In surprising news, Jack Chick lived to a ripe old age. My sincere condolences to those who loved him.

Jack Chick was the author of “Chick Tracts”, those tiny comic books that showed what happens to sinners when they die… or how little Susy bested that evil biology teacher Ms. Henn, who taught (*gasp*) evolution! Or how Halloween is evil, or … or … just check here, for the whole catalog. I knew a guy who collected them. To keep, I mean; I myself collected them to throw away. I’d find them in restaurants, at grocery stores, at movie theaters, at bowling alleys. When I was very young, I found them in the pamphlets officially available at our church. “This was your life” was a very real scare for me.

Anyway, now he is dead. And the weird thing is, it isn’t even frustrating to not be able to say “and now he knows better”. Because he’s just dead. And his family and friends are sad, I am sure (or maybe they are more certain of heaven than any people I have ever seen, and are happy). And like any of us, he will live on only in his works here. But those works are plentiful.

I wrote about Chick some time ago, when a documentary came out about his … interesting career. Here, that post reprised:

If you ask about science in science class
Could a comic book save your soul?
If you like to smoke a little grass
Could a comic book save your soul?
If you’d like to try to cast a spell,
If you’ve killed a man, and you’re in a cell,
You’re a breath away from a trip to Hell–
Could a comic book save your soul?

If you’re Catholic, Muslim, Witch, or Jew
Could a comic book save your soul?
If there is no God, according to you
Could a comic book save your soul?
If you like to listen to Metal bands,
If you do your thinking with your glans,
If you don’t do all that God demands
Could a comic book save your soul?

If you’re curious while attending church
Could a comic book save your soul?
Are there pamphlets there, to help your search?
Could a comic book save your soul?
There’s a little screed, by Jack T. Chick
It will make you laugh; it will make you sick,
But it just might make your brain go… *click*…
Could a comic book save your soul?

I remember these. I still find them, left in restaurants, or classrooms, or the library. I always take them; better me than their intended audience. As a kid, I must have seen some of the very first of these (the site says they have been produced for “over 40 years”, but not how much over; I’d have been on the leading edge, anyway) in church, and remember seeing his version of Judgment–my life, on the big screen, with the whole earth’s population privy to my deepest thoughts… which, at that early adolescent time, were impure.

Here’s to ya, Jack. From one that got away.

***** (back to today’s post)*******

And from now on… if I find a Jack Chick tract…

I’m still gonna throw it away.