MockingBird
Hero
As a little kid some of the images scared me. I think they mostly did the opposite of what they were intended for lol.
D&D 5E Book: Inside the World of Dungeons and Dragons
BookTenTiger
He / Him
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!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TLDR; they were originally made because Jack Chick wanted to express his ...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.
Whizbang Dustyboots
Gnometown Hero
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
Book-Friend
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
Adventurer
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.
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
Book-Friend
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
Adventurer
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
Book-Friend
I mean, it's enough to cause major social disturbances.
Birmy
Adventurer
Hey, I'm not glad about it either.
Similar Threads
