The thing possessed poor Maria. It drove her to do strange things. But Jesus’ power delivered her so the thing couldn’t hurt her anymore.

I want to read this as a euphemism, and considering how religious and superstitious folk have treated everything from mental disorders to menstruation over the course of human history, I probably wouldn’t be too far off the mark: “The thing” possessed poor Maria, and made her do strange things! (Psst — “the thing” is her menses! Oogabooga!)

Anyway, here’s another terrible Tract for you, hand-crafted by Jack Chick with all the talent, love and beauty of a cat throwing up half a dead mouse onto your bed. Enjoy!

So, is the moon crashing or something? Why is it crying for help? Though, now that I look a little more closely at it, it’s kind of a featureless ball. Maybe it’s not the moon after all — maybe someone fogged up the Boy in the Bubble’s bubble and fired it from a cannon. “YAAAAHHHH! HELP ME!”

It could also be Rover from The Prisoner, but it’s kind of big for that. And Rover never screamed for help.

“It’s Maria — The Thing is after her again!” “Yeah, I know, we could hear.” “I think we should– hold on, did you just say you could hear her?” “Yeah. She’s screaming like she’s giving birth to an adult armadillo or something.” “And you just decided not to even bother to check in? Thanks, mom and dad — thanks a lot.”

“No one can see it”? No, that’s the Invisible Woman, dammit. Has Jack even read Fantastic Four? Even seeing the movies would give him a rough idea. Sheesh.

For more information, please refer to the completely illegible text at the bottom of the page.

FACT: In Mexico, everybody lives in bland shoebox-like shacks with windows cut in the sides. Also, there’s absolutely no vegetation aside from some dead-looking trees.

“There was nothing in the room that he could see. Other than his own teeth plunging repeatedly into her arm.”

Forget all this possession crap — if I were them, I’d be more concerned with the explosion going off next to the table.

Foul! — Improper — use — of the double-dash –.

Father Carl Reiner.

You sure he wasn’t just holding the canister the wrong way?

Well, at least he didn’t try to mace her. Then it’d actually be something worth bitching about. “Oh no, I got a handful of tiny water droplets tossed up in my face! That tears it — I’m leaving!”

Man, I hope that footnote isn’t important. Aw, who am I kidding — this is a Chick Tract. Of course it’s not.

What’s with the asterisk between “A” and “Demon”? Is it an ABBA cover band?

These people live in a house lit by a continual series of explosions, apparently. That explains why they go from “someone farted a flashbang grenade” in one panel to “total, soul-crushing void” in the next.

I think this footnote says: “*Bilbo: To be possessed by a (oval) – SaucerComm – Teledramatized lied. Matt. 9:32/12:22/4_24/8 16/8:28/8 33 Mark 5:15-18/1.32. Luke 8:27.35.”

And he “really knows his Bible”, if you know what I mean.

If you zoom in, it looks like he’s kneeling next to a small fire that’s starting to burn his house, praying that it will go out. Yeah, this is the kind of guy you can trust to solve problems.

“So, you say you’ve got a demon possession, huh?” *scratches chin thoughtfully* “Mmm-hmm. Probably a blown soul-gasket. Seen that happen more times than you’d think. Yup.” *chin-scratching* “People need to change their soul oil more often, tell you what.”

“Can you help her?” “Sorry, I’m too busy weaving this gigantic basket that’s behind me.”

Hey, I think we’re going to learn exactly how one solves a problem like Maria!

“The more depressed she became”? Well, yeah, I’d imagine most people can only scam others with ridiculous spiritual mumbo-jumbo for so long before really becoming ashamed of themselves.

Looks like that footnote reads “*Harming of Birdo Pike-Diaper, pg 90, Tylenol Home Publishers”

If I didn’t know any better, I’d say this was an excerpt from a drawing of Johnny Fiveaces.

What is that, some kind of cat-turtle?

One would think that if these kinds of things were actually possible, we’d hear about them a lot more often. And not from douchebags like David Blaine with his lame editing tricks that splice footage of astonished onlookers from more impressive tricks between camera-trickery shots of him “levitating” with the bottom cut out of his shoe, which fools nobody. Er, but yeah, like I was saying, you’d think we’d have heard of something like this happening at least once.

Is The*Table like some combination of Wal*Mart and IKEA? Or is it another ABBA cover band?

Another flashbang grenade went off, briefly illuminating the otherwise totally black void.

BIBLE WARNINGS: Don’t actually read them, they are pretty goofy.

Actually, they should add something like “Also, don’t eat pork or shellfish and don’t cut the hair next to your ears,” since we’re dealing with Leviticus, here. “Oh no! Poor Juanita! She’s been possessed by a demon!” “She… she ate the lobster, didn’t she…”

Footnote: “*Texturing pheromones lemon acetyl-Hearing of Burlap Pike – Upper – pg 68 – Tylenol Home Publishers”

He’s a man very strong in the Lord. Seriously, he has, like, 20 LordSTR.

Well, if there’s more strength in Numbers, then why the hell are you reading from Leviticus? :rimshot:

“This is very serious business! Like the internet!”

Every house is just a goddamned shoebox in a sand waste.

“NEXT DAY” Oh, this must be that “latter day” I’m always hearing about in the commercials. :rimshot:

“(sigh) John… you’re taking an interest in the things that are going on in the world around you? (sigh again) I never should’ve told you about it.”

People’s noses, ladies and gentlemen.

Hey, I know! Let’s talk about unicorns! Those are real too, right?

What’s? With? The strangely?? Disjoin? ted? Question? Fragments??

“Come in, gentlemen! And might I ask, how are you, gentlemen!! All your faith are belong to us. You are on the way to salvation.” “What you say!!” “You have no chance to survive say your prayers. Ha ha ha ha…” “Somebody set up us the God. Take off every ‘SIN’!! You know what you doing. Remove ‘SIN’. For great justice.”

“Hello, Maria!” “Hello… Newman.”

“Help me! Get her off me! I’m pawing lecherously at her hair, but it doesn’t seem to be helping!”

Footnote: “Demons can direct what’s on the human heart – If the socialist a net in Chief, he is a grain dagger – (Bible) Acts 19:13-16″

What children? So far, all I’ve seen are, like, eight people in a barren wasteland.

“Get everyone away from here! And bring me more flashbangs, we just used the last one to see our way over to John to help him out.” I mean, jeez, can’t these people at least get some candles, or solar-powered lamps or something? I’d imagine just about anything would cost less than tossing out a flashbang every ten seconds.

“I plead the blood of Jesus”? What does that even mean?

“In Jesus’ name — I’m crushing your head! I’m crushing your head!”

What’s great about this — and the random goofy pseudo-profanity here reminds me — is that pretty much anyone with any kind of mental disorder, like Tourette’s for instance wherein a person has uncontrollable tics and utterances, was considered (and still would be by some of the more lunatic fringe) to be possessed by demons. Thus, instead of receiving any kind of medical treatment (which, in fairness, didn’t really exist at the time, at least in the capacity it does now) they’d be prayed over and treated like they had devils inside of them. Fortunately, we’ve come a long way, and nobody thinks that mental disorders of temporary or permanent varieties are demonic possessions anymore. …oh, wait.

Yep — don’t you dare criticize our goofy beliefs or you’ll be sorry!

“Hey Maria… or Verono or whatever… check this out! Look! *vvvt vvvt* Do you like my dance? *vvvt* I’m a blind robot! *vvvt*”

Know what would’ve been better? If she would’ve said “My Name is Potato“, and then this was the rest of the Tract.

Man, a lot of people putting on sunglasses mid-sentence tonight.

Wait, that’s it? “It’s gone!”? You… you just tell it to leave and it goes? Well that’s anticlimactic.

You know, I just thought of something: In other Tracts, Jack has, say, gay people and Atheists and such all teeming with demons, but they never claw at people’s faces and scream and throw holy water, and they don’t have special demon powers or anything either. What gives? You’d think that if these demons actually gave a shit about the whole “soul war” thing, they’d just jump into as many bodies as possible and start clawing at everything in sight, not just, like, entering into committed relationships with people who have the same genitals they do, or not believing in God.

“Has Jesus Christ come in the flesh?” Jesus uses lambskin condoms, apparently.

Yep, better believe in Jesus, what with all these rampant demonic possessions we all hear so much about all the time. Hell, can’t even serve pea soup these days without at least half the people at dinner power-barfing it into your face and talking about your deceased mom’s demon fellatio habit.

Someone should throw another flashbang — it’s starting to get dark out.

Another thing: All these things — charms, ouija boards, books of incantation — actually have mystical powers! I’ve read about it happening. Some guy’s friend’s brother wrote about the account of some priest that this woman who sings with his mom in the choir at their church heard about. It’s true! Some little girl actually summoned an unholy templar to wreak havoc on their Midwestern town! And we never heard about it because of the Atheist conspiracy. And the Jews.

“You have been bought at a terrible price! Seriously, I paid, like, four thousand dollars for you. And that’s in U.S. money, not your crappy peso-dollars or whatever they’re called down here. Real money. I mean, I’ve been to other slave auctions — you’d normally fetch half that. But I have no choice, really. I needed a slave, and this was the closest village. But goddamn, I just wanted you to know what a terrible price I bought you at. Shit.”

“Your body is not your own — it is now the dwelling place of the holy spirit!” Hey, you don’t need these lungs, do you? I was thinking of putting in an HDTV or something. Maybe hook a computer up to it. And this liver, here… uh, yeah, doesn’t go with the rest of the furniture. What’re you complaining about? This is my house now, bitch.

Will no one think of the homeless demons? He’s probably out selling himself in order to save up for a security deposit on a place, but then someone’s going to end up taking advantage of him, and I mean, what’s he gonna do, hire a lawyer? He’s a homeless demon. For just pennies a day — the price of a cup of coffee — you, too, can help a recently-dispossessed demon find a new home. Habitat for Inhumanity. Won’t you?

What a tweest!

Oh, come on, all you have to do is say “Verono go away in the name of Jesus” and he’ll leave. It’s not like it’s that big a deal.

Looks like someone’s still tossing the Boy in the Bubble around back there.

Fortunately, we can all take comfort in the fact that this guy is probably never going to be hired at Marvel with poor spec work like this.