Remembering evangelical cartoonist Jack Chick and his 'terrifying' comic strips

Jack Chick was one of the most prolific cartoonists of all time. He was also one of the most reviled and, by some, begrudgingly admired.

Chick was the creator of Chick tracts. You may have come across the hate-filled comics in mini-booklet form. Sometimes people slipped them to trick-or-treaters on Halloween or they were left lying around telephone booths or bus stations. By conservative estimates, 800 million copies of his comics have been sold worldwide.

Chick, the reclusive Christian behind the comic, died on Sunday. He was 92.

Daniel Raeburn wrote a booklet about Chick and his work. He spoke with As It Happens host Carol Off about the strange life and legacy of the controversial cartoonist. Here is an edited version of their conversation.

Carol Off: Daniel, do you remember when you first came across one of these comics?

Daniel Raeburn: No, I don't. They were so ubiquitous that I can't remember the first moment I found a Chick tract. They were everywhere in my childhood. You got at least one every Halloween from some fundamentalist tucked away somewhere in your neighbourhood. I do remember when I found his full colour 32 page comics. Those I remember my Mom brought home from the Goodwill Industries where she worked. She brought a stack of those home thinking that they were just regular comic books but they weren't. They were really violent, scary comic books full of Satanic worship and teenage girls being blood sacrificed by druids — they really did terrify me.

CO: So what effect would the comics have on kids?

DR: A big effect. They are designed to scare you into accepting Jesus as your own personal saviour and they are definitely aimed at kids. Particularly the older Jack Chick got, the more overtly he targeted kids with his comics. He would take on the Tooth Fairy, the Easter Bunny, Halloween, the game Dungeons and Dragons — anything that kids were into he would point out was the work of the devil and your only hope was to accept Jesus. So even though they are ostensibly a message of hope and salvation, they are really horror comics designed to scare children and they work. They really work.


CO: They've been described as hate literature — who did he target with these comics?

DR: Everybody. Jack Chick targeted and defended just about every group on Earth. Every major religion, including Christianity and Christian churches. He was very against church. He was a Bible believing Christian, which means, "I don't even believe in church."  In the same way that the Christian religion did have roots in a sort of rebel subculture, he saw himself as someone trying to encourage people to return to those roots. Along the way, he just attacked everyone. It is hate literature, sure. But the reason I've spent so much time studying his comics is because I think hate literature exposes something about the culture that produces it.

CO: Now that he has died, what would you say is his legacy? 

DR: I think he did influence our culture. He influenced the counter-culture. I think particularly in the world of underground comics, I think he was the ultimate outsider. He was the most underground of all the underground cartoonists and I think there is a certain amount of grudging respect for him in that regard. He got his work out there with no help from anybody and he did it his way. He had a real DIY aesthetic. He's sort of like a punk rocker except that he's not a punk rocker. He was a Christian. But he did embody the punk, do-it-yourself ethos and I think that will be his lasting legacy — that and camp. I mean his comics have long-lasting camp value. They are unintentionally hilarious.

For more on this story, listen to our full interview with Daniel Raeburn.