First, here’s a hint. If you’ve been trying to find the latest bi-monthly tract, you can no longer go to chick.com. You must go to http://www.chick.com for the site. To keep this up-to-date after the next tract comes out, here’s the specific “You Have a Date” link:
http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1072/1072_01.asp
Again, if you leave out the “www.” for the site or an individual page you will no longer be able access. I don’t know why, and it took me quite a while to figure out what was going on.
This is a “redress” of one of JTC’s earliest tracts. He’s done several variations for different ethnicities, but always with males. It’s a bit odd that now he wants to finally do one with a woman. (English-speaking, white, and probably an American/Canadian “WASP”.) When he finally updates the Battle Cry page, perhaps he’ll say why.
The most obvious difference in treatment is that Everyman in “This Was Your Life” was apparently naked, although he didn’t seem to care, or even notice. Naturally, that-other-Jack puts a robe on Everywoman, or rather her soul. Can’t have any naked female spirits running—I mean, floating, around.
Much of the framing is true to the original. BOTH focus two early Judgment Day panels on sxual sn. In the original, our guy is shown to the entire universe telling a (horrors) dirty joke to his buddies (This something Chickie himself learned to deeply regret and be ashamed of, just going by the descriptions of his pre-saved early life.) This is quickly followed by our man very sneakily ogling a hot chick (hmmm…) from a vestibule. (I’ve always thought that JTC made this deliberately ambiguous. Is it really a matter of only covertly ogling a fully-dressed woman on the street? Or is the woman about to shed clothes and the character is an out-and-out voyeur? Maybe that’s a stretch, but the combination of crude B&W artwork and the implied deep shamefulness of the revelation give that effect. In one of his foreign language variations, a man is peeking at some cute tribeswomen bathing-- outdoors, but in apparent intended privacy. And while topfreedom, and perhaps even casual mixed-company nudity, may be normative to the culture, it may well still considered hostile, even criminal, by the same culture, to peek at the women bathing nude in a relatively secluded site. The taboo against staring at women in traditional Japanese mixed-company bathing may be germane here. I’ll look up the variation through a fan site and link up to it next time.)
ETA: Here it is, the Creole version: http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1602/1602_01.asp
In the remake (panels 12A and 12B-- in the tract convention of counting the cover) we have a little more spiciness to the corresponding sins, with the second one being about divorce-and-remarriage with indifference to a pleading daughter. The first panel is the killer, though, with a bisexual theme.
“Stop!” she pleads, “Don’t show what we did next!” Indeed. I don’t think it’s a stretch that a threesome follows. And since this is the Chickiverse, no doubt everyone gets to see some porn while waiting for their turn to be damned.
Sickie Chickie seems to have some axes to grind, and wants to keep up with the times as well, because the laundry list of time-stamped sins includes …pornography! Probably “only” viewing it, although considering the bi-scene prelude, perhaps she was in production as well. (I guess it’s only a sin to show, produce or view it if you don’t have a lightbulb head.) And, of course, one of Hackin’ Jack’s other favorite items to harp on… she dabbled (or more) in … brrrr! …witchcraft!
Well, of course, it could be worse. Our waspish-looking gal at least has a rap-sheet free of (cue for even more ominous music ) … CATHOLICISM!
That’s enough for now. There are a few tidbits that show either unknowing or indifferent sexism in master Jack’s thinking, especially in the alternate timeline, but I’ll end here, and wait for comments.
The OTHER Jack (FNA True Blue Jack)
