Archived Dissection
Originally published at Enter the Jabberwock. May 21st, 2007. Wounded Children #059. Art by Fred Carter - © 1983 Chick Publications

Originally published at Enter the Jabberwock
May 21, 2007

Wounded Children - Tract #059 (WOUN)
Art by Fred Carter - © 1983 Chick Publications

A tract explaining how demonic forces can influence a child into the world of homosexuality. After many trials and tests during adult life, the child finds Jesus and is saved.

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

Yes, that’s right, folks - the Tract so bad Chick himself recalled it. I’m not sure if I can think of any better an introduction.

Special thanks to Ryan Rinkerman for tracking down the original Tract images.

Cover / Page 1 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Oh, God, they really are wounded! The killer left only their heads! It’s only their heads!

Page 2 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	THIS IS BASED ON A TRUE STORY, IN THAT I ONCE HEARD ABOUT A GAY GUY WITH AN ABUSIVE DAD “Don’t get mad, daddy! I’m not doing anything! I was just practicing my mime routine! Look, daddy, I’m trapped in a glass box! See? See, daddy? I’m pressing against the walls with my hands, but I just can’t get out!” You know, Stacy Keach gets typecast as angry, patriarchal father figures too often. Er… is that an empty holster hanging from his belt? So he’s told him, “to stay out of my office” a hundred times, “to” included? “Son, to stay out of my office!” I don’t get the colon, here. (And apparently neither does Jack. rimshot) Then again, I never really did understand this expression. What does it even mean? “If I’ve told you once, I’ve told you a hundred times.” Are we just to assume that you have, in fact, told someone this once before? If so, why are we taking it as understood, then, that having told someone something once before, you’ve effectively told them a hundred times? Someone thinks perhaps a little too highly of the effect of their words on other people. Further, how does this relate to other expressions involving certain quantities of event instances, like “fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me”? By fooling me once, then saying “if I fooled you once, I fooled you a hundred times,” could you be fooling me a hundred times, thus invoking 99 times the shame upon me? I’m curious about this whole “Pest, Proverbs 11:29a” thing, but I’m afraid it might end up being the script for that shitty John Leguizamo movie. (Actually, it’s just something with only a vague relation to the word “pest”: “He that troubleth his own house shall inherit the wind: and the fool shall be servant to the wise of heart.” Yeah, I don’t get the significance, here, either.) Oh, and by the way, while I’m at it, since this thing seems so fucking littered with passages from the Bible with only the vaguest relations to dialog, here’s Ephesians 6:4: 4: And, ye fathers, provoke not your children to wrath: but bring them up in the nurture and admonition of the Lord. Yeah, ’cause the Lord isn’t wrathful or anything. I’d like to think that the last two lines in the bottom right corner are completely unrelated, and that the first is an expression of appreciation for the aesthetically pleasing physical appearance of his friend. “Looks like you’ve been moisturizing. Any corn on the cob left?”

Page 3 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	“Honey, I’m gonna have a barbecue with a few of my friends. You should invite that friend of yours. You know, Cthulhu. Edith Cthulhu.”. Good lord! Porno! How DARE people have the sexual needs and drives that God created within them? “I’M GOING TO CONSUME YOUR SOUL SLURKPLURPA PLURPL SPLURPLURLP Er, I mean, uh, SO WHAT ELSE IS NEW?” Galatians 6:7: Be not deceived; God is not mocked: for whatsoever a man soweth, that shall he also reap. So… by putting porn in his office drawer… it’ll grow… more porn? I guess? Look at the attention to detail… such lovingly-crafted slabs of man-muscle. But why does he only become translucent in the parts overlapping David? Uh, mister demon? It might be more effective if you said things out loud, into his ear, instead of just thinking them out of yours.

Page 4 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	“HAW HAW HAW! Did you hear the one about the traveling salesman? HAW HAW, okay, so the traveling salesman walks into a bar with a bishop, a priest, and a Rabbi. Three weeks later, he was found bludgeoned to death in the basement of a house on his sales route! HAW HAW HAW!” Gah, what’s wrong with his head? Apparently when you lose your innocence, your face implodes. In the first three panels of this fucking thing, he’s gone from looking like he’s fourteen to looking like he’s eight, then up to twelve, then down to six. How the hell old is he supposed to be? The role of “Demon” in the panel on the right will be played tonight by Johnny Depp. If not for this single incident, David would grow up to be entirely devoid of sexual interests and desires, completely sexually unmoved by the idea of intercourse, just like God intended.

Page 5 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Awwww, little David! Jack’s patronizing description is just totally making me care about this character. Like, he just seems so helpless — a poor little child I should be giving a shit about. Wow, one day of demonic possession and he’s already able to swivel his neck about 110 degrees from forward. Anything sexual is UNHEALTHY and AWFUL. Be ASHAMED of yourself for having a set of functioning organs in your body. Fundamentalists lose both ways on this one, by the way: If there is a God, and if he created functioning genitalia and such an intense drive to use them, then he’s a twisted, cruel little fuckwad if he demands people resist any attempt at doing anything with them. It’s like telling people “okay, don’t use your spleen or you’re damned!” or “if you use that saliva for anything but swallowing food, you’ll roast in hell forever!” and is a demand that really ought to be disobeyed, as this petty, sadistic little shit of a God is totally unworthy of anyone’s adoration. On the other hand, if God doesn’t exist, or if he’s intelligent enough to have just created a self-sufficient universe complete with evolution, then being ashamed of sex is just silly and totally arbitrary and unnecessary. Oh, and in case you were wondering, any sexual desires are the result of demons. There’s no such thing as neurological and physiological chemistry. Nope, it’s all demons whispering subliminal messages into little kids’ heads. Now that cloning is possible, should we be ashamed of generating any* cells at all, since the nuclei can apparently be used in the process? Why only be ashamed of sperm and eggs? * If you want to really piss off a fundie, tell them the only way Intelligent Design could be at all Intelligent would be if it were evolution. A stupid God would create a universe that required his constant attention and micro-managing intervention. An intelligent one would make it self-sufficient. Thus, the only Intelligent Design is evolution.

Page 6 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Ahhh, he’s ten. Actually, if you take the averages of my four guesses two panels ago, that’s what you get, so I guess the depiction is roughly accurate. OH NO! HE MANUALLY OPERATED ONE OF HIS WORKING BODILY ORGANS! If the extent of his sexual activity thus far has been masturbation and sexual fantasy, what the fuck did he need her around for? So here’s Matthew 10:25-27: 25: It is enough for the disciple that he be as his master, and the servant as his lord. If they have called the master of the house Beelzebub, how much more shall they call them of his household? 26: Fear them not therefore: for there is nothing covered, that shall not be revealed; and hid, that shall not be known. 27: What I tell you in darkness, that speak ye in light: and what ye hear in the ear, that preach ye upon the housetops. What does ANY of that have to do with what’s going on in this panel? Would you give it up already with the shoehorned-in Biblical references, Jack? Yeah, that’s what being gay is — you’re a (gender typically associated with the genitals you do not physically possess) inside of (whichever gender is typically associated with your genitals). It’s that simple!

Page 7 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Wait, so if demonic influence and “mind control” is responsible for enforcing gender roles and belittling homosexuality, then are all fundamentalists being influenced by demons? Oops! Unintentional undermining of the entire fundamentalist perspective on homosexuality, implying demonic influence in all homophobic and gender-enforcing Christians: Lose 10 Jesus points! All gay men played with dolls growing up. Because all gay men, as previously mentioned, are really just women with penises. But wait! Then how do you explain gay men being really masculine? If they’re just women inside — as has been implied — then… I… just… head explodes I had no idea homosexuals had “ranks“. Is it number-based, or more military? “I’m a level five homo!” Or maybe like, “Okay, Billy, Olivia here outdid you in gayitude yesterday by doing two women at once. That means you’ve slipped from 52,817 to 52,818. And Eric, I heard you were slightly aroused by a woman last night, so you’ve dropped to 188,412. Try harder, people!” Put this one in a circle, add the word “pasghetti” somewhere, and you’re halfway on your way to Family Circus. SISSY! SPACEK!

Page 8 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	“But… but… but… homosexuality IS treatable, if you’d just TRY, doctor! I know it is! I don’t have any experience, and my only real understanding is just my intuition that it’s ‘icky’, and all this unfounded stuff religious people tell me, but I’m a mother and I know. I mean, you’ve been able to convince straight men to stop being sexually aroused by women, right?” Eye makeup? You sure he’s not just emo? At first glance, I almost thought she said “…take him fisting” in the second panel, which is a subtle alteration that could make this whole thing so much more fun and interesting. For tonight’s performance, the role of David in this panel will be played by Ed Norton. MAKE UP YOUR FUCKING MIND ALREADY. Is the father’s anti-gay, “homosexuality is caused by parents” attitude demonic behavior or not? “Doesn’t anybody understand? I’ve got to get out of here,” thought dad’s hand, desperate to somehow detach itself from this entire ridiculous, bigoted ordeal.

Page 9 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	That’s one pointy demon. He’s even got Dilbert’s Boss hair. The dialog in this is hilariously appalling. It’s not even so much that it’s a bunch of misguided, homophobic boarshit, it’s that nobody in real life would ever say or think half the idiotic phrases the characters do. Yes — the torment of being gay is caused by the act of being gay itself, not, oh, say, societal pressures and expectations, bigots, persecution and ridicule from the people around you, other people thinking it’s “not normal”, implicit social biases, cultural signification, and the myriad other things that make gays feel they’re “wrong”. What accurate cultural observation!

Page 10 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Because ALL gays do drugs, and drug use is EXCLUSIVE to the gay community. Right? I mean, just because this is demonstrably extremely untrue, that doesn’t mean it’s false, right? Or… wait, amyl nitrate? This isn’t about drugs at all! Why would Michael Landon be in a gay bar asking Crocodile Dundee for a diesel fuel additive? I dunno, maybe this is a gay truck stop or something. It’s kind of hard to tell, given it’s apparently some kind of Dirac Sea. Come on in and bathe with some gays! ‘Cause, you know, in real life, nobody’s creative enough to come up with any other names for their bars and clubs than generic things like “BAR” and “GAY BAR” and “GAY BATHS”.

Page 11 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	[C]ancer. A.I.D.S.

Page 12 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Oh, yay, more beefy men for Jack (or his illustrator accomplice) to lovingly detail for us on paper. “Hey, David, cliché your clichés on that guy!” Is there some kind of significance to the demon’s various states of transparency, by the way, that I’m somehow missing, here? “I know we can make it”? Make it where? Home? The highway rest stop? Arby’s? After all? The end of the Tract? Canada? White Castle? The Moon? Really, it doesn’t make a difference if they make it or not. They’ve got each other, and that’s a lot. Yeah, you can tell you’re fuckin’ soul-mates after, what, like, a half an hour of conversation.

Page 13 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	All gays are promiscuous! Which is why they want to be able to get married! SHUT UP IT MAKES SENSE. SOMEHOW. Oh, also: All gays sit around without shirts on. What’s the point of trying to talk him into suicide if you’re only going to talk him right back out of it? Maybe these demons would be a little more successful if they actually established some goals and worked toward them instead of firing off randomly. One moment it’s “maybe you ought to kill yourself” and the next it’s “Hey David, why don’t you fuck some fish?” My, what chiseled facial features. Look at him, he’s like a Roman emperor. David the Weepy.

Page 14 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	I think Jack’s normally crisp and witty dialog is falling a little flat, here. So is this all inspired by demons as well, or is this behavior Chick endorses? Or both? I mean, one would think it would be the result of demonic influence, right? Why would demons focus exclusively on getting men to insert penises into each other’s anuses and not put any effort at all into vicious beatings? But if Chick supports enforcing gender roles, which is apparently a demonic-inspired perspective, why wouldn’t he support this as well? I’m beginning to see why he recalled this one.

Page 15 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	“BLOOBLEOOBLEURRPPHHHHFFFFF PPPLLLLLLLLOOOOOOOOOO PLOOOOOFFFFF PLOOOOOOO-W-W-WHAT!?? OH MY GOD — BRIAN! PPPLLOOOOOOOOOOO BLLBLLLOOOOO!” I’d like to think his head just keeps going like that, whipping back and forth at high velocity, wildly splattering drool all over the newspaper. Why does the demon need to be transparent here? Boy, it’s a good thing we can see the arm of that chair and a sliver of David’s sleeve instead of being able to tell where the thought bubble is originating. Notice there’s now active communication between David and the demon. (Or, well, the demon’s navel, apparently.) WARNING: THIS DOES NOT ACTUALLY HAPPEN IN REAL LIFE. ANY BEHAVIOR RESEMBLING THIS IS THE SIGN OF A MENTAL DISORDER, WHICH CAN LIKELY BE CURED WITH SOME FORM OF MEDICATION. IF YOU EXPERIENCE ANYTHING RESEMBLING COMMUNICATION WITH DEMONS, PLEASE SEEK PROFESSIONAL HELP IMMEDIATELY. Unless… Do “chemicals” count as “demons” in the literal sense? Nobody wants an old queen? Tell that to Elizabeth II, asshole! She will not be amused, I assure you. (Prince Edward might take personal umbrage as well. HAR HAR OUTDATED BRITISH TABLOID HUMOR) Oh, come on, he hasn’t tried “everything”. He’s not even desperate and obsessed yet. And I haven’t seen him stalk even one celebrity.

Page 16 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	I’m going to steal this as a conversation opener. “The Lord sent me here to witness to you.” After that, I can tell them whatever I want, and it’s the “Word of God”, right? I mean, that’s how it seems to work. Oh, wait — that’s Bob Vila! He must be here to film an episode of This Old Gay Bar, or Bob Vila’s ‘Homo Again’, or something. “At one time I was gay, just like you. Now, with careful, obsessive repression of my emotions, instincts and desires, I’ve managed to hide the fact that I’m totally miserable from myself! It’s so much easier to persecute myself than it is to deal with all the persecution from other people. But, I guess this is a much better solution than people actually not being total fucking homophobic morons about every goddamned thing.” “…Be not deceived: neither fornicators nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor effeminate, nor abusers of themselves with mankind, nor thieves nor nobody’s fucking reading this anyway because it’s way too goddamned small and way too fucking long. I could say just about anything here, and I’m willing to bet that 90% of everyone who looks here is going to be all ‘TL:DR’ about it, simply because there’s no point straining your eyes to the point of retinal detachment just to fucking read a boring-assed passage from the Bible that talks about how basically everyone is going to hell, even apparently people who are ‘effeminate’. Seriously, what the fuck? Who determines this? How does one quantify such a thing? Do I have to lift weights? Wear a particular style of clothing? Thump my chest and grunt? Adhere to all the extremely arbitrary cultural markers regarding what’s “masculine” in our culture? How many power tools must I buy in order to not be ‘effeminate’? What if I use them for craft work? What a bunch of fucking garbage. Is God Arnold Schwarzenegger? ‘Thou shalt not be a girly man’? Seriously, what the cock is that shit? Who could possibly take this seriously while simultaneously not suffering from acute retardation? And blah blah blah, nobody’s going to read through all of this anyway. P.S. - I don’t see the word ‘gay’ anywhere in the Biblical passage in the Tract. Oops!”

Page 17 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Wrestle with principalities? What, like Monaco? Or… is Jack referring to Angelic Choirs? Does he mean we wrestle with the fifth highest order of the ninefold celestial hierarchy? I… I don’t… what? (Yes, I know it’s in the Bible, and I don’t care. That clearly doesn’t make it not stupid.) “Only God can change your life.” Er… so there’s no free will after all, I guess. It’s just Jesus and demons tugging your soul back and forth, making every decision for you. KISSSLURP SLURK SLUCKLSLUCKLICKSLUCK SLURP SUCKLE SPLURP SUCK SSSSKKKKISSSS SMOOOCHLE SPLURK KISS SUCK-SUCK-SUCK SLURP KISS — FUCKING GET A ROOM ALREADY, YOU TWO

Page 18 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	“The Bible says if any man is in Christ, he becomes a new creature. No, that’s not a metaphor, or figurative writing — you literally become, like, a frog or a bull or a cheetah or, y’know, whatever else. I’m not really sure how he picks it. I’m an alpaca!” So… what if you change, but you’re still gay? Why does that, specifically, have to change? And hold on a second… I thought a person’s actions didn’t mean anything, and that all a person had to do was believe in and accept Jesus. It seems “active” gays have bulked-up, sculpted bodies, and “reformed” gays turn into pudgy, jowly flesh-sacks. “Your speech bubble is drooping there a little. Here, let me just prop that up for you.”

Page 19 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Here, I want to play around with this one: “But the Bible says you were born in the image of God… …therefore, homosexuality — though the origins are extremely unclear to even the most intelligent scientists and researchers using the most rigorous testing — is a learned, sinful behavior.” …therefore, God is fat.” …therefore, everyone looks exactly the same.” …therefore, people with Down Syndrome cannot possibly logically exist.” (The possibilities for violent logic collisions are endless! Pick up the home version on your way out of here tonight and try your own!) Gah, just SHUT UP, you WOOL-HEADED FUCKBAG. THIS MAKES NO SENSE. GO AWAY.

Page 20 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Yeah, and how much else of Leviticus are you hypocritical facefucks trying to follow to the letter? Eat me. You try to force everyone to abide by these three fucking passages in the entire Bible that exhibit only a vague, inconclusive reference to anything even remotely related to homosexuality while ignoring an enormous number of passages that are much clearer in their wording and reinforce themes that occur throughout the Bible, yet you somehow believe yourselves in a position to cast judgment on others. Just shut up. Just stop talking immediately. With every fucking word that falls like a wet turd from your cracked, horrible mouths, you only serve to reinforce the easily-drawable conclusion that your miniscule, oversimplifying, idiot minds are incapable of fathoming the supposedly mysterious and complex mind of the God you claim to represent. You openly blaspheme by claiming to understand his will and trying to impose this interpretation of it upon others, mercilessly scrutinizing them under its scope, and, well, I’m not in any way a religious man, but that seems like far worse an offense than simple lack of belief. (Would you rather have someone not speak of you at all, or totally misrepresent you?) Just shut up. Shut up now, and shut up until you can learn how to expel words from your mouth instead of blind, cross-thumping, talking points that bring nothing to the world but arbitrarily propagating hatred and oppression. You have no place casting judgment on others on an individual level, let alone wielding government as a tool of oppression. You have no more insight into “God’s will” than any other person on this planet, so stop deluding yourselves into thinking otherwise because of personal insecurities, fear of mortality, and a desire for revenge on those you were helpless to punish yourselves in this lifetime. Perhaps we need, as a country, to ask ourselves what’s more important: Preserving religious freedom at the potential sacrifice of the entire scope of individual freedoms, or preserving the entire scope of individual freedoms at the potential sacrifice of certain levels of religious freedom? Does that one freedom — religious expression — trump freedom as a whole? This is not “a Christian country”. Just shut up. Fuck. Oh, and P.-Fucking-S. - Stop conflating consensual sex and sex-related activities with non-consensual sexual abuse. You have — if such a minuscule quantity is even possible — even less an understanding of this than you do of God.

Page 21 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Why is a black square on the side of a building having a conversation with itself about homosexuality? Oh, hey, wow, this one doesn’t have the patented Jack Chick “Crucifixion Scene” Xerox panel. Where’s my John 3:16, dammit? Where’s my 3:16? “Are we going to stop him from killing himself?” “No, silly! We’re going to convert him! Now, hurry — to the Reformed-Faggot-Mobile!” “Hurry, Kenny! Kill yourself now! Kill yourself! Take these pills! Though, maybe you should try fucking a fish. There are plenty of them. Fuck ‘em and leave ‘em, that’s what I always say. Come on, let’s go bar-hopping.” Is that Tim Curry being shaken by Demon Judge Reinhold?

Page 22 ⇑ ⇓



Jabberwock	Blah blah blah, save us Lord, usual, predictable, “happy” Chick Tract ending. I’m willing to bet the recall of this Tract has something to do with the extreme likelihood of the final paragraph having to be updated to read: “This book was written with the help of the late pastor Perry Roberts, a converted homosexual delivered by Jesus Christ. Prior to his tragic suicide (FOR TOTALLY UNRELATED REASONS, SERIOUSLY, GUYS), he helped many others find freedom. If you have further questions or need prayer, please write the estate of pastor Roberts [address]. Unfortunately, due to his untimely death, pastor Roberts is no longer available to speak to churches, schools and civic groups, etc.” I like to think that the guy on the right acts and looks the same way when defecating. “GRRRRNNNNNHHH! I TAKE AUTHORITY OVER YOU, CEMENT-LIKE, CLOGGY, PAINFUL TURD, IN THE NAME OF JESUS CHRIST.” I also like to think this all ends with a big gay orgy, like it does in the film adaptation.

Conclusion ⇑ ⇓