Cringeworthy Comicbook Moments - Lisa

[espanolbot]

I've posted a lot of horrible things here as part of this series, but this is genuinely one of the worst comics that I have ever read. It's a propaganda comic that manages to play out like a satire of itself. Calling it cringeworthy is an understatement.

Trigger warning for child abuse.

An introduction - Jack Tracts are the work of a Jack T. Chick, though there has been some debate over the fact of whether that's his real name or not. His comics range from the ridiculous to the spectacularly offensive, giving a range opinions on everything from rock music, to how Catholics apparently run the world in secret from their underground base in the Vatican. Basic irrational fundementalist dogma.

But there is one strip that was apparently so ill conceived that it's one of the few that Chick or his company have had to retract from the twenty, thirty years that the Tracts have been published. And considering this is a company that once stated that all modern music, including rock, jazz, blues and Christian Rock, was secretly invented and run by Satan, that's really something.

And so, without further ado, I present Lisa: quite possibly the most unintentionally horrible thing that I've ever read.

*Claim fair use, as the Tracts are intended to be given out for free to people. I learnt this when a scruffy man handed one to me while I walked past a church in Chicago some years ago. And I should probably add that I have nothing against religion in general, so my criticisms for this strip shouldn't be interpreted as an attack on Christians or whatever.








...

Characters in this story, you are all terrible terrible people. Particularly you, Doctor. A child being given a STD by her father and his friends ISN'T A SITUATION WHERE YOU MOVE IN TO COVERT THEM TO RELIGION, YOU GET THE POLICE! RARRRRGGGGHHH!!!!

Fuck it, my new canon is that the guy is visited by the Spectre or Frank Castle or something shortly afterwards.

Comic from here,
http://www.fmh-child.org/Lisa.html

For non-horrible, but funny, sections of the Tracts, try this tumblr,
http://ohnojackchick.tumblr.com/

Comments

[abriel]

Chick obviously didn't check on his medical law before he wrote this. In real life if that doctor didn't make a call to the police the very moment he began to suspect child abuse he would have been committing a major ethical violation that could lead to him getting his medical license yanked. And if medical personnel suspect abuse they never confront the parents. Ever. The police handle that. The jobs of the doctors and others is to examine and treat the child and gather evidence to build a case, then testify in court. Confronting a potentional abuser can be downright dangerous and med people are told not to do it

(I was a rad tech intern so I had all this hammered into my head)

If nothing else the doctor is being a dumbass because how does he know he isn't putting his own life at risk by confronting daddykins?

Then again this is Jack Chick.

[espanolbot]

Well the submessage also seems to be that porn is a gateway drug to child abuse, or something, so it not being fully versed in medical law, even 1980s medical law, shouldn't be 100% suprising.

[beoweasel]

Since when has Chick done research on anything? :P

[riddler13]

Sorry, I know I shouldn't bring it up on such a serious matter, but... NOBODY BREAKS A PINKIE PROMISE! :D

[lascoden]

Among many, many, many other problems, one question: Who's saying that Hell is one big party? I've never had that conversation, and I've met people from all sorts of religions, including Satanists. They way the priest talks about, it's like that's the common perception. Does Chick think every time someone compares something to Hell, they're saying it's awesome?

[icon_uk]

Closest I can think of is "The Devil has all the best music"

[thosefew]

Is Lisa's age kept a secret until the very end? If that is the case I get the impression Jack Chick is aware on some level that he is writing a horror story.

[espanolbot]

Reading through it again, then it appears so yes.

Also, the lesson appears to be that porn'll bankrupt you and lead to you abusing your kids.

[icon_uk]

It's a good thing I was about to go and have a shower because I really feel like I need on now.

[kamino_neko]

Yeah, this is...I mean, Chick is never GOOD...sane...not evil.

But he kinda topped hisself with this one.

[whitesycamore]

This is one of the most vile things I have ever read and I am actually quite upset by this. Which is saying something, since I'm very rarely triggered by external sources.

Who IS Jack Chick? Is he mentally ill, or just incredibly stupid and parochial?

[icon_uk]

This is from his website, so you can decide

This is his wiki entry, whether that makes it better or not is your own decision

[q99]

I'm not seeing the first page (getting a 403 forbidden).


This is really nasty stuff.

[espanolbot]

Fixed, for what it's worth.

Imageshack keeps refusing to load random pages for me lately.

[junipepper]

I feel sick now. *shudders*

[blackruzsa]

Just one of those days you have to hide your face in your hands at the abject humiliation you feel from sharing religions with this guy.
):
Oh Jesus. Mister Fear of God doctor confused me, but for the most part, it's clear that he didn't handle that situation well enough to remember to call the police.

And oh god, Lisa.

[abriel]

Just about every religion has its asshat extremists (and as many religions as I've tried out before setting on Judaism I can feel confident in saying that I speak from experience). Can't let them drag you down although understandably it's hard especially when you're like "oh God, other people are going to associate me with that guy/girl".

[thanekos]

This'd be a better story (but not as effective tract) for me if it continued along the lines of Linda's " Great, Henry, but what does that do for me? "

And if it led into a bit of " You know what, just get out, asshole ", well, that'd be an ending I'd like to see.

[riddler13]

Oh Lord, you just had to go there, haven't you? :)

Fortunately, ImageShack does not open outside of US, so I can't see this crap again.

This tract is so callous and heavy-handed it's almost inhuman.

[icon_uk]

I'm outside the US and I can see it... I envy you your issues with ImageShack

[full_metal_ox]

Fuck it, my new canon is that the guy is visited by the Spectre or Frank Castle or something shortly afterwards.

Although she's not a comics character, my choice to sic on Papa Pedobear would be Lisbeth Salander of Girl With The Dragon Tattoo fame.

[lieut_kettch]

Haven't seen the Craig/Mara one yet, but the revenge scene in the Noomi Rapace version was supremely satisfying.

[baihu]

Funny thing, Jack Chick has never released a photo of himself, and apparently noone has one of him either. And not seen since 1975 or so.

I'm hoping here, he might be a fake penname for a cartoonist/cartoonists all out to MAKE mindless fundamentalists look bad by showing what they'd accept as tracts pertaining to the gospel; and then spun out of control.

Even in the name of satire and I suppose, 'trolling', there are lines you DO NOT CROSS.

[halloweenjack]

The story as I understand it is that the better art (at least more detailed and expressive) cartoons (as with the original scans above) are done by an African-American cartoonist who's worked with Chick for years, and the more primitive ones (as in the comment above, or in the "Somebody Loves Me" link below) is Chick's own work.

[silverzeo]

Hate PSA like these, trying to tell you something bad, but failed to address the problem realistically, while providing TOO MUCH INFORMATION, and expect everyone to buy it, like school PSA movie

Also, those bible quotes, or the use of them, contradict each other. We are not perfect, but God expects us to be perfect? And who is the target demographic for this comic series? I'm Catholic, and you said this also say Christians are "portrayed not to lightly" too?

[mommy]

"Raping children is fine provided you're a Christian" is the moral I got from this, which I really hope was not the intended message.

[kamino_neko]

That's...a pretty solid idea of Chick's style of Christianity.

If you're the right kind of Christian, no matter what bad things you do, no matter how little true remorse you feel, no matter how little good you do in this world - you're A Good Person, and thus going to Heaven.

If you're not the right kind of Christian, no matter what good you do, no matter how little bad you do, and how sincerely you regret what wrongs you do commit, you are A Bad Person, and thus going to Hell.

(Now, there's also the 'if you're a Christian of the Right Variety, you cannot commit these sins', which is a whole other kind of insanity.)

[his_spiffynesss]

At the store I worked, there used to be somebody who dropped off Chick Tracts all around the store for people to find. So I've read more of them than I'd really care to admit. I still find Somebody Loves Me the worst he's ever done just for it's existential nihilism.

[riddler13]

The only Chick tract I like is the Darkseid one!

(Which is a parody, obviously)

http://cissie-king.livejournal.com/13838.html

[filkertom]

It's a Jack Chick Tract™. He deals in lies and fear. And he has many, many issues.

[ensiform]

Unless you've been brought up in the world's most enlightened and enclosed bubble, I don't see what all the fuss is about this. It's like getting worked up over the non-PC content of Hitler's speeches or something. There are nuts out there; what are you gonna do?

Jack Chick is literally insane, and views the world through a lunatic prism of all-pervading, sado-masochistic, black-and-white judgement.

Think of his stuff as a lunatic in an asylum scrawling his incomprehensible manifesto on the wall in his own feces, and it won't seem so bad. Jack Chick just has the money and draftsmanship to use ink and paper instead of feces, that's all.

[espanolbot]

Just because the message is common, it doesn't make the subject matter any less bad. I chose to post this one, because, unlike the others which are just cases of amusingly bad research, this one... is terrible.

Like, I know of a case here in the UK where a girl was pimped out by her biological father while she was sexually abused by her mother and stepdad, only to end up in foster care, where she was promptly sexually abused by one of the male workers there as well. This case was then made into the film No Child of Mine for UK tv.

The fact that Chick would take such a horrible, real world situation and just slap a "Ah, it's okay if you and your buddies raped your five year old daughter as long as you except Jesus"... is mindboggling. This is another level to "rock music and DnD are the devil's tools!" messages from his other strips.

[md84]

A Chick Tract with a horrible enough message that even Jack Chick felt compelled to retract it? Wow.

[gerardotejada]

This comic is genius! I felt my stomach revolt, my hearth beated so hard! and when we see the girl is like 5 year old I almost died.

The whole preach was long and boring, but the rest was Wow! Men, its something to scarre you to the bones. Im still trembling...

PD: just read the whole note, is sick, this doesnt has nothing to do with religion or god or anyhting (shame on some of you that started the whole "religion law" discusion), no one in his right mind would aprove this shit, and religious people arent mentaly ill.

But man, what a great horror comic. Evil wins, thats how horror stories work.

[gerardotejada]

And that doctor could easely be Doctor Hurt or The Joker or the Devil himself posing as a human.

Lisa's Father

[skitster]

So horrible Alice Donut wrote a song about it: http://youtu.be/092DUlx2hX0 (obviously there's a warning hear as it has the same subject matter as the tract and a thick seam of black humour about the story)

[eaglet_auditore]

I couldn't read it all. I felt my brain cells die one by one and I heard their cries of agony echoeing through my eyes (which was weird).

The comment section was fun to read though. Disturbing, as I learned stuff I never wanted to know, but fun.