D&D 5E Book: Inside the World of Dungeons and Dragons

[MockingBird]

As a little kid some of the images scared me. I think they mostly did the opposite of what they were intended for lol.

 

[BookTenTiger]

Nope. They are terrible. But many collectors view them with irony.

They were NOT produced ironically.

There's a great 99% Invisible Podcast that recently hit on the whole history of the business and the design of Chick Tracts, and it's ... fascinating.

Chick Tracts - 99% Invisible

Since Chick Publications started in the mid 1960s, it has sold more than one billion tracts. There are two hundred and seventy different Chick Tracts, with titles like “The Death Cookie,” “Kidnapped!,” “Mean Momma,” “The Sissy?,” and “Satan Comes To Salem.” Many of these are black and white...

99percentinvisible.org

TLDR; they were originally made because Jack Chick wanted to express his ... ideas ... to people using the imagery and "punch" of comics that were popular with the kids.

When I was 14 or 15 I actually emailed one of the creators of the Chick Tracts (not Jack Chick himself) and we had a back and forth about D&D being satanic or not. I was... unproductive, but I felt very grown-up supporting my hobby!

 

[Whizbang Dustyboots]

Chick Tracts are published near me. I think about buying some ironically to hand out to my gamer friends, but I don't want to fund the rest of his hateful weirdness.

 

[Parmandur]

Chick Tracts are published near me. I think about buying some ironically to hand out to my gamer friends, but I don't want to fund the rest of his hateful weirdness.

Yeah, it's a funny crossover for me, since I know his work much better for the wider array of hateful weirdness. The D&D stuff is very much a sudeshow.

 

[Birmy]

I think MOST people (thankfully) appreciate Chick tracts ironically, at least today, but they were certainly intended straight-faced. Quite a few years back (Chick was still alive), I looked into acquiring "Dark Dungeons," which had gone out of print...but you could get a run of it reprinted if you paid a large sum and ordered a minimum number of however many hundreds of copies. No thank you, Jack Chick!

They were kind of like Choose Your Own Adventure books, if every choice you made always ended with you going to hell.

One of my favorite promo items was the Chick tract parody (identical until you actually looked at it) White Wolf put out for Demon: The Fallen. The year it came out, you could find them all over Gen Con and you'd have to do a double take.

 

[Parmandur]

I think MOST people (thankfully) appreciate Chick tracts ironically, at least today, but they were certainly intended straight-faced. Quite a few years back (Chick was still alive), I looked into acquiring "Dark Dungeons," which had gone out of print...but you could get a run of it reprinted if you paid a large sum and ordered a minimum number of however many hundreds of copies. No thank you, Jack Chick!

They were kind of like Choose Your Own Adventure books, except every choice you made always ended with you going to hell.

One of my favorite promo items was the Chick tract parody (identical until you actually looked at it) White Wolf put out for Demon: The Fallen. The year it came out, you could find them all over Gen Con and you'd have to do a double take.

No, huge numbers of Americans believe in exactly the sort of world described by Jack Chick, with no irony whatsoever. It really isn't funny at all.

 

[Birmy]

No, huge numbers of Americans believe in exactly the sort of world described by Jack Chick, with no irony whatsoever. It really isn't funny at all.

Sadly, I'm aware, but I still think MOST people know they're rubbish, even if A LOT more than is healthy take it as gospel truth (pun intended).

 

[Parmandur]

Sadly, I'm aware, but I still think MOST people know they're rubbish, even if A LOT more than is healthy take it as gospel truth (pun intended).

I mean, it's enough to cause major social disturbances.

 

[Birmy]

I mean, it's enough to cause major social disturbances.

Hey, I'm not glad about it either.