Posthuman Blues

I found a Chick tract in the men's room at Borders today. It's been a long time since I've encountered any of these; several months ago I found Chick tracts veritably littering the store, evidently the work of one dedicated crusader. Anyway, I pocketed the gospel tract and made for the "New Age" section. (Thankfully they don't really call it "New Age" at Borders; books on UFOs and nasty conspiracies are labeled, somewhat condescendingly, "Speculation.") My reasoning was that the crusader -- call him the Chickster -- would have planted tracts at strategic points throughout the store. Books on such blasphemous subjects as cosmology, homosexuality, feminism, evolution, UFOs, and non-Christian world cultures doubtlessly make tempting targets for the Chickster and his fellow idiots.




Typical panel from a Chick Publications gospel comic.


No luck. I came back from my lunch break with one damned track that I've seen a million times. It's about how teenagers everywhere are really into rock and roll and killing themselves. It goes without saying that the main character, a misfit in a "No Fear" T-shirt, finds himself burning in Hell after hanging himself in his bedroom. The truly hilarious part is how Jack Chick, the artist and founder of Chick Publications, is able to (inadvertantly) make eternal damnation seem hysterically funny. Hell is filled with big-nosed goblins that say things like "When you get the big picture, you'll be absolutely . . . TERRIFIED!" and "I tricked you! And now you're mine . . . FOREVER! Haw Haw Haw [sic]" (actual examples). Honestly, the Fazoli's where I ate lunch today is worse than this.