Jack Chick tracts are among the most published comics in the world (supposedly). Chances are good you have seen a Jack Chick tract, even if you didn’t realize it at the time. Here’s what some of them look like (click each image for a larger view):
Jack Chick runs Chick Publications, which sells these little tracts to promote his Christian Fundamentalist point of view. Chick himself is an Independent Baptist (IFB) who follows the King James Only movement (think Pensacola Christian College). He believes the end times are coming, Jesus is coming, and Catholics, Freemasons, Muslims, homosexuals, rock-and-rollers, and anybody who doesn’t accept Jesus are going to hell for eternity. And he’s not shy of making this known in his comics.
Chick is a recluse. He hardly ever shows himself, and has offered only one interview since the 70s. However, there’s church out in Clarkston, Michigan that posted a photo that supposedly shows Jack Chick next to Pastor Bob Nogalski:
That might be Jack Chick on the left.
There’s an interesting interview with Chick by Catholic apologist Jimmy Akin. The interview finds Chick a very cautious man, and reveals a little about the late Alberto Rivera.
Alberto Rivera’s conspiracy theories are the subjects of more than a few Chick tracts. Rivera claimed to be an ex-Jesuit, working for the Vatican, sent to infiltrate Protestant churches and destroy them from the inside. He was later exposed as a fraud by groups and magazines like Cornerstone Magazine, Christianity Today, the CRI. He also was wanted by police for writing bad checks and for credit card theft. Alberto Rivera died in 1997 from cancer but apparently Chick thinks the guy was murdered by the Catholic Church.
“Oh, yes, he was murdered.” Jack said an ex-member of the Irish Republican Army had told him of two poisons, one of which causes cancer. “And that was what they gave him.”
There’s a documentary on Chick called “God’s Cartoonist: The Comic Crusade of Jack Chick” by Kurt Kuersteiner. Here’s a clip:
