The Man Who Didn't Know Halloween

Over on my Facebook page, I have been sharing, more or less annually, a holiday post on the night before Halloween – the eve of All Hallows Eve, if you will. I made the first such post on October 24, 2016. Why that date? Well, it was the day after the death of the one and only Jack T. Chick (April 13, 1924 – October 23, 2016). He was the guy who created all those nifty "Chick tracts." 

You do remember those illustrated religious tracts, those little evangelizing booklets, don't you? I sure do!

I love how misinformed and over-the-top they were. But, as a comic book fan, I will admit that Chick's drawing style was very accessible, and it definitely lent itself to storytelling – even if that storytelling was uneven and laughable. Perhaps it was the former aspect, the accessible one, that compelled so many Protestant churches to display Chick tracts in their narthices. At least, I certainly recall seeing them in churches during the 1980s. 

On one hand, Chick might very well have been "the most widely read theologians in human history" – according to Daniel Raeburn, who said that of Chick in his 1998 booklet, The Imp number two (The Holy War of Jack T Chick). On the other hand, Chick was strongly anti-Catholic, hyper-critical of other faiths, and allegedly running an active hate group (i.e. Chick Publications is categorized under "General Hate" by the SPLC). 

Funny that Chick passed in October 2016; I wonder if ol' Jack would have been pleased that he passed so close to his beloved – er, bedeviled – Halloween. He certainly had a thing for the holiday ... and anything he could associate with it.

If you have never read a Chick tract, or if you just want to be reminded of them, jump on over to Paste's "8 Halloween-Themed Chick Tracts to 'Chick Out' This Halloweekend!" (dated October 28, 2016). "Boo!" is #4 on Paste's list. The cover of "Boo!" is this post's lead-in image, and Pages 16-18 of that tract are featured below. And you can read "Boo!" in its entirety at the Chick Publications site, which is *still* very much up and running!