Chick tracts are short evangelical gospel tracts, originally created and published by American publisher and religious cartoonist Jack T. Chick. Since his death, his company (Chick Publications) has continued to print tracts, including tracts by new writers. Although many of Chick's tracts express views that are generally accepted within mainstream Christian theology, several tracts have expressed controversial viewpoints. Most notably, Chick tracts express strong anti-Catholic views, as well as criticisms of other faiths, including Judaism, Islam, and Mormonism. Chick Publications produces and markets the Chick tracts, along with other comic books, books, and posters. Chick Publications has its headquarters in Rancho Cucamonga, California, and a mailing address in Ontario, California.
The company estimates it has printed over 800 million tracts during its first 50 years of business. On its website they note that "Our ministry is primarily publishing the gospel tracts of Jack T. Chick, but we do occasionally publish a manuscript in book form." They state that if the content "educates Christians in one of the areas for which we have a tract, we would love to see it" and cite several examples; the online store lists nearly a dozen book categories. As of January 2015, Chick Publications had produced over 250 different titles, about 100 of which are still in print, and are available in over 100 languages.
The tracts themselves are approximately 3 by 5 inches (8 by 13 cm), and approximately twenty pages in length. The material is written in comic book format, with the front panel featuring the title of the tract and the inside back panel devoted to a standard sinner's prayer. The back cover of the tract contains a blank space for churches to stamp their name and address.
The storyline commonly features at least one Christian person and one or more "non-Christians". Depending on the storyline the "non-Christian" may be a stereotypical "wicked person" (such as a criminal), a member of a "false religion" (such as Mormon missionaries), or a "moral person" using "good works" to gain entrance to Heaven as opposed to asking for salvation through Jesus Christ. In these storylines, the Christian attempts to convert the non-Christian to Christianity (and may also contrast with another character such as a "moral person"), with the convert receiving entry into Heaven while the person rejecting the message is condemned to Hell. The endings may feature a recycled scene in which Jesus Christ (portrayed as a giant, glowing, faceless figure sitting on a throne) condemns or welcomes a character, an angel taking the believer to Heaven, or the non-believer meeting demons upon his or her arrival to Hell.
The Southern Poverty Law Center has designated Chick Publications as an active hate group. The group was listed due to its strong anti-Catholic, anti-Muslim, and anti-homosexual rhetoric.
Jack Thomas Chick (April 13, 1924 – October 23, 2016) was an American cartoonist and publisher, best known for his fundamentalist Christian "Chick tracts". He expressed his perspective on a variety of issues through sequential-art morality plays. Many of his tracts accused Roman Catholics, Freemasons, Muslims, and many other groups of murder and conspiracies. His comics have been described by Robert Ito, in Los Angeles magazine, as "equal parts hate literature and fire-and-brimstone sermonizing". Chick was an Independent Baptist who followed a premillennial dispensationalist view of the End Times. He was a believer in the King James Only movement, which posits that every English translation of the Bible more recent than 1611 promotes heresy or immorality.
Chick was born in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, and later moved with his family to Alhambra. There Chick was active in the high school drama club. According to Chick, he was not religious in high school. After graduation, he continued his drama education at the Pasadena Playhouse School of Theater on a two-year scholarship. In February 1943, during World War II, Chick was drafted as a private into the U.S. Army. He served for three years in the Pacific theater, serving in New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines, and Japan working in cryptography. Although he did not see combat, "almost all" of the fellow servicemen he befriended were killed in action, and many of them engaged in activities such as visiting brothels. Chick credited his time overseas for inspiring him to translate his tracts into many different languages and said that he had "a special burden for missions and missionaries".
After the war, he returned to the Pasadena Playhouse, where he met his future wife while working on a production there. Lola Lynn Priddle (1926–1998), a Canadian immigrant, came from a very religious family, and Chick has said that she was "instrumental in his salvation". Priddle and her parents introduced Chick to the Charles E. Fuller radio show The Old-Fashioned Revival Hour, and Chick said that he was converted while listening to an episode of this show. Chick and Priddle married in 1948. They had one child, a daughter named Carol, who died in 2001 from surgery complications. In February 1998, Priddle died. Chick soon remarried to an Asian woman named Susie. After converting to Christianity, Chick wanted to evangelize others, but he was too shy to talk to people directly about religion. Chick heard from missionary Bob Hammond, who had broadcast in Asia on the Voice of America, that the Chinese Communist Party had gained significant influence among ordinary Chinese in the 1950s through the distribution of small comic books. Chick also began working with a prison ministry and created a flip chart of illustrations to use with his presentation. He hit upon the idea of creating witnessing tracts, which could be given to people directly or indirectly.
He self-published his first tract "Why No Revival?" in 1960. He paid for it with a loan from his credit union. He published his second tract, "A Demon's Nightmare", in 1962. He decided to create more tracts and began using his kitchen table as an office and art studio. Christian bookstores were reluctant to accept the tracts, but they were popular among missionaries and churches. He officially established Chick Publications in 1970 in Rancho Cucamonga, California. Initially, Chick wrote and illustrated all of the comics himself, but in 1972 he hired another artist to illustrate many of the tracts. Fred Carter illustrated tracts anonymously until 1980, when he was identified in an issue of Chick's newsletter Battle Cry. Carter also painted the oil paintings seen in The Light of the World, a film Chick produced that related the Christian gospel.
Chick had limited personal contact with the public; he gave only one known professional interview after 1975. The lack of available public information about him created some speculation that he was a pen name for unnamed authors. Chick died in his sleep at age 92. His body was discovered on the evening of October 23, 2016, in his home at Alhambra, California. The interment was private.
