If you know or live near some seriously conservative Christians, or have a predilection for snarking on crazy conservative paraphernalia, then you very likely have, at some point or another, stumbled across the Chick tract. If you aren't familiar with them, check that link to their Wikipedia page for a brief introduction or, better yet, read a few at random from the official website, where they are all freely available.
Briefly, they are small, short booklets containing a comic-book-style story that usually tells how a certain thing (such as Halloween, Harry Potter, Catholicism, and homosexuality) is horrendously evil, will make you go to hell, and that Jesus is the only salvation. Now, as you can surely guess, these things are pretty much completely antithetical to my personal philosophy. As such, it would be easy for me to write a post here making fun of a specific tract, decrying how horrid his strawmen and stereotypes (used for "humorous" effect, of course), or going point-by-point through one to show how inaccurate it is. Many people online and off have done so, much better than I can. So instead, I want to tell you why these tracts, and by extension, their creator. Jack Chick, are an inspiration to me.
