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Top 10 Fascinating Facts about Jack Chick
Jack Thomas Chick, an American cartoonist, and publisher who was born on April 13, 1924, and passed away on October 23, 2016, is best known for his “Chick tracts,” or religiously fundamentalist pamphlets. He used morality dramas created in sequential art to share his viewpoints on a range of topics. His pamphlets frequently accused Muslims, Freemasons, Roman Catholics, and several other organizations of murder and conspiracy. He was a premillennial dispensationalist Independent Baptist who believed in the End Times. He supported the King James Only movement, which holds that any English Bible translation published after 1611 is heretical or unethical. These are some of the fascinating facts about Jack Chick.
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1. Chick showed his artistic talent at a young age
It was evident that Jack had a talent for drawing since he was a little child. Because he was too preoccupied with painting airplanes fighting, he even failed the first grade. Jack developed artistic skills as he grew, which God would later utilize to great effect.
2. He was enlisted as a soldier in the United States Army
Logo of the United States Army-by United States Army-Wikimedia Commons
Chick was enlisted as a soldier into the United States Army in February 1943, during World War II. He spent three years in the Pacific theater, working in cryptography in New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines, and Japan. Despite his lack of combat experience, “nearly all” of the fellow servicemen he befriended were killed in battle, and many of them engaged in activities such as visiting brothels. Chick attributed his desire to translate his tracts into many various languages to his time spent overseas, and he stated that he had a specific compassion for missions and missionaries.
3. Lola Lynn Priddle Chick’s wife had a role in his salvation
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Chick returned to the Pasadena Playhouse after the war, where he met his future wife while working on a production. Lola Lynn Priddle (1926-1998), a Canadian immigrant from a Christian family, was “important in his salvation,” according to Chick. Chick was converted while listening to an edition of the Charles E. Fuller radio broadcast The Old-Fashioned Revival Hour, thanks to Priddle and her parents. In 1948, Chick and Priddle got married. Their only child, a daughter named Carol, passed away in 2001 as a result of complications from surgery. Priddle passed away in February 1998. The widower Chick remarried, this time to an Asian woman whose name has been given various spellings, including Susie and Susy.
4. He is primarily recognized for his extreme Christian “Chick tracts”
Chick began writing pamphlets at the age of 36 in 1960, following a religious conversion sparked by hearing a radio preacher. He wanted to evangelize others after adopting Christianity, but he was too bashful to discuss religion openly with people. He learned through missionary Bob Hammond, who had spoken on the Voice of America in Asia, that the Chinese Communist Party gained enormous influence among ordinary Chinese in the 1950s through the distribution of miniature comic books. Chick also started working with a prison ministry and made a flip board of graphics for his presentation. He had the notion of making testifying tracts that might be distributed directly or indirectly to people.
5. His stance on Catholicism caused some Christian retailers to cease stocking his pamphlets in the early 1980s
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Chick’s claims regarding the Catholic Church are “bizarre” and “frequently grotesque in their arguments,” according to Catholic Answers, and the pamphlets should be taken from the market and rectified. His anti-Catholicism attitude caused some Christian retailers to stop stocking his pamphlets in the early 1980s, and he withdrew from the Christian Booksellers Association after the organization considered ousting him. Christianity Today cited Chick as an example of “the world of ordinary, non-learned evangelicals”, for whom “atavistic anti-Catholicism remains as colorful and unmistakable as ever”.
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6. Many of his tracts were illustrated by Fred Carter
Chick used to write and draw all of the comics himself, but in 1972 he recruited another artist to do so for many of the pamphlets. Fred Carter worked anonymously on tracts until 1980 when he was discovered in an edition of Chick’s newsletter Battle Cry. Carter also created the oil paintings seen in Chick’s film The Light of the World, which depicted the Christian gospel.
7. He is the founder of Chick Publications
Chick Publications was founded in 1970 in Rancho Cucamonga, California. The company has published more than twenty-three full-color “Chick comics” since its inception. They are full-size comic books, with the majority initially appearing between 1974 and 1985. The first eleven issues comprise the Crusader comics series, which follows the adventures of two conservative Christians and explores issues such as the occult, Bible prophecy, and evolution theory. Chick Publications also sells “Chick tracts,” which are short comedic tracts with religious content. The majority of these are available in their full on the company’s website.
8. Chick and his theories have been described as “anti-feminist” and “anti-Pagan”
A comic book published by Chick Publications served as the basis for a 1989 presentation on the history of Satanism given by a police detective in Rapid City, South Dakota. Wiccan author Kerr Cuhulain has called Chick and his theories “anti-feminist” and “anti-Pagan” and has called him “easily the least reputable source of reliable information on religious groups.”
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9. His works are readily available in languages that are widely spoken
This Was Your Life was the Chick tract that was most well-liked which has been translated into about 100 other languages. There are many other tracts accessible in frequently used languages like Arabic, German, Spanish, and Tagalog. As well as Blue Hmong, Huichol, Ngiemboon, Tshiluba, and the invented language of Esperanto. Several of Chick’s writings have been translated into less often spoken languages.
10. He died from a life-threatening medical problem
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Chick revealed that he experienced a life-threatening medical problem between 2003 and 2005 in an article that appeared in the corporate periodical Battle Cry in 2005. He stated, “My blood sugar plummeted to 20 and the flu progressed into pneumonia (I am diabetic)… I was going into a coma. My wife dialed 911, and as the emergency personnel arrived, I suffered a heart attack. I had to get a triple bypass a day or two later.” Chick passed away peacefully in his sleep at the age of 92. The body was found in his Alhambra, California, home that evening on October 23, 2016. The burial took place in private.
Chick Publications, claims to have sold more than 750 million tracts, comic books, movies, novels, and posters promoting Evangelical Protestantism from a fundamentalist Christian viewpoint.
