The World of Jack T. Chick [Paperback]

Robert B. Fowler (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 2001

For nearly 40 years Jack Chick has written and published hundreds of illustrated gospel tracts in close to 100 languages. Copies of Chick’s tracts are even displayed in the Smithsonian Institute as an integral part of American culture. These fire-and-brimstone giveaway comics have been called offensive, hilarious, inspirational, and frightening. Robert Fowler has created an exhaustive index and summation of Chick’s works, examining their history as well as the views of this maverick Christian fundamentalist cartoonist. Under the guise of a collector’s resource, this book analyzes each Chick tract in detail with essential information about content and circulation. “[Chick’s] artwork is really interesting and intense and the guy’s world outlook is so psycho and twisted.... But the books are really interesting because, sick as the stuff is, it’s so well done.” — Robert Crumb

Product Details

• Paperback: 96 pages
• Publisher: Last Gasp of San Francisco; First Ed edition (June 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0867195126
• ISBN-13: 978-0867195125
• Product Dimensions: 8.4 x 11.1 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (10 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,436,960 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

17 of 21 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Breathtaking!, October 31, 2001

By 

Ryan McCulloch (Pittston Twp., PA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The World of Jack T. Chick (Paperback)

An amazing resource to the odd world of Chick collecting. Mr. Fowler has crafted an exhausting, almost overwhelming guide to all of Chick's works and articles about him. Everything is cross-referenced to the point of where the reader is nearly overwhelmed with information. Minute details of publishing histories and changes to individual tracts are documented down to the smallest letter. The book (presented in a distinctive computer printout style, possibly due to its origins as a self-published work) is packed with charts of pricing info and catalog numbers. But even casual Chick fans will enjoy the "History of the World" segment, which ties all of Jack's wild theories into a cohesive narrative, and a segment devoted entirely to fun trivia (there's a list of every instance of the term "haw" for instance). Each tract and comic is described, and info is given on various parodies and rip-offs. This is a must for all Chick fans (both "saved" and otherwise)!

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good, but it could be SO much better, June 24, 2008

By 

Justin Gaines (Northern Virginia) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The World of Jack T. Chick (Paperback)

I grew up in an evangelical Christian home, so I remember reading my fair share of Chick tracts as a kid, but it wasn't until later in life that I discovered just how disturbing these tracts, as well as their rabidly anti-Catholic comic counterparts were. Mostly I remembered that each one had more violence, demons and grim reapers than any of the mainstream comics or rock albums my parents worked so hard to keep from me. Further research of these tracts and their enigmatic creator Jack Chick led me to Robert Fowler's World of Chick.

This exhaustively researched, painstakingly detailed tome gathers a wealth of information on the personal history and published works of Jack Chick, cataloguing individual tracts and comics, as well as any subsequent revisions, and presents a history of the universe, as interpreted from Chick's works. It's insightful, funny, and is an invaluable resource for anyone fascinated by Chick and his unique brand of whackmobile fundamentalism with a super-sized side of paranoia! Or at least it would be if it weren't so godawfully hard on the eyes.

To be blunt, the interior of the book looks like the product of an aging typewriter and photocopier. I realize it was a self-published project, but given the availability of software like Microsoft Word, there's really no excuse for producing something this hard on the eyes. The total lack of graphics and artwork (it includes reproductions of the back covers, but no front covers or interior artwork - at all - was also disappointing. A well placed picture would have broken up some of the tedious text pages, and presenting the cover and a few interior panels of each tract discussed in the book would have been a great asset. Compared to Daniel Raeburn's illustration-rich analysis of all things Chick in his indy comic The Imp, this book comes across as woefully inferior.

This was obviously a labor of love for the author, and I'm in awe of the amount of research that went into this book, but ultimately the poor presentation proved too difficult to look past, so the best I can rate The World of Chick is 3 stars. I loved the content, but reading it ended up feeling way too much like work. Hopefully future revisions will be better presented.

14 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Exhaustive!, January 17, 2002

By 

R. Davis "rddrn" (Madison, AL US) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: The World of Jack T. Chick (Paperback)

This is a phenomenal reference guide to the bizarre world of Jack T. Chick. Anything you could ever want to know about Chick, his writings, and his critics is collected in one volume. Here his evangelical comix are coded, sorted, analyzed, reviewed, and placed in context within the Chick canon. The obvious dedication and love put into this book is incredible. Equally obvious is the enjoyment, fascination, and obsessiveness of the author.

The only way this book could be improved would be to spruce up the table of contents (page numbers would be helpful), make the section headings more obvious, and provide a key for the code (maybe it's there and I just haven't found it). But those are pretty minor flaws in an overall great work.