that we see that little strip of clouds behind them than to retain the flow of dialog? The guy on the left looks like he’s trying to twist his own neck until it breaks. “Oh, no, I’m completely interested in everything you’re saying. My trying to break my neck has absolutely nothing to do with your powerfully boring, seemingly endless rambling.” “As Christians, we have everything! This world? This world doesn’t have a damn thing. It’s like fuckin’ black and white TV, man. But in heaven, we get all this awesome shit! Like, a mansion… a Lexus… jet-skis… HDTV… consumer electronics… fuck, I mean, in heaven, they’ve got, like, Playstation 8, man! And, like… I think we get water-beds, and… oh, a bitchin’ stereo system. You know, like, one of those ones where the speakers are all built into the walls and ceilings and stuff. Oh, and we each get a lifetime Netflix subscription. The angels run it up there, it’s really neat. And those footrub chair things from Sharper Image. Oooh, and a tie organizer! Forgot about that. It’s all outlined in the Bible. I mean, I’ve never read it, but it’s what everyone says. Just, like, we get a bunch of stuff, man. For our souls.”

Page 6 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	“Man, isn’t it GREAT that the world is getting worse? I hope it turns to COMPLETE shit so that JESUS will come! Come on, everyone — let’s find some nuclear waste and dump it in a river! And then let’s incite a riot! And shit on things! No reason to try to make the world a better place or anything. Fuck it — Jesus is coming!” This is the kind of garbage that makes fundamentalism an inescapable vortex for the simple-minded: Awful things happening to God’s beloved creation are signs of God’s presence, not his absence. Just accept it as a test, and don’t let anyone shake your faith! Uh-oh — the monster. Maybe they call him that because of his Tourette’s Syndrome, all barking out obscenities at random, alone, in the middle of the sidewalk.

Page 7 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Okay, come the fuck on. Even the most secular of liberals are trying to expand marriage to include gays. Why would we suddenly start rooting for mandatory divorce laws? It’s a hyper-aggressive, fascist, violent, angry future, and the best kids can come up with to call each other is “slime”? “Hey, I have an idea, Bobby! Let’s shake hands for no reason!” SPOILER ALERT (Bobby won’t live long.)

Page 8 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Yep, if you’re not religious, you kill puppies. That’s some sound-assed logic, right there. Kid’s channeling Mister T in the second panel. “I pity the fool who love an animal!” LIE! This is like the end of Logan’s Run: “Carousel is a LIE! There is no renewal!” I think Chick’s ghost artist pal is maybe going a little overboard vilifying this horrible little shitstain. I mean, come on — no kid is THAT obnoxiously hideous, and hideously obnoxious.

Page 9 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	GYAAAGGHHH! WHAT THE… FUCKING… SHITMINISTER FUCKVOMIT FUCKING KILL IT! KILL IT WITH FIRE! HURRY BEFORE IT EATS US ALL! The “Mother Goddess” must be a leopard or cheetah or dalmatian or something.

Page 10 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	“Yes, you too can win a trip to the thrilling and luxurious Camp 009-H735! Let’s play… Do You Want to Join Larry’s Mom?” [audience applause] [host prancing onto the stage, bowing] “Old crud”? That’s the best he can come up with? He can’t even pull out a “@!!!**!”? And why the hell is the roof of a building calling someone names in the first place?

Page 11 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Dispensationalism is fucking retarded. “Everyone’s going to magically come back from the dead and be immortal! We’ll all have mansions! Jesus is going to come down, and meet up with the reembodied saints! All the unfaithful will die violent and horrible deaths at the hands of a loving God! It’s going to happen any minute. I mean it, you guys! I know we’ve been saying this for hundreds of years, but it’s really just right around the corner.” Might as well tack on a passage about how everyone who wakes up gets to ride a magical beast called a Wish Dragon who’ll grant you anything you want while spitting fire on the unbelievers. There is no way this is the “near future”. Just think of how long it’s going to take to demolish all existing construction and rebuild square little hovels with numbers painted on the roofs.

Page 12 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	So, either God isn’t omnipotent, or he’s just spectacularly bad at using his omnipotence. Why all this contrived, fantasyland bullshit? Why this big war where Jesus comes back to overthrow some fascist Satanic dictator who rules the entire planet for seven arbitrary years? Hey, I know! Let’s contrive this up even more: Immediately following the Rapture, all remaining humans will have their left legs severed at the knee. The amputation will be performed by Noah, who will be resurrected specifically for this purpose, and will be either below or above the knee, depending on whether the number of times they ever entered a church is odd or even. Their legs will be replaced with small filing cabinets filled with spiders, raw feces, and copies of the movie Gigli. God will allow a band of evil men to anally rape every living creature on the planet using carrots, the Devil’s Vegetable. Those who were faithful, but not quite faithful enough, will be taken halfway to heaven, and then dropped. They will then be devoured by bears. Four years into the Tribulation, God will demand that every capable man, woman and child replenish the population. He will temporarily suspend, as he has in the past, his regulations regarding sexual intercourse during this time. Just before the Battle of Armageddon, eighteen mountain gorillas will gather at Stonehenge, using their might to topple the structure to the ground. This will signal the coming of Jesus. Jesus will then perform a special dance for each person remaining on the planet, individually. This dance will kill them. They will be taken via land and sea transportation (airplanes would interfere with angel traffic) to a special room in Jerusalem for this occasion, using money that a resurrected Paul earns from years of very difficult and dangerous crab fishing near Alaska. After that, Jesus will clean the entire surface of the planet using a toothbrush, a single Brillo pad, and a vacuum cleaner that can only work if he inhales into the tube. Because God is omnipotent, and loves man, he will do all this.

Page 13 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	In the future, classrooms will be replaced with creepy reaching hand gardens. Ah, yes, New Age pseudoscience is going to be the driving force behind the global government of the future. HEAD ON — APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE CONSTITUTION! HEAD ON — APPLY DIRECTLY TO THE CONSTITUTION! I mean, I thought Jack was under the impression that his arch-nemesis science is corrupting the future — why would everyone suddenly start buying into crazy shit like the idea that if you drop a single droplet of peppermint into five gallons of water, then you take a single droplet of THAT mixture and put it into another five gallons of water, then continue the process about eight more times, and then you sip a tablespoon of that, it’s an effective cure for sinus infections? And is it completely beyond Chick’s ability to imagine a world where a government isn’t influenced by ANY religion AT ALL? Why does it have to be Chick’s goofy-assed religious beliefs versus some equally ridiculous theology? “The Queen of Heaven”? What the hell kind of silly shit is that? It’s like someone drove a tiny motorcycle over his eye about a hundred times, then dressed him up like an overgrown superhero Christmas elf.

Page 14 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Does this kid really have to look this absolutely sinister? Well, considering Jack’s message is so weak he has to rely on this tactic of getting his readers to want to hate his antagonists just by looking at them, I suppose he does. So how is the promise of a “big reward” in heaven necessarily a better motivator to action than the promise of a “big reward” in this lifetime? And I guess people generally can’t actually, y’know, just do things — there has to be some kind of carrot on the end of a stick to appeal to a person’s self interests.

Page 15 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	So who’s this guy, now? He seems vaguely familiar, but I don’t quite recognize him. Have we seen him yet in the Tract? Chick’s ghost artist Fred Carter may be a better artist, but he’s horrible at consistency. “Well, Bobby, I’m going to answer your question for no real reason, knowing full well that I’m jeopardizing my life to achieve no discernible gain. I suppose I could just not answer your question, but that would just be non-conducive to this ridiculous fucking plot line.”

Page 16 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Heil! That little fucker’s just a ball of piss-steaming hatred, isn’t he? Why they don’t just lock him in a room and feed him under the door is beyond me. He’s not addressing Charles, he’s demanding that they “Hurry Charles”. In the next sentence, it looks like he’s addressing a man named Paul, telling him to take Connie and her unnamed brother to the cabin. COMMAS, JACK.

Page 17 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	I like how this is Jack’s vision of what a non-Christian-dominated government is. Nobody can just not give a shit about what other people believe. Eliminating religious influence from government means that New Age bullshit ends up taking over, and people worship the Queen of Heaven. (Which is, erm… still religion, if I’m not mistaken.) This would be the result of secularization of government. Instead of, y’know, getting rid of all religious influence in government policy, and ensuring that people can’t oppress each other on the basis of religious beliefs. Oh, also: Christianity never results in situations like this. Mmm, bald men applying nipple electrodes and screaming about Jesus. Add in a bear licking mustard from an old boat, and a plate on top of a fridge with three pieces of asparagus barely touching each other, and this could be a sexual fantasy plucked right from my mind.

Page 18 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	What the hell is she doing? Polishing the horns of a mounted deer head? Preparing for a trapeze swing through the living room? Throwing the lever to bring their reanimated monster to life? Jerking off Bao Xishun? Man, everyone in the future is just a total asshole dipshit, aren’t they? Either they’re condescending religious assholes, vicious little brats who can do nothing but spew hatred, or people who’ll turn in their own siblings to avoid the unlikely outcome of someone finding their cabin in the middle of nowhere, somehow discovering they’re Christians, and then torturing them all. Why, if I didn’t know any better, I’d say Chick is making all of this up!

Page 19 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Pfft, “Free Drugs”. Yeah, a fascist, oppressive government is going to hand out free drugs to its citizens. Nice ass. Did he sit on a grill or something?

Page 20 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Well, that’s convenient. Nah, they heard the helicopter coming, stripped naked and ran through the forest to become one with nature.

Page 21 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Why does it have to be “in the air”? Why can’t I meet him at a coffee shop somewhere? I mean, there’s just not much to do in the air. If I’m going to be meeting Jesus, I don’t just want to float there awkwardly trying to make small talk. o/` Rah rah 3:16, lover of the Russian queen / God sent his son so he could be bled. / Rah rah 3:16, Russia’s greatest love machine / They crucified him till he was dead.

Page 22 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	“[C]ometh unto the Father (in heaven)”? That’s quite a long distance to ejaculate. Wait, Bobby grew up? I thought it said earlier that he “[wouldn’t] live long”. Jesus doesn’t have a nose, either. I guess the holier you get, the smaller your nose. That must be why God’s face is completely devoid of features.

Conclusion ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock

This is one of the most baffling Tracts Jack has ever made. Though he’s constantly arguing against secularization of government, somehow he thinks that the future will be ruled by some bizarre, New Age, Mother-Goddess-worshipping fascist dictatorship that specifically oppresses people who think “Jesus is the ONLY way to heaven”. It’s… just… retarded.

Not only that, but this entire perspective is rather dangerous. There’s this fatalist “we are the last generation” bullshit — which, by the way, the last, oh, say, DOZEN FUCKING GENERATIONS have believed — that gets people to not give a shit about the future. Like, “Fuck tomorrow, man — let’s exacerbate the horrible conditions, because it means Jesus is gonna be coming! Seriously, he’s, like, just right there at the fucking door, man. Like, count to five. Right now, start counting. ‘Cause by the time you get to four, motherfucker, he’s gonna be stomping down into this place ready to take us to heaven.” It’s extraordinarily self-centered, and is at least part of the reason we have all the problems we currently do.