Introduction ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock

A young man goofs when he is talked out of receiving Jesus as Saviour. This is Jack’s hilariously ridiculous attempt to argue with secular people and anyone who doubts or questions the Bible.

Cover / Page 1 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	“HAW HAW HAW, they forgot to give any of us genitals!”

Page 2 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	The way Jack chooses to emphasize words is always amusing. “Hey — THAT’S Bobby! I’d been wondering who Bobby was, and now I know!” “He OVERDOSED on speed. I was just expecting him to take a normal dose, hence my emphasis on the word ‘overdosed’.” Yeah, great idea to smoke that with a cop standing right there. “Hey, guys, come over to where the cop is with all the drugs coursing through your system and your potential partial responsibility for this guy’s death to check out this event you can do nothing about anyway!”

Page 3 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	“I just can’t believe it! He brought so much joy to our lives!” Yeah, don’t feed him oxygen while transporting him to the hospital or anything. Simply putting the mask on his face was totally medical attention enough. If he wasn’t going to recover from that on-the-scene oxygen tank application, he wasn’t going to recover from, y’know, medicine or an emergency room or a doctor or anything, either. The girl on the left is only thinking about crying, she’s not actually doing it. The guy at the bottom’s all “meh… it’s a Chick Tract.”

Page 4 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	*shake shake shake* “Let me in! I need to get to the hospital! Guys? Hello? Open the doors!” What I can’t really understand is, what the fuck is this fundie guy doing here? Does he chase ambulances and hand out Chick Tracts? Does he follow drug addicts around trying to convert them? My personal theory — nasty coke habit. Yeah, this is exactly what people want when their friends die: Withered old balding fuckwads yammering about eternal damnation. “There there, don’t worry! It’s okay, God is loving. Not only is your friend dead, but they’re going to be tortured forever! See? Don’t you feel better?”

Page 5 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	The more I hear this whole idea repeated over and over, the more ridiculous it seems. I don’t know how it worked that there are so many people who’ve heard this story and subsequently decided it actually made sense. And I especially don’t understand how it works in Chick Tracts, where someone comes up and tells someone some story they’d apparently never heard before, and they believe it outright. Either that or they’re completely oblivious to the concept, but totally curious about it. Here’s an analogy: “Now comes the BIG question: Will Lord Voldemort feed his soul to the Infinite Sarlacc where he will be tortured in its endless bowels by Torgo the Man-Goat and his army of bearded fire lemons, or will the Choirs of Invisible Ducklings, conducted with the mighty trident of Neptune, lift him to the Paradise Kingdom, where he will enjoy the adoration of seventy virgins?” “HEY — I’ve never heard anything like this before. Does this mean I’m lost?” Re: “Here come de judge”, just… just no, okay? No.

Page 6 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Gah, they’ve been transported into a formless void! Know what else “isn’t in the Bible”? Pretty much anything about gays, especially gay marriage. Or anything about abortion. Know what actually is? About forty dozen rules and guidelines that fundamentalists never adhere to, like the original Ten Commandments. Of course, the guy misses the entire point: It doesn’t matter whether it’s in the Bible. If God tortures people for eternity, then he’s not a “God of love”, as he’s so often described by Christians. And Jack neglects to include the most important part of this argument: If God is such an enormous jerk that he’s automatically condemned everyone to an eternity of torture — which is infinitely worse a punishment than any crime a person could commit, because infinity divided by any number is infinity — without working out the puzzle of vague, contradictory and confusing instructions, and then who the fuck wants to go to heaven anyway? Who wants to be with that kind of a petty jackass for the rest of time? Isn’t THAT hell? Why’s he sweating so much? Is that hyperhidrosis, or is he just nervous about having to defend his ridiculous views?

Page 7 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	So he’s… lighting his cigarette, which normally involves sucking the fire into the tip… while somehow blowing smoke that he couldn’t have inhaled yet because the cigarette isn’t lit. I don’t see how this passage counteracts the fact that we’ve all been condemned by default to eternal torment to enough of an extent that one could claim “God is love”. That’s like saying “well, I’m not a bad person — sure I shot you, but I gave you thirty seconds to solve a complicated riddle that I had my friend translate from Latin that would’ve earned you a Kevlar vest. So, see, I’m really a very good guy — nicer, in fact, than every other person.” A bit of related philosophical wankery that bears mention: Symbols on a page have no intrinsic meaning — we impose meaning onto the symbols and collections of symbols. Thus, if God was trusting his instructions to human language, then he was trusting it to the meaning we’d all impose onto it. And because we all impose meaning in different ways, then each of our interpretations of the Bible — the meaning we each draw from it — must be right. Otherwise, God would’ve found a much better and less subjective way to convey his message than words and the many translations and interpretations thereof. Anyway, if it really were the Word of God, then why would it exclusively benefit man, with seemingly no benefit to an omnipotent being? It’s just silly.

Page 8 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Those who claim it isn’t filled with contradictions simply do not understand it. So there! *ptthhhhlt* What a ridiculous assertion. It could be said about anything. I could say “those who don’t take this website as the word of God simply do not understand it.” Or “those who think bulimia is bad just don’t understand it.” It’s an extremely simple defense of anything one believes in, and it’s just as unprovable as the existence of God. How can you prove that your perspective demonstrates a greater comprehension than someone else’s? It’s like comparing your phenomenal experiences to someone else’s — it just can’t be done. “[M]y friend”? Who addresses their friends as “my friend” in this way? “I MADE SOME CABBAGE COOKIES MY FRIEND.”

Page 9 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Where the fuck are they? A city block that’s been made into an island in some kind of thick, inky sea, in a universe where buildings and cars don’t cast shadows? You know, the only way what he’s saying makes sense is if God isn’t in any way omnipotent, or if we interpret all of this in a Dickian gnostic fashion. (That is, roughly, that Jesus wouldn’t have to “invade” our world if he created it, thus the irrational mad creator God who fashioned the universe — the Black Iron Prison wherein time and space are simply holographic illusions that trap us — is a separate entity from Jesus, and Jesus was a messenger from the real God, who invaded this universe to instruct us on how to escape if we could work out his metaphoric riddles.)

Page 10 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	And here Jack falls back on his usual tactic of depicting people with opposing perspectives as violent, frothing lunatics who react with such disproportionate anger as to make their perspectives seem wrong by association with their attitudes. The hope is that people will read this and go “but this guy CAN’T be right! He’s so CRUEL and OPPRESSIVE!” It also doesn’t help that Jack sort of depicts his opposition as putting forth half-arguments that have vague, unrealized points. I know comics are a difficult medium for conveying fully-fleshed messages, but this is an intentional effort to strawman the hell out of things. By the way, if “if you don’t believe exactly what I believe, you’ll be tortured FOREVER” doesn’t qualify something as a religion of fear, I don’t know what does. (Of course, the fear is more ubiquitous, here, than even this. You’ll see in a minute.) Wait a second… Batman action burst? Is… is this guy God?

Page 11 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Ah, Pascal’s Wager. It could be applied to nearly anything. I could say exactly the same thing to try to convince a woman into cunnilingus: “Even if I turn out to be incapable of making you cum, you have nothing to lose and everything to gain!” Or just to start my own cult: “If you believe in me as God, I can bring you to paradise. Think about it: You have nothing to lose and everything to gain!” There are some situations in which consequences can be demonstrated or scientifically speculated about where Pascal’s Wager can actually work. But for anything unobservable and untestable, you can apply it to just about anything. Using this argument, then, God and every other unprovable concept should all be believed in equally. Which, I mean, I guess God is supposed to be everything, but I don’t think that’s what they mean, exactly.? And again, Chick Tracts are the key to salvation. What self-important bullshit.

Page 12 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Continuing the “don’t believe this guy — he’s a jerk!” theme. Yeah, anyone who doesn’t buy into fundamentalist Christianity wanders around elbowing people in the kidneys. “Hey, cool it, you turkey! That’s totally bogus! Don’t work him over — that’s so not groovy.” Way to deploy the slang, Jack.

Page 13 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Actually, he’s missing the cause/effect relationship here: If you buy into this kind of propaganda, you’re already afflicted with debilitating mental conditions. Backs of people’s heads make for very enthralling reading.

Page 14 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	If that steering wheel were any further forward, it’d be on the hood. And the guy on the left must’ve severed his hand at the elbow and shoved it into the air conditioner vent as a cigarette holder or something. Gah, the angles are just all wrong, on so many levels. This kid just throws his entire perspective to the four winds, letting anyone who tells him anything completely determine everything he will or will not believe. “DEAR SWEET FUCK, WILL SOMEONE PLEASE TELL ME WHAT TO THINK? I DON’T KNOW! I JUST… I DON’T KNOW!” Then again, these Tracts seem to be targeted at people who just generally don’t think for themselves. I don’t think they’re meant to convert people who can actually, erm, think for themselves.

Page 15 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Hey, more sparse, goofy, random arguments! God is in the rivers and the birds! There’s no such thing as the thetan. You’re only as mortal as you think you are. Each man is a god, each man is free! Jesus didn’t exist, he was a mylar cabinet filled with hot cheese. UH-OH! A TRAIN! Will they make it? Oh no, will they make it!?

Page 16 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	You know, if he can’t tell whether he’s going to make THAT, then he fucking deserves to die. Seriously, if he’s that fucking stupid that he thinks his car, equidistant from the intersection with the train, is actually going to make it before the train arrives, then it’s good he gets weeded out before he can pass on his idiot genes. Just… fuck. How did he even get a driver’s license? I CAN’T WATCH! I JUST… I CAN’T WATCH!

Page 17 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Ohhhh, they didn’t make it. Jackasses. Why is the train impacting with the car making a “YAAAAAA” sound?

Page 18 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Wait… what? This is completely contradictory to every other Chick Tract. There are some where people sit in their graves until called up by angels, and others where people are immediately taken up for judgment before they die. Apparently, according to this, people go to hell or a hell-like burning place for a while until they’re brought up to God for judgment at some arbitrary, indeterminate point in the future. So everyone automatically goes to hell, or semi-hell, immediately after they die, and only at some unknown point after that do they go to be judged and possibly allowed into heaven? Erm. God is love?

Page 19 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	“Haha, you lose God’s guessing game! Turns out the queen of hearts was on the left. TOO BAD! Now you roast for an eternity. Because to an omnipotent being, there’s totally a difference between life and afterlife that makes it just fuckin’ impossible for him — an omnipotent being — to do anything to help you. Your death has defeated God!”

Page 20 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	Nobody in this Tract has a name. They’re all just “Friend” and “Buddy” and “Fuckwad” and “Dipshit”.

Page 21 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	WHAT A TWEEST!

Page 22 ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock	HAW HAW GAME OVER — YOU DIDN’T ACCEPT JESUS CHRIST AS YOUR OWN LORD AND PERSONAL SAVIOR. This should be the “you died” screen on every video game. Duh-uhhh… Free will? What’s that? Hey, sorry, uh, what was that you were saying about a “religion of fear”, Jack? Because, I mean, uh… first, you have the guy threatening the kid with hell after his friend just died, and then you have him die a horrible and untimely death immediately afterward while he’s still deliberating, and then you have him go to hell where it’s revealed that his friend wasn’t really a person, but a demon. How are you not utilizing fear, here? How are you not just proving the very goddamned point you put in your opposition’s mouth and then argued against? Meanwhile, the implication is that there’s no such thing as a secular person — only demons, fundamentalists, and those yet to be converted. What a ridiculous premise. And again — scare tactics! You can’t trust anyone — they might be a demon. This is such a dangerous thing to convince someone to believe, and it’s just incredibly fucking goofy — there’s just as much a basis to convince people that everyone they encounter is secretly an angel, or a dragon-human hybrid, or a vampire, or a werewolf, or a creamed corn golem, or a mucus elemental. But it’s very effective manipulation. *sigh*

Conclusion ⇑ ⇓

Jabberwock

Well, if this was Jack’s attempt at direct rebuttal against secular opposition, it’s pretty fuckin’ pathetic. Until next time. Tell your friends. And your enemies, for that matter.

Further Reading ⇑ ⇓

Other Reviews & Commentaries ⇑ ⇓

Parodies ⇑