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Tract Marks: Making Fun of More Fundamentalists By: PoisonRamune, the Apathetic Lizardman & Josh Adachi Both Josh and I are pretty devout Christians. In fact we met through a church trip back in high school over 10 years ago. However, we can't help but find how stupidly amusing these Chick evangelical Christian tracts are. Once again, we present another commentary on 2 religious comics by Jack Chick. This time the themes are: the spiritualist background of Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom (I'm not joking) and 1984 (the book, not the year).
In this comic Jack Chick draws the what ifs of a NWO dystopia; showing how Christians are going to be hunted down like Jedi in a post-Federation galaxy.
Josh: Here Jack Chick paints a frightening vision of the future; one in which a resurrected Joseph Stalin is Supreme Justice of the world and Howdy Doody is a real boy.
Josh: If this panel ever happened, my doubts about Christianity would go out the window. The ridiculousness of this scenario would prove without a doubt, that the world was completely doomed.
Rob: What does this mean?! Is this some sort of dark Idiocracy world? Not only are the people too stupid to comprehend the TV, but the state is doing thought policing…
Josh: I'm still waiting for somebody to tell me how the disasters of our modern age can possibly be worse than what we've experienced throughout history. Do you think Magic Johnson wishes he was in the middle of the Black Plague?
Rob: The world is veiled in darkness. The wind stops, the sea is wild, and the earth begins to rot. The people wait, their only hope, a prophecy....
Rob: In the future, the kids will dress like Hitler and call it trendy.
Josh: It's comforting to know that in a world where kittens and puppies are used as state-mandated ritualistic sacrifices, they are still photographed with balls of yarn and taken to the salon.
Rob: WTF? This kid is like Debbie from the 1st Chick Tract commentary. He has this ever changing, malleable face.
Rob: What? BOBBY is evolving. BOBBY has evolved into HITLER-CHAN
Josh: I do like the subtle surrealist sci-fi sprinkled casually throughout this story, like the suggestion that in the future, 50 year old men live with their parents.
Josh: You better listen to her. Her Kamehameha is charged twice as large as yours.
Rob: “Healers” like that normally have wrestler names, we’ll call him The Comical Conical Phallus.
Josh: I don't get that scar. Like, did he get into a fight with some Christian Ninja?
Josh: "And there will be ice cream and unicorns and puppies and kitt... wait..."
Rob: I’m now led to believe that it’s Jack Chick’s intentions to make that kid look Hitler-esque with each passing frame.
Josh: Soylent Green is Christians!
Rob: John Todd is back, that traitorous bastard!
Rob: I wouldn't be ratting anyone out… But I’d be there to get some free drugs. And what’s up with the helicopter from the 70’s flying about?
Rob: Shoot to kill?! None of the troops had guns.
Rob: If you think I’m going to make fun of Jesus being crucified, you’re nuts.
Rob: BOBBY/HITLER-CHAN remained a pathetic runt of a man boy, everyone in the story who accepted Christ grew up big and strong. The choice is yours…
Mola Ram learns that the love of Christ is more powerful than Kali, Shiva or those crazy rocks he was mining for.
Josh: One of the things that made Indiana Jones I and III so great was it's use of Christian Mythology as back story. There's weight to using widely held belief systems as a plot device and I'm instantly drawn in to this story. Excuse me if I have nothing but praise for this tract. A part of me believes that "This [really] is a true story."
Josh: In India the mafia boss is a friggin' diety. And her right hand man is a demonic George Jefferson.
Rob: What is this? The third level of Contra?
Rob (quoting Mola Ram): The British in India will be slaughtered. Then we will overrun the Moslems and force their "Allah" to bow to Kali. And then the Hebrew God will fall and finally the Christian God will be cast down and forgotten.
Josh: I like how Jack Chick, who believes in a single, all-powerful God, also believes that somebody else can call down rock avalanches, lives on the moon and flies around on a tiger. I mean, could you really blame this village for the case of mistaken identity?
Rob (again, quoting Temple of Doom): Ah, dessert! Chilled monkey brains.
Rob: Dude, that guy is Arabic (or Armenian)… Not Indian.
Josh: Treating Indian Dieties as actual characters in the tract may be confusing from a theological standpoint, but as a plot device it is gold.
Rob: Leveling up your Hindu gods and knowing their stat builds is the key to survival in the world of Massively-Multiplayer-Online-Religious-People-Games (MMORPGs).
Rob: He said “Kali-Ma!” He’s totally supposed to be Mola Ram from Temple of Doom. Cover your heart!
Josh: I get it, God is so powerful that no force can come against him. But just for once I'd like to see God so powerful, that he turns you into an unbeatable ninja.
Rob: Mola Ram begins to build a cocoon around himself. He will then emerge as Mola X, rapper and spiritual advisor (like a cooler version of MC Hammer).
Rob (right panel): If I’m not mistaken Christ actually used a whip to clear out the temple of the Lord. He uses weapons.
Josh: It's hard to tell from this frame if the Christian is using Wolverine-like healing powers, Flash-like quickness, or Kitty Pride-like phasing.
Rob: Even though I’m all for God, there’s something really sad to see the evil Mola Ram bitch out on his beliefs.
Rob: So what if you lived in some sort of modern castle? Would Heaven then be a step down for you?
Josh: These panels are really pulling from... Somewhere not in the bible. Somewhere closer to Jack Chick's back pocket.
Rob: Behold mortal, this is Hell… Whoa, they do that shit to you... Down there? I’m lucky I stayed on Jesus’ side.
Josh: "Look! Two arms!"
Josh: He kept the necklace though. This article is dedicated to the memory of Paul Newman, may his funny tales of the origins of salad dressing be a testament to bizarre story telling.
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