History YMMV / ChickTracts

** [[https://pbs.twimg.com/media/ClcHGYgUkAAMk8K.jpg This edited tract]] is commonly brought up on Tumblr.

* SpiritualAdaptation: Given it's {{Western}} setting, [[OffModel wonky art]] (like most tracts.), and skewed morality (again, like most tracts.), "Gunslinger" is probably the closest thing to a comic adaptation of ''VideoGame/TheTownWithNoName.'' "Terrible Tom" even sounds like the name the outlaws you'd fight.

--->'''Cathy''': Remember now - you asked for it --- you'd better sit down, Mr. Bishop!

--->'''Holly''': Get that robe off, Samantha.[[note]]For context, Samantha's wearing a long-sleeved T-shirt and overalls under the robe, but still...[[/note]]
* 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.]]

* SpaceWhaleAesop: "Fairy Tales?" don't teach your children about stuff like the Easter Bunny or else they'll grow up to [[DisproportionateRetribution become a terrorist]] when they find out they're not real.
** "Wounded Children", showing pornography to children will not only scar them for life, but make them gay...[[OldShame even Jack realized]] down the road that this Aesop was kind of insane.
** Speaking of which: "Lisa", pornography (again) and women working outside the home will lead to incest...which you can be forgiven for if you accept Jesus even if you have your daughter a deadly STD.

* StopBeingStereotypical: A likely reaction from some Christian critics- sure he may be ''trying'' to present the gospel, but in doing so invokes every bad fundamentalist cliche in the book.
-->'''The Luigiian''': [[http://badwebcomicswiki.shoutwiki.com/wiki/Jack_Chick_Tracts Really, as a Christian who sometimes tries to witness to my Pagan and atheist friends, thanks a fucking lot you obnoxious asshole for making my religion look like outright lunacy.]]

* WindmillCrusader: What most non-readers view Jack Chick as.
* TheWoobie: Quite a few of them, in fact. The protagonists of "Unloved", "Somebody Loves Me", "Hard Times", "Lisa", and "The Poor Little Witch" -- to name a few. Also, the various characters who end up being tossed into hell could be considered unintentional examples of this trope.[[note]]That said, it may not be completely unintentional-- the readers may well be supposed to feel sorry for the damned because they gave up their chance at salvation.[[/note]]
** 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. GodIsEvil indeed.

** JerkassWoobie: Bruce in "Fallen." Granted, he's abrasive to others and displays indications of being an UngratefulBastard at times, but since the tract focuses on him getting his comeuppance rather than what he did to deserve it, his suffering can seem unfair. He also decides to wait to consider accepting Jesus, instead of rejecting Him outright, and ends up going to Hell merely for waiting.

** IronWoobie: The woman in the hijab from "Faithful". She converted to Christianity, and even converts her friend April. Unfortunately, at the end of the track, she is beaten by some Muslims that want to "teach her another lesson". She forgives them, of course, it's still disturbing that this happened at least once before.

* SeasonalRot: As Hugo and Jake from ''WebVideo/TheBibleReloaded'' pointed out in their [[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGDOJr9mYZo&t=134s reading of "I See You,"]] one of the first tracts written and published after Jack Chick's passing, if you can believe it, the tracts are actually going ''down'' in quality. If you look at that tract for what it is, it's exactly what the Chick Tracts are, boiled down to their base elements; a message that you should be worried about being judged by God, to the point of being paranoid about not being in His good graces, images to reinforce the words, and narration that spells it all out to the readers. It's not even entertainingly bad like a lot of the ones that came before it, it's just what you expect instead of a story using InsaneTrollLogic to try to convince you to follow Christianity and its god. It's just so forced with the NightmareFuel that it ceases to be entertaining in its insanity at the very least.

* {{Glurge}}: Oceans and oceans worth! "[[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0006/0006_01.asp Somebody Loves Me]]" is the canonical example, though.

* CanonDefilement: ''[[https://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0092/0092_01.asp Humbug!]]'' is Jack Chick's adaption of Literature/AChristmasCarol. It is completely stripped of the original message of the Dickens version, in favor of simply being another story about a {{jerkass}} who converts to Christianity. Even the Ghosts of Christmas Past, Present and Future are AdaptedOut in favor of just having Marley convert Scrooge.

** In "Big Daddy", Jack tries to debunk evolution. His main source for that tract, Kent Hovind, is an "expert" on the Bible[[note]]and even his exegesis leaves much to be desired[[/note]], not on science, which shows throughout the tract. 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, 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.

** 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).

* CrossesTheLineTwice: The tracts often end up doing this unintentionally. For example the Grim Reaper's hilariously inappropriate "Hi there!".
** The "Dark Dungeons" movie is doing this ''quite'' intentionally. The theatrical trailer ends with the reveal that tabletop games aren't the product of Satan as Chick claims. No they're the product of ''[[RefugeInAudacity Cthulhu]]''.

* FamilyUnfriendlyAesop: Quite frequently. Some specific examples;
** "The Bully": "Even someone whose bullying caused people to reject Jesus and end up in Hell might repent and [[KarmaHoudini go to Heaven]]."
** "Fat Cats": "MeetTheNewBoss, [[Music/TheWho same as the old boss.]]"
*** Additionally, there's an over-arching theme that no government created by man is anything close to acceptable. Rather than do anything to change it, which would be the LOGICAL thing to do if Christians are so upset about it, we should wait for the Second Coming of Christ.
** "Gun Slinger": says verbatim, "Going to Heaven is not a matter of good or bad. It's a matter of saved or lost," explaining why Terrible Tom goes to heaven after repenting for his sins, but the non-Christian Marshall goes to hell despite being a law-abiding person.
** "[[http://www.angelfire.com/on/3angels/lisa.html Lisa]]": Viewing pornography and a breakdown in one's marriage leads to molesting children, among other things--or vice-versa. Also that raping a child, infecting her with an incurable STD, and allowing your neighbor to do the same is perfectly acceptable so long as you become a very certain type of fundamentalist Christian afterwards (hell, you wont even face any real world punishment), whereas not being a very certain type of fundamentalist Christian gets you thrown into hell even if you were a good person in life.
** "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."
** "[[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0008/0008_01.asp Why No Revival?]]": Why aren't things going well for Christianity? Because of MoralMyopia, because GoodIsNotNice, because of HolierThanThou attitudes... Jack Chick wants his fellow Christians to know: [[WhatTheHellHero you're falling down on the job here!]] Even more tellingly, he makes note of the fact that the tract is not for the unsaved, possibly because he doesn't want them to see what's wrong with Christians. [[{{Hypocrite}} Some of the attitudes condemned in that tract are things Chick himself has exhibited in other tracts.]]
** "[[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1070/1070_01.asp Uninvited]]": Homosexuals are that way because they were molested as children. From the same it appears to be claiming that ''getting raped'' is a sin. What. But God will still forgive you. WHAT.
** Also [[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1000/1000_01.asp God will cause untold death and suffering]] on innocents because Chick thinks their nation [[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1055/1055_01.asp wronged Israel and/or the Jews]] at some point in their history. He then states that Jesus will personally save Israel during the Apocalypse and will damn all the people who live in nations who have ever (in Chick's mind) wronged Israel and the Jews to hell... yet he explicitly states that [[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0014/0014_01.asp the Jews are all damned to hell for not believing in Jesus and killing him on the cross]]. The implication here being that [[TheOnlyOneAllowedToDefeatYou Jesus wants no harm to come for the Jews because he wants to send them to hell personally]]. Chick, like a lot of fundamentalists, wants Israel to keep existing so Armageddon can happen there. TheRapture (and by implication, the [[ApocalypseHow Apocalypse]]) is actually a desirable outcome for a fundamentalist, one presumes. For further UnfortunateImplications, consider that MutuallyAssuredDestruction is [[NotAfraidToDie no deterrent at all]] to someone who's expecting eternal salvation in the afterlife.
** In "Flight 144," as mentioned above, people are judged not by how much good they've done, but by how many people they converted to Christ. This also gives the message that it's pointless to help people in life.

* 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 tracts, uninterested, or [[SnarkBait 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.

* SnarkBait: [[http://chickdissections.blogspot.com/2007_07_01_archive.html Oooooohhhh yeeeeaaaah]].

** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Rivera_(activist) There is also how the fact that Chick based his anti-Catholic views off of the exposed 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.

** It's weird how well Satan comes off in the banned 'Wounded Children' Tract, considering he's ''The Devil''. Instead of being evil to the degree you'd expect, he comes off as a guy who fully accepts the main character of the Tract, David, as being gay when even ''his family'' wouldn't and encourages him to embrace who he is, even being his wingman when he goes to a gay bar. Then he gives David actually useful advice to take it slowly with understanding himself and his journey to accept his being gay. Sure, it's apparently Satan who put him on the track to being gay, but afterwards he actually legitimately tries to help David be gay in a time when that wasn't socially accepted. The tract, instead of being entirely about blaming homosexuality on Satan, comes off more like it's saying to hate gays just because they're gay and influenced by Satan rather than any legitimate reasons. David himself comes off as a {{Woobie}} because he's not a bad person, he's just a guy trying to understand who he is and why. The tract even, most likely unintentionally, says being gay isn't a person's choice when it shows David struggling to be happy with himself before he accepts his homosexuality. Sure, he's influenced by Satan at most, but it's not a choice he would've made on his own.

* ConfirmationBias: The tracts have been particularly criticized in how while they're intended to convert people to their version of Christianity (more often than not believing that the type of EasyEvangelism seen in the tracts [[WrongGenreSavvy actually works]]), most of the time they're used to preach to the choir. As if that wasn't enough, most of the non-Bible sources cited come from books also published by Chick Publications.

** "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. 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.
** [[https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Alberto_Rivera_(activist) There is also how the fact that Chick based his anti-Catholic views off of the exposed Alberto Rivera.]]
** 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.
*** In-game death is treated as so permanent that the girl ''hangs herself'' over her supposed inability to play the game anymore.
*** 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.
** Essentially everything that he writes about other sects or religions, especially Catholicism's supposed worldwide conspiracy.
** In "Big Daddy", Jack tries to debunk evolution. His main source for that tract, Kent Hovind, is an expert on the Bible[[note]]and even his exegesis leaves much to be desired[[/note]], not on science, which shows throughout the tract. He also uses Hovind's outlandish DinosaursAreDragons theory as the basis for "There Go The Dinosaurs".

** 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.

** Neither does he seem to have even rudimentary knowledge of Egyptian mythology.

** The notorious "Dark Dungeons" made roleplaying out to be an exciting life-or-death scenario that introduced real occultism and gave players fabulous supernatural powers that they can use to [[MindControl brainwash]] their parents into buying them stuff. [[MexicansLoveSpeedyGonzales More than a few roleplayers love the tract]] and it has been parodied and affectionately referred to in innumerable ways among the subculture.
*** The tract has become so famous that a live-action movie was funded on kickstarter. [[http://www.kickstarter.com/projects/295102457/rpgs-are-evil-dark-dungeons-the-movie "Dark Dungeons: The Movie!"]] seems to have gotten most of its backers from the gaming community.

** "[[http://www.angelfire.com/on/3angels/lisa.html Lisa]]": Viewing pornography and a breakdown in one's marriage leads to molesting children, among other things--or vice-versa.
*** Also that raping a child, infecting her with an incurable STD, and allowing your neighbor to do the same is perfectly acceptable so long as you become a very certain type of fundamentalist Christian afterwards (hell, you wont even face any real world punishment), wheras not being a very certain type of fundamentalist Christian gets you thrown into hell even if you were a good person in life.
** "The Little Bride": "Muslims are pedophiles, and cultural ValuesDissonance is no excuse."
*** ValuesDissonance is ''never'' an excuse with Chick. Any values he doesn't believe in are Satan's doing, you see.
*** Also, "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."
** "[[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0008/0008_01.asp Why No Revival?]]": Why aren't things going well for Christianity? Because of MoralMyopia, because GoodIsNotNice, because of HolierThanThou attitudes... Jack Chick wants his fellow Christians to know: [[WhatTheHellHero you're falling down on the job here!]] Even more tellingly, he makes note of the fact that the tract is not for the unsaved, possibly because he doesn't want them to see what's wrong with Christians.
*** Some of the attitudes condemned in that tract are things Chick himself has exhibited in other tracts.
** "[[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1070/1070_01.asp Uninvited]]": Homosexuals are that way because they were molested as children.
*** From the same it appears to be claiming that ''getting raped'' is a sin. What. But God will still forgive you. WHAT.
*** [[RapeAndSwitch A boy being molested by a male becomes gay, but a girl being raped by a man becomes a lesbian]]?

* InformedWrongness: Esau's disregard for his birthright is treated as reason enough for God to hate him, but it's never adequately explained as to why it's so bad compared to many characters who did worse and were not hated, or why it excuses Jacob conning him out of it.

%% Citation needed.
%%* UnfortunateImplications: The tract [[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1064/1064_01.asp "The Little Sneak"]] of the "Black Tract" series is said to be for "older children". The whole story revolves around a family living in a straw-and-mud hut, where the boy steals the family savings and buries it in the backyard for no apparent reason. The entire tract is told with NO WORDS WHATSOEVER. (Except "No!")
%%** One could argue that the very fact that there is a separate tract series just for black people is this trope.
%%** Numerous tracts imply or even outright state that, essentially, the afterlife is the only life that matters, which carries a lot of creepy, borderline-nihilistic connotations. Perhaps most blatant in "The Walking Dead," which includes an explicit comparison of Earthly life to ''zombification''.[[note]]Of course, devout Christians would argue that this is essential to the central message of Christianity, full stop. Nevertheless, there are also passages in Literature/TheBible that make it clear that even on Earth, people are still supposed to love one another and care for their needs.[[/note]]
%%** Chick seems to believe in the Divine Right of Kings or something similar, as a few tracts state that authority is vested by God and authority figures, including dictators, are never to be rebelled against. This comes across in his portrayal of God Himself, too; quite often he seems to fail to make his position seem appealing at all, instead painting God as a tyrant who should be followed simply because He's too powerful to resist.
%%** Chick advocates physical abuse in disciplining children in several tracts, and a recurring feature of his end-time dystopias is that even ''scolding'' a child has been made illegal, which is portrayed in such a way that makes it clear Chick wishes beating one was still legal, too. He never gets around to showing how a "good Christian" family would discipline their children, though.
%%** In the notorious "Lisa" tract it is shown that a man who repeatedly raped his young daughter, pimped her out to her neighbour, and infected her with an incurable STD escapes all consequences both in the afterlife (due to him saying chick's magic words) and in real life as the doctor who finds all this out lets him get away scott free because the man converted, without even contacting the authorities. Similarly the mother who both ignored this abuse and physically and emotionally abused the child herself gets away with it due to her saying the magic words as well.
%%** Averted with the most obviously loathesome of Chick's "Aesops" as the implications that 99.99% of humanity are evil, hateful scumbags going straight to hell [[LongList for being non-christian, gay, the wrong kind of christian, a believer in basic sciences, a celebrator of halloween, someone who enjoys pretty much any work of fiction even by avowed protestants (i.e. C.S Lewis), listening to music, playing boardgames, not supporting Israel enough (even though the Jews themselves are definitely going to hell), resisting a dictator, being a child who believes in Santa or the Easter bunny, anyone who does anything Jack Chick happens to disapprove of, etc,]] are entirely intentional due to the author's fervent belief that everyone he hates will be punished by god.

* StrawmanHasAPoint: In [[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/0003/0003_01.asp "Somebody Goofed"]] as well as the "edited for black audiences" version [[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1108/1108_01.asp "Oops!"]], a man named Bobby overdoses on speed and as his friends and family are gathered around, a Christian shows up to tell them all about how Bobby is burning in Hell right now. When another man shows up to stop him we're supposed to side with the Christian. Of course, whether the Christian is right or not, moments after the death of a loved one is usually not the best time to preach to people (let alone say he's suffering eternal damnation for his choices), making the other man totally justified in trying to shut him up. Less justified, but still understandable is when he [[IllKillYou physically assaults the Christian]]. [[spoiler:However, given that the former is actually Satan himself in a human guise -- trying to exploit the funeral to embitter more people against God, no less -- the Christian can likewise come as across as ProperlyParanoid in retrospect.]]

** Ashley in "Baby Talk". Her family doesn't give a rat's ass about her and make her sleep on the couch, her boyfriend dumps her after learning she's pregnant, and ends up nearly forced to get an abortion by her family when she's unsure what to do. [[spoiler: It does end happy for her, since her boyfriend does come back and they make up.]]

** [[http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1080/1080_01.asp The Last Surprise]], coming from Chick Tracts, gets more hilarious when eventually the title was used as a [[{{Earworm}} catchy]] battle theme for ''VideoGame/{{Persona 5}}'' where the climax battle involves [[spoiler:the protagonist summoning their equivalent of Satan to shoot the equivalent of God in the face with a bullet.]] Jack [[Memes/{{Persona 5}} would never see it coming]], seeing that he died shortly after the game was released in Japan and it took the next year until the game was released at his home country.

* MagnificentBastard: Jack Chick’s version of Satan. A large number of Christians who otherwise would go straight to Heaven are doomed to hell because they are members of the Catholic Church. A religion created by no one else other than the devil himself.

** Overlaps with JerkassHasAPoint and EveryoneHasStandards, since their tract criticizing Jehovah's Witnesses depicts a little girl dying because her parents [[AgainstMyReligion not believing in modern medicine]]. {{Glurge}} aside, this shows even Jack Chick wants your children to have proper medical attention rather than just praying to make it go away! Sadly even overlapping with VindicatedByHistory since anti-medicine views are even stronger among certain sections of the general population than when the tract was first published.

** Overlaps with JerkassHasAPoint and EveryoneHasStandards, since their tract criticizing Jehovah's Witnesses depicts a little girl dying because her parents [[AgainstMyReligion not believing in modern medicine]]. {{Glurge}} aside, this shows even Jack Chick wants your children to have proper medical attention rather than just praying to make it go away!

*** 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 A. That's not in the rules anywhere, and in fact there are rules that cover sparing an enemy 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.

--->'''Holly''': Get that robe off, Samantha.

* SomeAnvilsNeedToBeDropped: You’d be surprised, but there are at least three solid messages to take from many of the comics:

* HilariousInHindsight: [[http://enterthejabberwock.com/pics/chick/bewitched/0045_06.gif The]] [[http://enterthejabberwock.com/pics/chick/bewitched/0045_09.gif demons]] in "Bewitched?" look eerily similar to [[http://vignette2.wikia.nocookie.net/spiritedaway/images/c/c8/No-Face.png/revision/latest?cb=20120724115624 No-Face]] from ''Anime/SpiritedAway'', which was released a year after the tract.

** The mother taking her son's place on the gallows in "The Execution" resembles a twist in ''Literature/HarryPotter'' -- a twist that's more complicated but makes more sense than the one in the Chick tract. In the [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire fourth]] ''Potter'' book, a Death Eater's mother is revealed to taken his place in [[TheAlcatraz Azkaban]] after she and the Death Eater took each other's places using a HumanShifting potion. The mother died before the potion wore off and was buried under the guise of her son, while the son left prison (though his father confined him to their home for over a decade afterward).

** The mother taking her son's place on the gallows in "The Execution" resembles a twist in ''Literature/HarryPotter'' -- a twist that's more complicated but makes more sense than the one in the Chick tract. In the [[Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire fourth]] ''Potter'' book, a Death Eater's mother is revealed to taken her son's place in [[TheAlcatraz Azkaban]] after she and the Death Eater took each other's places using a HumanShifting potion. The mother died before the potion wore off and was buried under the guise of her son, while the son left prison (though his father confined him to their home for years afterward).

** The mother taking her son's place on the gallows in "The Execution" resembles a twist in ''Literature/HarryPotterAndTheGobletOfFire''. In that story, a Death Eater's mother is revealed to taken her son's place in [[TheAlcatraz Azkaban]] after she and the Death Eater took each other's places using a HumanShifting potion. The mother died before the potion wore off and was buried under the guise of her son, while the son left prison (though his father confined him to their home for years afterward).

** Most of the protagonists in the tracts are insensitive assholes at best, downright self-absorbed, sociopathic fundamentalists at worst.