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S p e c i a l R e p o r t
Chick Tracts
Their Origin and Refutation
 Part 2 
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Special Report
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Jack Thomas Chick is a recluse.
Little is known about him.
He does not give interviews.
Only two out-of-date pictures of him are publicly known (one is a high school yearbook photo).
Rumors about him abound, making it difficult to sort fact from fiction concerning his life.
He was born April 13, 1924, in the Boyle Heights neighborhood of Los Angeles,[14] and he was not always a Fundamentalist.
According to the biography posted on his web site:
While in high school, none of the Christians would have anything to do with him because of his bad language. They all agreed not to witness to him, convinced that he was the last guy on earth who would ever accept Jesus Christ.
After graduation from high school, Jack won a scholarship to the Pasadena Playhouse to study acting, but his studies were interrupted by the military. He spent the next three years in the Army, which took him to foreign countries like New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines and Japan.
After being discharged from the service, Jack returned to the Playhouse, where he met and married his wife, Lynn, who was instrumental in his salvation. While visiting Lynn’s parents in Canada on their honeymoon, Jack’s mother-in-law insisted that he sit and listen to Charles E. Fuller’s Old Fashioned Revival Hour radio program. Jack recalls, "God was already working on my heart, but when Fuller said the words, ‘Though your sins be as scarlet, they shall be as white as snow,’ I fell on my knees and my life was changed forever."[15]
The scene of falling on one’s knees to accept Jesus is one repeated over and over again by characters in Chick tracts. But how did Jack Chick make the leap from being an ordinary Fundamentalist to the foremost Christian comic publisher in the world? For a time, he worked as a technical illustrator for an aerospace company in California, but he longed to be work for God:
He wanted to be a missionary himself, but his new wife wanted no part of missionary life. Her aunt had been a missionary in Africa. While pregnant, she was being carried across a river on a stretcher, when one of those carrying her lost a leg to an alligator.[16]
Eventually, Jack started combining his work as an illustrator with his passion for evangelization, producing his first published religious works, Why No Revival? and A Demon’s Nightmare. He became convinced of the effectiveness of this technique after using it with a group of prisoners:
[Chick] was invited to present the gospel to a group of inmates at a prison near his home. He drew several pieces of cartoon art and prepared a flip chart to illustrate what he was saying. At the conclusion of his message, nine of the eleven inmates present trusted Christ as their Saviour. Jack became convinced that God had given him a method of reaching people with the gospel that worked. That art was later put into booklet form and became the tract This Was Your Life![17]
Following this episode, Chick Publications became a full-time venture for Jack, and, in the more than forty years since it was started, his tracts, comic books, and other publications have reached hundreds of millions of people, spreading their message of simple Fundamentalist theology fused with elaborate conspiracy theories.
In time, the art in the tracts received an upgrade—not because Chick changed his own style of drawing but because he hired an artist with much better skills. Yet he did not announce this fact and did not put the new artist’s name on the works he produced. Instead, they continued to carry the credit "by Jack T. Chick" or simply "by J.T.C." The difference between the two drawing styles was so dramatic that it was immediately noticed by readers, and rumors circulated about who the "good artist" might be. It would be some time before Chick disclosed that the man’s name was Fred Carter.
In 1972, he hired Fred Carter, an African-American painter and illustrator from Danville, Illinois, who had studied at Chicago’s American Academy of Art. Carter’s realistic illustrations and distinctive inking style made him a perfect fit for the [Crusaders comic book] series’ action sequences and exotic locales. Witch burnings and ritual murders are captured in gleefully visceral detail, while the books’ sexual overtones—as well as scantily clad biblical sirens like Eve, Delilah, and Semiramis—have led critics to describe Carter’s work as "spiritual porn."
At once, the artwork improved tenfold. Chick, however, kept Carter’s name off all of the comics. Rumors and speculation about the identity of the so-called good artist at Chick Publications began to spread. For years fans theorized that Carter’s work was produced by a team of illustrators or an unknown Filipino man dubbed "Artist J." Chick finally revealed Carter’s identity in 1980, claiming that the artist is "rather shy and declines to put his name on his art."[18]
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Jack Chick’s art in The Hit |
Fred Carter’s art in The Deceived |
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Through the years Chick also became associated with others who had an impact on his publications. The conspiracy angle in his works jumped significantly through his involvement with two men in particular.
One was John Todd, an evangelist who claimed to have been raised in a "witchcraft family" and supposedly was part of a gigantic conspiracy of witches called "the Illuminati."[19] According to Todd, numerous political and religious figures were part of the conspiracy. He claimed that as a "Grand Druid High Priest" he was given a thirteen-state territory and that "over 90 percent of politicians in that thirteen-state area received financial support from him and took orders regarding political decisions from him."[20] The religious figures allegedly part of the witch conspiracy included Jim Bakker, Billy Graham, Walter Martin, Oral Roberts, and Pat Robertson. Also involved were C. S. Lewis, Pat and Debbie Boone, and a number of Protestant denominations, "from Assemblies of God to the Southern Baptists."[21]
One way the Illuminati spread their occult tendrils through society was through rock music. Songs in this genre often "contained coded spells or incantations that the listener wasn’t aware of."[22] Based on Todd’s claims, Chick issued a number of publications, including the large-format comic book Spellbound? (against rock music) and the tract Dark Dungeons (against fantasy role-playing games).
Todd was exposed as a fraud in publications such as Christianity Today[23] and Cornerstone. He later was convicted and sent to prison for rape. Nevertheless, Chick is still publishing materials repeating his claims and thanking him openly for providing the information.[24]
The other major figure hyping Jack Chick’s conspiracy theories was the late Alberto Rivera, and he is important enough to Chick mythology to deserve his own section.
Part 1 Part 2 Part 3
Footnotes:
- Robert Ito, "Fear Factor," L.A. Magazine, May 1, 2003, 56.
- www.chick.com/information/authors/chick.asp.
- Ibid.
- Ibid.
- Ito, "Fear Factor."
- The Illuminati are a group often talked about among conspiracy theorists. They are not usually presented as a hidden group of witches.
- John Todd, Surviving Till the Trumpet, quoted in Gary Metz, "The John Todd Story," Cornerstone (www.cornerstonemag.com/pages/show_page.asp?437).
- Ibid.
- Spellbound? 20.
- "The Legend(s) of John Todd," Christianity Today, February 2, 1979.
- The first page of Spellbound? states: "My deepest appreciation to John Todd, ex-Grand Druid priest, for the authenticity of the occult information used in this story. Also to those others who came out of witchcraft and have verified this material."
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