You miss the point: Chick tracts are so damned funny because they don’t try to be funny. Part of the humor is thinking, “Holy crap, some dude somewhere takes this crap seriously!”
I would bet that any ‘serious’ message in comic-form would fail miserably. Serious information should be presented in a clear, concise way, not wrapped in some attempt at humor. Look at how much good said attempt is doing Mssr.Chick…
All IMHO, of course.
So that’s why Larry Gonick is such an obscure, failed figure…
That’s a very good point. Teenagers hate the patronizing that “stars” give, especially when celebrities are known for the exact type of behavior that they are protesting against. I agree that if you focus on the “leprous weasels” then the kids will take notice. After all, no one wants to feel like a sucker.
. Exposing frauds who work on peoples gullibilities… , If this idea comes to fruition, you absolutely MUST do a piece on John Edward type frauds!!!
Or you could have Chick go right to hell, and have the devil thanking him for leading so many people AWAY from Christ!
That’s a great idea! You could also have, in place of Catholics, a bizarre sect of Christianity, like the snake handlers. The “Christian” has to let the snake bite him in order to prove he’s worth…ehehehehe… Good Job Ben, I’m really impressed by your ideas! I like how your ideas (such as the WAVE one) expose incidents that children (or for that matter, adults) might not have heard of, but that are important.
Oh, also, you could have one focusing on the “Nigerian Scam”, since that crime is still being committed, even though it’s been ALL over the news.
Please tell me you’ve seen these. These may be the best Chick parodies ever. I think that in their own bitter way, they tell the truth. The real truth.
http://www.jhuger.com/tract/tyd/index.mv
http://www.jhuger.com/tract/dtr/index.mv
That is all.
Hey if someone writes one I,ll be willing to take a crack at illistrating it. I dont have a scanner so ill do it in MS paint and Ill need someone to host it but I can give it a try. I pride myself at being a pretty good little drawer type person.
I believe on the Chick parody page, there is one about Chick dying and he goes to Heaven. God yells at him and sends him back in the next life as an Hispanic Catholic lesbian.
Ben and friends are having so much fun here, I almost hate to rain on their parade, but…
Why bother?
Folks, relax! 99.99999% of the people in this country have never even HEARD of Jack Chick! The only people who seem to know about him, care about him, or take him seriously are the anti-religious folk. And THEY seem to hang on his every word!
As I’ve said before, people on both sides of the political aisle, and people of all religions (or none) seem determined to inflate the importance of their enemies. American Humanists are a pretty feeble organization, but you’d never know that from reading fudamentalist proopaganda (which makes them seem like an unstoppable juggernaut!). Similarly, Jack Chick is a NOBODY- but I suppose it makes Ben & Co. feel good Chick is a force to be reckoned with (it makes them feel more courageous in oppoing him).
My two cents: if you want to draw a satirical comic book, go after somebody who MATTERS!
As far as the directly anti-Chick comic, you might have a point. But more broadly, I’m defining “Chick” as sort of an embodiment of general idiocy, particularly of the fundamentalist stripe. Hence the ideas for comics with STD info, or about exorcisms gone wrong.
But quite frankly, a lot of the point is to have some fun. 
But if we do that, then any creationist reading it will just say, “You’ll sing a different tune in hell, buddy!”
We can have our cake and eat it too by drawing a distinction between creationist sheep and goats. Part of the reason people believe in creationism, von Daniken, etc. is because they like to think they’re in on a secret, and that they’re the only people not being conned. So, as was mentioned before, we have to play on people’s desire not to be conned, and turn them against the people who really conned them. Let me present this as a rough draft of what I had in mind:
(The scene: two high school students walking to class.)
Joe: “Boy, I can’t wait for science class! Mrs. Grundy is going to teach us all about how evolution is a fraud!”
Jack: “A fraud? But evolution is the bedrock of biology!”
Joe: “But Mrs. Grundy says all the biologists are lying. And she says the earth is only 6,000 years old, too!”
Jack: “But evolution and the age of the earth affect too many sciences. Geology, astronomy, chemistry, physics- and biology! If they wanted to fake evolution, thousands of scientists from many different branches of science would have to be part of a huge conspiracy, all working in unison!”
Joe: “Well, you’ll see. Mrs. Grundy’s class is next.”
Jack (winking): “We’ll see, all right!”
(Scene: in the classroom. A teacher is lecturing the class. Personally, I can’t resist the thought of making her look like Mrs. Hooker, who was the creation-science teacher at my high school…)
Mrs. Grundy: “Thanks to our state’s new science standards, I can teach you about alternatives to evolution.”
Jack: “You mean like Hindu creationism?”
Mrs. Grundy: “Um…”
Jack: “Or Native American creationism? There are lots of religions that claim their creation stories are scientific. Are we going to talk about all of them?”
Mrs Grundy: “NO! Those are just silly. Christian creation science is the only one that works.”
Jack: “But what about equal time? Shouldn’t you present all the alternatives, and let us make up our own minds?”
Mrs. Grundy: “Er, maybe we should talk about evolution first. Evolution is a fraud! For years, evolutionists claimed that Piltdown Man was an ancestor to the human race- but later we found that the fossils were faked!”
Jack: “But years before the fraud was revealed, evolutionists knew something was wrong with Piltdown man! They found new fossils that showed that if evolution is true, then Piltdown man couldn’t be part of the chain of fossil ancestors! If evolution is false, how could they have known that?”
Mrs. Grundy (fuming)
Jack: “And what about the Paluxy river footprints? For years, creationists thought they were fossil human footprints alongside dinosaur footprints. Now, not even the Institute for Creation Research is willing to endorse the footprints, now that they found out that creationists were carving fake footprints into the rocks!”
Mrs. Grundy: “Maybe we should talk about the Flood, instead.”
Jack: “Good idea! Did you know that the creationist research team of Mr. X and Dr. Y spent thousands of dollars looking for Noah’s Ark, after they read an article in a German magazine which claimed that the Ark had been found? After years of searching, someone finally pointed out that the article was a hoax. The magazine they read was the April Fool’s issue! And they still can’t admit they were fooled!”
Mrs Grundy: “But there are plenty of scientists who believe in Intelligent Design. Jonathan Wells has a whole list of them!”
Jack: “But Wells’ list is a fake! Dr. Z checked Wells’ list, and every scientist he contacted thinks Intelligent Design is a fraud! They were shocked to learn that Wells had put them on his list without their permission!”
And so on, until Mrs. Grundy declares “I need a coffee break!” and hurries out of the room, dripping Chickian panic-sweat.
Joe: “But Jack, I’m a Christian. Isn’t evolution anti-Christianity?”
Jack: “Not at all! Worldwide, most Christians are evolutionists. Think of it this way: to a Christian, the Bible is God’s Word, and the universe is God’s work.” (Sidebar with Bible verse about the stones singing praises to God, etc., etc.)
(Cut to picture of flat earth.)
Jack: “Centuries ago, people thought the whole universe was just a dome over a flat earth.”
(Cut to picture of Hubble deep-field photo of galaxies.)
Jack: “Now we know that the universe is so much grander than that. If you hold out a pin at arms’ length against the night sky, the head of that pin covers billions of galaxies, each containing trillions of stars like the Sun! There have always been Christians who are afraid of science. And there have always been Christians who know that people like Darwin and Galileo help us understand just how wonderful the universe really is.”
Followed, of course, by a back cover full of url’s for www.talkorigins.org and so forth.
Since this thread got such an enthusiastic response, and since it’s more broadly about ignorance (although it has a focus on Chick) I’ve asked a mod to change the title to something more appropriate, so we can get more volunteers to try to make this thing work.
Also, I emailed the guy who wrote “Life in Anti-Christian America” asking if he would let us write a comic tract using some items from his list. Think of it: 16 different items from the list, with one item per frame of comic. Like so:
“…even our money bears a blatantly atheistic message!”
(closeup of photoshopped dollar bill reading, “GOD IS DEAD!”)
“Ben saw the parody… and it was good.”
I particularly liked “This Was Your Death.” It reminded me a little bit of “The Detective Who Dies!” from Tom the Dancing Bug.
That dialogue would go perfect with a few pictures. I think though that these little “Info” packets could be quite useful. As much as it dismays me to say this, I suppose not all of them should be anti-chick. Although, in this particular dialogue I think a cut scene to a picture of “Chicks” God would be good, he could be saying something like “stupid people, how did they get that from what I inspired?” Or, “who’s writing this junk?”
[Moderator Hat ON]
Title changed at OP’s request. While there does not appear to be a Great Debate in progress, since the thread deals with all the big Great Debate topics I am letting it stay in GD for now. Subject to my own discretion, of course.
[Moderator Hat OFF]
Oh I don’t know. While I certainly have no reference but my own experience, I’ve come across Chick tracts for years in many locations. College campuses seem to be swarming with them, and just take a trip to Mardi Gras and you’ll see his work all over the place (he even has one dedicated to Mardi Gras). Most people I’ve talked to don’t know his name, but they know his work. I don’t think he’s as obscure as you might think.
The only place I’ve seen any were on bus seats!
Those links are totally disgusting and have no basis in truth whatsoever. Oh, by the way, just got a new batch of Chick tracts that I ordered. 
please put them on bus seats then.
(then people will put their butts on them-appropriate)…
Your subjective truth, maybe. Not mine certainly.
I’ve never seen any Chick tracts in real life. Maybe its a regional thing? (I’ve lived mostly in the northeast).