When the judge saved Jimmy’s live, he thought he had a chance to get away with murder. Not so. Once he dies, he’ll have to face another judge- and already has a guilty verdict. Luckily, Jesus is a lot more forgiving.
This is one of those tracts that seems to point out that since Jesus died for our sins, we can sin as much as we want- even get away with murder- and Jesus will forgive us. It also features a particularly gory depiction of the Crucificion and who appears to be Christopher Walken showing his ignorance towards Christianity.
Is it just me or does one of the truck drivers look like one of those anti-semetic characatures you see in Nazi propaganda? Over all, if I were to rate this one I’d have to quote Brock Sampson, “Gay!” (Particularly the scene of the judge and the kid as the truck tire narrowly misses them. ;))
I’ve got a coupla beers in me - when I clicked on the link, the banner on top looked like it said “Pushing gospel literature for over 40 years”. Well it was worth a drunken chuckle anyways.
This tract was awesome! Especially the angel condemning the unwashed (cleanliness is next to godliness, you know), followed by the panel with Steve Buscemi questioning the divinity of Jesus.
I’m a bit concerned that the judge didn’t recuse himself from the trial in light of his personal relationship with the defendant. That’s gotta be grounds for an appeal.
I like the thought processes of the kid. He won’t be arrested, which is apparently his only reason for acting morally - I particularly like that he does indeed look totally normal until he realises this and dons the Face of Evil™ . And then of course his test; I won’t be arrested for walking on the grass! This means I won’t be arrested for murder!
The biggest problem I have with Chick tracts (besides the obvious) is that the “tempter” character (and there appears to be one in most strips) never gets his comeuppance. Sure, the hapless tempted victim guy gets his, but the one who suggested murder in the first place? Eh, he probably lived a long life and got forgiven or something.
Yeah, I didn’t think of that. But it did occur to me that it was an awfully small world, here. I was expecting to see him judged by people that just knew his judge friend.
I was thinking of starting a thread on “Guilty” with a related observation, though. Whether 1st degree murder, 2nd degree or a lesser charge jury trials would seem to be the order of the day. Now, I believe that in rare instances a judge will overturn a jury verdict, but in a case like this the kid would have to be stooopider than JTC himself to think that might happen. Maybe he was thinking that the jury would be enthralled by his friendship with the judge?
In any event, the judge would be only presiding over the trial, out here in the real world. It seems odd that even someone like Chick would not know this.
Jack’s just phoning them in these days. Where’s the totally warped condemnation of the Catholic Church? We get a few stereotypical “Jewish” characters, but no comment on their lack of belief. Where’s the fire? The passion? The batshit crazy ravings?
Another thing to consider: In just about every jurisdiction, there’s no guarantee you’ll get a particular judge. They draw your name out of a barrel and randomly assign your case.
What Jack needed to do was replace the judge with a Governor, or even the President. Then the character might be able to truthfully say that he can do whatever he wants and get pardoned.
Despite Chick’s tireless efforts to make his theology easily accessible with these little cartoon analogies, each one seems to raise far more questions than it bothers to answer. If Judge Rawlings is supposed to represent Christ in this little dramatization, then shouldn’t he logically have pardoned Jimmy? That’s what Chick assures us that Christ will do if we pray to him, so the entire tract seems to be arguing against its own conclusion. Jimmy placed his faith in Judge Rawlings to forgive his sins, and the judge totally let him down. Also, how is it that people can bring sunglasses to heaven but not clothes?
That’s funny; I was thinking the same thing about Judge “Rawlings”. I think Chick has been at this so long that he draws everybody as an anti-Semitic caricature, whether they’re supposed to be Jewish or not!
This isn’t too bad for a basic Fundy Gospel tract.
Quick summary of the artists- Chick did all/most of the early (1960s) ones, then black pastor/artist Fred Carter came in during the 1970’s to do the more realistic (photo-type) art. The black character in the CRUSADERS series is alleged to look much like Carter in his younger days. There have been other artists helping over the years but Chick & Carter are the main two. It does look like there may be new artists for both the Chick-like cartoonish & Carter-like realistic tracts. Both Chick & Carter are getting old & in inconsistent health in recent years, so either their abilities are declining and/or they’re training apprentices.
