patrick.net

Jack T. Chick, the publisher of myriad "hellfire" tracts addressing everything from Dungeons and Dragons to Rock Music to Evolution, died today.

LOS ANGELES (AP) - Jack T. Chick, whose cartoon tracts preached fundamentalist Christianity while vilifying secular society, evolution, homosexuality, and the beliefs of Catholics and Muslims, has died. He was 92.

Chick died peacefully in his sleep on Sunday evening, according to a Facebook posting Monday by Chick Publications, based in Rancho Cucamonga, California. It did not provide other details, and a call for comment left after hours was not immediately returned. The posting promised that the company would continue Chick's method, vision and purpose.

Chick's pulpy, lurid cartoons combined traditional evangelism with frankly conspiracy-minded attacks. He and later other illustrators produced several hundred tracts over the decades. Latching onto the issues of the day, the tracts took aim at abortion, occultism, ecumenism and other perceived evils.

They portrayed everything from rock music to Dungeons & Dragons and Harry Potter as literal traps of the Devil.

One tract, "The Walking Dead," tapped into the hit zombie TV show but argued: "We're all like zombies. The spirits inside our souls are dead."

As with underground comics of the 1960s and 1970s, Chick's work opposed "The system." But instead of the military-industrial complex or "The Man," it was a secular society viewed as debased, demon-inspired and virulently anti-Christian.

One anti-evolution booklet, "Big Daddy?" has a college student exclaiming: "Then we didn't evolve! The system has been feeding us The Big Lie! We really do have a soul!"

http://www.wnem.com/story/33469020/christian-cartoon-tract-creator-jack-chick-dies-at-92