History YMMV / ChickTracts

* ArchivePanic: There's more than over 250 tracts.

** The construction workers in [[https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=0076 "Hi There!"]] talk about many reasons someone might not believe the validity of the Bible, such as it contradicting itself sometimes, many of its' preachers obsessing over money instead of the gospel or their fellow man, and using scare tactics to try and get you to join (while being no less sinful or even more so than the average layman), and insisting that only THEIR denomination or church will keep you out of Hell. This being a Chick Tract, of course, God turns out to be real, but none of these points are addressed or refuted in any way by the comic itself.

* DontShootTheMessage: A lot of Christians are embarrassed by Chick, even those he doesn't consider "false Christians" by default (e.g. Catholics).
** On a broader sense, there are times when Chick has a point, but through his use of straw men, it's hard to swallow. For example, some of his tracts can be seen as saying that you shouldn't let peer pressure influence your beliefs. There is an entire chick tract regarding an alcoholic father who uses his money for alcohol and has essentially lost respect with his daughter, who is dragged to church and renounces his alcoholism. This lesson itself isn't entirely wrong as religion can help one recover from a bad habit, but like everything else one has to read several pages regarding Jesus and salvation that targets far more than just drunks.
** Chick spreads a lot of ideas that many evangelicals would sincerely question (KJV-Onlyism, the idea that rock music is evil, numerous conspiracy theories, etc.) which such evangelicals would criticise in addition to the actual shoddy presentation of and storytelling in the comics. So there is more to it than just this trope.

** "The Little Bride": "Muslims are pedophiles," "Your kids should never befriend people from different religions," and "It's wrong for young children to try to convert classmates to their religion, unless they happen to agree with Jack Chick's views and have adorable pigtails."

* AudienceAlienatingPremise: Chick Tracts are about a world where the devil literally controls everything and anything, people are almost always amoral idiots, monsters roam the night, and the only path to salvation is a tiny, fringe religious denomination that is entirely fine with over 99% of the rest of the world population going to hell if they don't decide to convert. Anybody who doesn't share these beliefs will most likely either be offended by the tracts, be uninterested, or only read them to make fun of them, and anybody who agrees with Jack's beliefs doesn't need the tracts to change their mind.

* WhatDoYouMeanItWasntMadeOnDrugs: Obviously, Chick was a straight shooter who railed against alcohol and drugs, which makes concepts like a pumpkin-headed, chainsaw-wielding Satan seem all the more whacked-out.

** The images from the [[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/sandwich-chef Sandwich Chef meme]] came from [[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0076/0076_01.asp this tract]].
** "HAW HAW HAW!", which doesn't really represent laughter very well, but nonetheless appears in almost every opportunity.
** "'''[[http://1.bp.blogspot.com/_zRh0f9tF950/Spp5uA6AHRI/AAAAAAAAAaA/dFo3EkE2nWQ/s400/chick_moon_god_tract.JPG Moon god?]]'''"

** Edits of [[http://i1.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/001/211/681/b1b.jpg this panel]] (from [[https://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0039/0039_01.asp "Charlie's Ants]]) of a man telling Jesus to shut up have become [[http://knowyourmeme.com/memes/most-people-rejected-his-message increasingly popular]].

* TearJerker: Everything Jimmy goes through in "Unloved?" His parents hate him for no given reason, he's constantly compared to his [[AlwaysSomeoneBetter sister]] and that's just his childhood. [[TruthInTelevision The worst part is that abusive families like this exist in real life]].

* TearJerker: Everything Jimmy goes through in "Unloved?" His parents hate him for no given reason, he's constantly compared to his sister and that's just his childhood. The worst part is that abusive families like this exist in real life.

** The couple from "Flight 144" who spent 50 years of their lives improving those of thousands of people in Africa, who get tossed into hell because they don't believe in Chick's particular section of Christianity.

** "The Little Bride": "Muslims are pedophiles," "Your kids should never befriend people from different religions," and "It's wrong for young children to try to convert classmates to their religion, unless they happen to agree with Jack Chick's ideas and have adorable pigtails."

* UnacceptableTargets: [[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0074/0074_01.asp Catholicism]] and [[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0018/0018_01.asp Judaism]].

** In [[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0070/0070_01.asp The Traitor]], an in-universe example comes up when the Hindu priest Ramu asks the Christian protagonist about how powerful Jesus is, asking about traits such as how many heads he has, what weapon he uses and the sacrifices he demands. It also falls into UnfortunateImplications by making Ramu (and, by extension, Hindus as a whole) seem barbaric. ({{A|rsonMurderAndJaywalking}}lso, the whole tract is an incredibly transparent ripoff of ''Film/IndianaJonesAndTheTempleOfDoom''.)

* AcceptableProfessionalTargets: College professors, who run the gamut from stick-in-the-mud strawmen to [[CardCarryingVillain active agents of the unholy]] but are almost never portrayed as in the right. Priests of any denomination other than born-again Evangelicals. Inverted, strangely, with doctors, who seem to be the only occupation consistently ''not'' in Satan's pocket.
* AcceptableReligiousTargets: Far and away, Roman Catholics are the single most vilified group in Jack's work. He blames them for practically everything, and insists they are Satanic--or at least, that [[CorruptChurch the senior church hierarchy is]], though ''individual'' Catholics as portrayed in the comics can range all the way from [[HateSink irredeemably evil villains]] to [[NotAlwaysEvil perfectly nice people]] (with the latter being unaware of the corruption in the higher ranks). Paganism and Islam are also generally presented in a negative light as are any priests that believe in oecumenical unity.
* AcceptablePoliticalTargets: Chick doesn't like Communism or Nazism, which is entirely normal. [[InsaneTrollLogic He blames both on Catholicism]], which is entirely abnormal. He also hates most flavors of social liberalism, which isn't out of the ordinary for a staunch Evangelical.
%%** Jack Chick is violently opposed to anarchism, communism, socialism and liberalism. He has far more in common with fascism than any other political ideology.
* AcceptableTargets: This work and its author are seen as this by many for their inane views.

** On a broader sense, there are times when Chick has a point, but through his use of straw men, it's hard to swallow. For example, some of his tracts can be seen as saying that you shouldn't let peer pressure influence your beliefs. There is an entire chick tract regarding an alcoholic father who uses his money for alcohol and has essentially lost respect with his daughter, who is drug to church and renounces his alcoholism. This lesson itself isn't entirely wrong as religion can help one recover from a bad habit, but like everything else one has to read several pages regarding Jesus and salvation that targets far more than just drunks.

* CriticalResearchFailure: Pretty much everything. Like many religious fanatics, Chick has no interest in such boring things as "facts" or "reality" if they get in the way of a good tirade:
** "Dark Dungeons" is similar to the film ''Film/MazesAndMonsters'' in that it bears little resemblance to how RolePlayingGames are actually played. For example, Marcie is instantly declared dead and does not even get to make a saving throw to see if she survives or even make a new character to continue playing, and in-game death is treated as so permanent that the girl ''hangs herself'' over her supposed inability to play the game anymore. Generally, instant deaths in role-playing are reserved for important non-player characters or [[RockFallsEveryoneDies players who have angered the GM]]. She is also treated as though she "no longer exists"; it's not like she could take her character and go to ''another'' gaming group, or even have someone here pay for a resurrection! Or, y'know, ''roll up a new character'' instead of getting booted from the gaming group (which your average GM will be more than happy to allow, as a less-than-full table isn't ideal). A more minor mistake is that full campaigns with large groups take quite a bit of setup, and overly large groups with over a dozen players would be incredibly complicated to balance, yet this drunken party of random teenagers set up and play a game in a matter of seconds with no confusion or difficulty.
** This version of Dark Dungeons remains in [[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/295102457/rpgs-are-evil-dark-dungeons-the-movie "Dark Dungeons: The Movie!"]] as well. One example, in the movie proper, is that in order to spare an enemy a player would be forced to give up all their character's wealth and items. Anybody who's played the game knows that A. that's not in the rules anywhere, and in fact there are rules that cover sparing an enemy, and B. you can actually play a character with more Christian morals that include sparing the enemy, or that there was one setup for a monk that prevented them from doing anything but sparing enemies.
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Rivera_(activist) There is also the fact that Chick based his anti-Catholic views on the testimony of the discredited Alberto Rivera.]] The long and short of it is that Rivera was a fraudster who pretended to be a former Jesuit priest to promote conspiracy theories about the Catholic Church. Rivera was easily exposed as soon as his credentials were called into question, but Chick apparently took him completely at face value without even bothering to check if his story was even plausible.
** In "Big Daddy", Jack tries to debunk evolution. His main source for that tract -- Kent Hovind -- is not a scientist; he holds himself out as a biblical expert, but even his credentials in that field are fake.[[note]]He has a phony doctorate from an infamous diploma mill, and makes basic mistakes that actual experts are quick to point out.[[/note]] He also uses Hovind's outlandish DinosaursAreDragons theory as the basis for "There Go The Dinosaurs". Using Hovind as a source is especially egreigous in this case, [[EveryoneHasStandards as even other Young Earth Creationists are embarrassed]] by how flimsy and spurious his work is, and most significant creationist organizations insist that Hovind's arguments should never be used to defend creationism. Chick either didn't get the memo or doesn't care.
** In one of the tracts about the Catholic Church, Chick claims that Martin Luther read the Bible and discovered that the bread and wine of communion are only symbols, not the actual thing. While it is true that Martin Luther rejected the Catholic belief that bread and wine are transformed into the actual body and blood of Jesus, he also made it quite clear that they were not mere symbols, instead urging followers to believe the body and blood are present and embrace it as a mystery beyond human understanding.
** His understanding of Islam is so lacking that he does not know basic things such as why Ramadan begins and ends on the crescent moon (which is in the Qu'ran and is so fundamental that it's taught to Muslim children) or that every Muslim knows exactly who Jesus is. Anytime Chick writes a track about Islam, he either makes up facts wholecloth or portrays Muslims as having almost no knowledge of what their faith actually teaches.
** [[https://www.chick.com/products/tract?stk=1058 "Is Allah Like You?"]] has the muslim protagonist realizing that the Qur'an has "meaningless words like Ssad and Quaf". "Sad" and "Qaf" are arabic ''letters'', not words.
** For the all times the tracts try to connect the Catholic Church with Nazi Germany, in real life, the Nazis wanted to establish a unified Protestant church and [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Religion_in_Nazi_Germany#Protestantism hailed Martin Luther as their national hero]]. The Nazis more or less viewed Catholics as being "too Jewish" and persecuted the Church, [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Holocaust_victims#Roman_Catholics killing and imprisoning millions of them]].
** The "Boo" tract depicts the ancient {{Druid}}s of the British Isles using pumpkin jack o'lanterns. Pumpkins are native to North America and so they would have been unknown to the ancient Druids (The Celtic precursor to the modern jack o'lantern is a carved turnip). One blog has pointed out a big flaw in Chick's story that Druids went from house-to-house on Samhain and chose a victim to sacrifice: at the rate of one member per household per year, the Druids would've run out of sacrifice victims in a few short years.
** Chick seems to have no clue as to the actual contents of the Harry Potter books (or is simply comfortable making shit up to support his agenda). He parrots the rumor that the books teach children how to do witchcraft, which is something that no one who has read any of the books would actually believe. In fact, the books are intentionally very vague about how the magic actually works and make it clear that the magic ''cannot'' be taught to anyone who doesn't have the innate ability to do it already.
** Neither does he seem to have even rudimentary knowledge of Egyptian mythology. His attempts to link whatever conspiracy theory he's got to the Ancient Egyptian religion require fundamental ignorance of even the most basic Egyptian myths, such as calling Osiris a "Sun god" or claiming that the ancient Egyptians used wafers of unleavened bread in their rituals.
** "The Little Bride" has Christian children who "almost became Muslims" when a Muslim classmate tried to get them to recite the [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Shahada shahada]] in a "repeat after me" fashion. Reciting the shahada in front of witnesses is the formal way to become a Muslim, but you can't just say it, you have to ''mean it''. And you're expected to read the Quran, study the religion, and consult with an imam before you do it. In other words, even if Li'l Susy hadn't arrived in the nick of time to shout "'''STOP! Don't ''ever'' say those words!'''", Becky and Tashana wouldn't have been considered legitimate converts.
** One so bad, even Chick acknowledged the mistake. Earlier editions of "Poor Little Witch" asserted that "40,000 to 60,000 ritual homicides per year occur in the U.S." According the the FBI, in 1986 (the year of the "homicide investigation seminar" that Chick cited as his source), the ''total'' number of homicides in the US, regardless of motivation, was 20,613. For the "40,000 to 60,000" to be correct, it would mean that in one year, Satanists would have to cause almost as many deaths as the US military suffered in 11 years of combat in UsefulNotes/TheVietnamWar (57,799). Obviously, someone notified Chick that his numbers were extremely impossible, and he [[OldShame quietly removed the offending claim]]. Luckily, it was in a panel of black-robed cultists gathered for a sacrifice, so he could just fill out the robes.
** A lighter example is the claim in "Still No Revival?" that Stewie Griffin is gay; ''WesternAnimation/FamilyGuy'' actually depicts him more as a DepravedBisexual.

** "Dark Dungeons" is similar to the film ''Film/MazesAndMonsters'' in that it bears little resemblance to how RolePlayingGames are actually played. For example, Marcie is instantly declared dead and does not even get to make a saving throw to see if she survives or even make a new character to continue playing, and in-game death is treated as so permanent that the girl ''hangs herself'' over her supposed inability to play the game anymore. Generally, instant deaths in role-playing are reserved for important non-player characters or [[RockFallsEveryoneDies players who have angered the GM]]. She is also treated as though she "no longer exists"; it's not like she could take her character and go to ''another'' gaming group, or even have someone here pay for a resurrection! Or, y'know, ''roll up a new character'' instead of getting booted from the gaming group. A more minor mistake is that full campaigns with large groups take quite a bit of setup, and overly large groups with over a dozen players would be incredibly complicated to balance, yet this drunken party of random teenagers set up and play a game in a matter of seconds with no confusion or difficulty.

* AuthorsSavingThrow: After the massive backlash from "Lisa", future Chick Tracts with child molestation ("It's Not Your Fault!" and "Home Alone?") would end with the rapist dying and going to Hell.

* SoBadItsGood: All of them. Every last one. Cheesy writing, worse art, {{Double Standard}}s and [[UnfortunateImplications cringeworthy stereotypes]] abound, and yet it's impossible to look away. The number of blogs dedicated to ripping these things apart is literally in the double digits, and general consensus among them is that "Dark Dungeons" is the "best" of the lot.

* IdiotPlot: Pretty much every Tract operates under the assumption that Christianity is smaller than it is, as usually you have one person having to explain what they believe and why, despite pretty much every one of them taking place in the modern day USA, a largely Christian country. [[SarcasmMode Yeah, good going, Jack.]]
** There are some cases like "Gomez is Coming" in which Catholics are apparently ignorant of basic aspects of Christianity (i.e. Jesus' sacrifice), and in "The Bull," a prison chaplain doesn't seem to be fully aware of who Jesus was.
** Even within the plots themselves there tend to be people who seem to be unnecessarily rude and dismissive of other people for often no real reason, and come around nearly instantly after being told of God or the salvation Jesus can give, renouncing their evil ways instantly. Apparently they weren't even that bad if they just changed their attitude within seconds after they start praying.

** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Rivera_(activist) There is also the fact that Chick based his anti-Catholic views off of the discredited Alberto Rivera.]] The long and short of it is that Rivera was a fraudster who pretended to be a former Jesuit priest to promote conspiracy theories about the Catholic Church. Rivera was easily exposed as soon as his credentials were called into question, but Chick apparently took him completely at face value without even bothering to check if his story was even plausible.

* UncannyValley: The animation of "Tiny Shoes" is abysmal.

* Tearjerker: Everything Jimmy goes through in "Unloved?" His parents hate him for no given reason, he's constantly compared to his sister and that's just his childhood. The worst part is that abusive families like this exist in real life.

* AcceptablePoliticalTargets: Chick doesn't like Communism or Nazism, which is entirely normal. [[InsaneTrollLogic He blames both on Catholicism]], which is entirely abnormal. He also hates most flavors of social liberalism, which is fairly normal-ish.

** Jack Chick is violently opposed to anarchism, communism, socialism and liberalism. He has far more in common with fascism than any other political ideology.