Weird Tract Number 57: "Ivan The Terrible" by Jack T. Chick

Troy Davis writes:

Although there are many out-of-print Chick tracts, most of them can be read online at the Chick Publications website (and can be custom-purchased at half price in multiples of 10,000). The 1984 tract "Ivan The Terrible" is not one of them, namely because the tract's Cold War theme makes it hopelessly dated (nevertheless, Chick Publications still sells the comic book Operation Bucharest even though Romania has been a democracy for decades and is currently a member of NATO). Someone scanned Ivan and you can read it online.  Also, the Jack T. Chick Museum of Fine Art has an extensive review that gives the lowdown on the tract (such as Chick's Russian Orthodox Church-bashing that took place well before Pussy Riot took the church on).

NOTES ON JACK CHICK: In my introductory post, I listed just a few of the many rare and valuable objects from The Museum's extensive Chick-related collection . . . The role of Ralph Rushtoi in the publishing careers of both Jack Chick and another comics-based tract writer Vic Lockman. . . I discuss the role of Bill Bright's prolific tract The Four Spiritual Laws in leading to a format change in Chick tracts that was a key reason why they have become much more popular since the late 1960s . . . My thoughts on Jack Chick's spreading of the peace symbol/broken cross mythology . . .  Jack Chick's retro-futuristic car in the scarce 48-page version of "The Beast" . . . Article on Chick by fellow Catholic-baiting Bob Jones University magazine . . .Catholic-bashing tract by Chick's protege Alberto Rivera . . . Knock-off of a Chick tract by James Lloyd:"Left Behind" . . . Chick tract parody "Constitutional Rites" . . . Chick tract parody "Donald Trump Is The Antichrist; Prepare for the Rapture!" . . .The 1972 Chick tract "The Last Generation." . . . The extremely rare 1970 Chick tract "Operation Somebody Cares" . . .The rare Chick Publications comic book "Jonah" by Chick and Fred Carter . . . The museum's prized cultural artifact, original art by Jack Chick. . . . Artifacts from the museum's collections:all of Jack Chick's high school yearbooks (which include the first published cartoon by Chick) . . . "Closet Witches" by Jack T. Chick (audio-cassette interview with Dr. Rebecca Brown and "Elaine").

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 56: "God Pronounces Judgement of America" by God (through R.G. Hardy)

Troy Davis writes:

The cover of this pamphlet informs the reader that it is "prophesy" that "was spoken by God through His servant. R.G. Hardy." Does that make Baltimore-based prosperity gospel preacher Hardy a prophet? I'm not here to make that call but I can declare that The Reverend Hardy is more of believer in profit because he has shilled gold "prosperity cloths" on his radio program.

If this undated harangue is The Almighty's words channeled through Pastor Hardy, then God should be known as The Great Gasbaggy Buzzkill. Should it take seven frigging pages to tell people to repent or burn? Really. To give you a taste of the longwindedness of the tract, here is the last paragraph:

        Cry aloud! Cry aloud! Cry aloud, my little ones! And let not sin remove thee, but stand
        in the hedge and make up the gap, and life [lift?] up thy voice and cry and lament! For
        the mighty have fallen, and the streets are defiled with the bodies and the blood of the
        slain. And the voice and the song of dance and music are hear [sic] in the street no more!
        --But the voice of wailing and weeping and crying, and the gnashing of teeth! Yea, lament
        lament, lament, lament, lament . . . Cry, cry, cry, cry, cry!

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

 

Weird Tract Number 55: "The 2 Crosses" by W.G. McCartney

Troy Davis writes:

I previously wrote about the hysteria in fundamentalist and Bircher circles about the supposed Satanic origins of the peace symbol when the anti--Vietnam War movement adopted it in the late 1960s. Tract publishers churned out tracts (and, in Jack Chick's case, comic books) that warned readers that the peace symbol was not a way to show your grooviness but rather part of a dark plot by The Beast itself.

This three-page undated pamphlet was published by Christian Missions Press which is still around (check out their web page that appears to be from 1994).  The author, W.G. McCartney, exhibits some serious paranoia on page two: "The communists have infiltrated the garment industry. The emblem of the "broken cross" is embroidered on many garments and is worn by Americans, some knowingly and some unknowingly. In this subtle way, the communists are making their bid to brainwash and gain the youth of America to believe the lie of the Anti-Christ that will later be revealed in the world as the Bible has prophesied." This line of reasoning was very popular in fundamentalist circles in the 1970s; for instance, in The Late Great Planet Earth, Hal Lindsey gave the popularity of the occult among the counterculture as evidence that Satan was marshaling his forces to battle once The Rapture occurs. I rate this tract F for Funky.

Note: I incorporate the "broken cross" as a satanic symbol in my various Chick tract parodies such as "Donald Trump Is The Antichrist."

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 54" "The King's Insurance" by The Faith, Prayer, and Tract League

Troy Davis writes:

This old  tract (probably from the '40s or '50s) put out by The Faith, Prayer, and Tract League of Grand Rapids, Michigan (which is still around) isn't really weird; it's just lame. The idea that someone would pick up a piece of paper because they believe it is an insurance ad is really weak stuff. It isn't just the front page but the entire tract is formatted like an insurance policy ad including headings such as "Paid up Capital" and "Reason for Insuring in the King's Insurance Company." I'm sure the tract writers thought they were too clever by half; they weren't.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 53: "Questions For Your Temple Tour" by Saints Alive in Jesus

Troy Davis writes:

I previously wrote about how ex-Mormon Ed Decker's evangelical group Saints Alive In Jesus has contributed to the world of weird religious artifacts; it isn't just their written literature but their funky video presentations on Mormonism. The cover of this pamphlet has a cool drawing of a goat's head inside of  a pentagram and asks, "Do Mormons Believe Jesus and Satan are Brothers?" The tract itself gives the usual on LDS practices and beliefs as well as a discussion of the Mormon magic underwear. The last page gives instructions to readers who are either Mormon or Evangelical Christian.


Random Notes: I checked out Saint Alive's web page and the top story is "Mohammed and Joseph Smith Blood Brothers in Demonic Deception." Their Facebook page shows a video of a Texas woman who crashes a "Texas Muslim Capitol Day" celebration, grabs a microphone, and speaks up for Jeebus . . . I address Mormon Temple Garments in some of my Chick tract parodies including the tract "An Exorcist for President in 2020? Trump's Nightmare."   Full tract list here.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

 

The Museum's Our Lady of Guadalupe Restoration Project

Troy Davis writes:

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious tracts also has other odd and kitschy religious artifacts (e.g., A Spire Christian Comics spinner rack was recently featured on this site). This statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe is one of the museum's most beloved objects. Around 2006, I saw it at one of the swap meets that line Alvarado Street in the Westlake/MacArthur Park area of  Los Angeles and had to have it. It has a rotating interior light that illuminates the red and yellow background. I friggin'

love it!

The problem was when I shipped it to Ohio, I didn't have the original packing Styrofoam that came with it and my packing job was substandard. The statue arrived in Ohio in several pieces. For the restoration project, I had to create some support armature (thank God/Goddess for Flex Glue).  The job is almost finished and all I have to do is a bit more sculpting and painting.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 52: "World-Famed Economists Forecast DOOM!" by Moses David

Troy Davis writes:

I previously wrote about batshit-crazy predatory sex cult The Children of God when I discussed the tract "The Crazy Crusader" by David Berg (writing as "Moses David"). This five-page tract from 1974 by Berg reminds me of the Nigerian 419 emails that are blatantly obvious in their phoniness because they want to weed out smart people because smart people are a waste of their time because they won't be suckered by their scam. Berg engages in a long, barely coherent harangue about inflation and economics. I felt less intelligent after reading the tract.

Bonus: When I got the tract from eBay, inside of it was an invitation to a Sunday night "get together" in Oakland.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 51: "Youth & Marijuana" by Peter C. Moore

Troy Davis writes: 

Today's entry is part of the museum's spring break celebration. This 15-page booklet published in 1978 by Forward Movement, a ministry of the Episcopal Church. The author is The Reverend Peter C. Moore. The only interesting thing about it is that it cites studies by witnesses who were called to testify before the a notorious 1974 Senate subcommittee on marijuana chaired by notorious redneck Senator James Eastland who associated marijuana use with backtalking leftists and black power militants. Eastland invited only people to testify at the hearings who held views on weed that were as backward as his own such anti-pot crusader Gabriel Nahas whose work was called "psychopharmacological McCarthyism" and "meretricious trash" by two Harvard scientists.  The other notable thing about the booklet is the funky 70's cover font.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 50: "RATS IN THE BEER VATS" by Osterhus Publishing House (SPRING BREAK SPECIAL)

Troy Davis writes:

Osterhus Publishing House has been around since 1901 (history of the company is here). The oldie-but-goodie RATS IN THE BEER VATS is taken from a talk by H. Phelps Gates. Gates bemoans the lack of quality control and squalid sanitary conditions at American breweries in the early to mid-20th century. He has gross-out details of rats drowning in the beer vats and callous brewers not doing anything about it. Gates includes an excerpt from a letter from an alleged brewery worker:
     
 I was once a brewery worker in Iowa.  All of the water used in the manufacture of beer came from an overflow pool in a pasture, used alike by horses, cows, and hogs. To my amazement, on the first day, I discovered the malt to be full of maggots and I asked the brewer what to do. "Never mind,"  he replied, "Scoop it in. That won't hurt."

The tract ends by warning the reader that to avoid serving the devil because that will lead to an eternity of  "weeping and gnashing of teeth."

SPRING BREAK TWOFER SPECIAL: Another temperance tract from Osterhus
A Drunkard's Reward for Drinking Alcohol is a one-page, one-sided flyer. 

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 49: "Beer Has It All!" by Dr. Paul Heaton of Bible Baptist Church

Troy Davis writes:

It's spring break week at The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts and today's tract is "Beer Has It All!" by Pastor Paul Heaton of Bible Baptist Church of Lupton, Michigan. While the end of the pamphlet has Bible verses that warn against imbibing, Heaton mostly addresses the alleged dangers of some of the additives in beer and byproducts of the brewing process such as pupulin, geraniol, gum arabic, sodium dithionite, cobalt, tannic acid, ammonium phosphate, potassium metabisulfite, tartaric acid, papain, magnesium sulfate, and dextrin. To paraphrase Mark Twain, this tract is chloroform in print.

Tomorrow, the museum will feature a very old tract: "Rats In The Beer Vats."

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 48: "The Dark Side of Halloween" by Anonymous

Troy Davis writes:

I bought this tract on Ebay and it might be a spoof. There is no author or contact info listed on the tract. It repeats a lot of the Chick Publications worldview of Halloween (misinformation about the Druids and rock music).  At least the cover has some cool outsider art.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 47: "The Lonely Cabin on the 40-Mile" by Life Messengers

Troy Davis writes:

I previously wrote about Life Messengers of Seattle which published comic book tracts the same size as Chick tracts (though one difference is they usually had more than the 24 pages found in Chick tract; Life Messengers comic book tracts usually have 32 pages).  This tract contains the story of Joe Conlee, a man who entered a seminary around the turn of the 20th century but who became disenchanted when his liberal theology professor encouraged him to read Charles Darwin.  Joe left the ministry and became a hard-drinking newspaper reporter who hit rock bottom and started panhandling for booze money.  Joe moved to the Yukon and ended up sweeping tavern floors for liquor.  When Joe's tavern-keeper boss struck gold, he made arrangements for Joe to keep a cabin for him for the winter that was stocked with all the whiskey Joe can drink.  While drinking himself half to death, two other ne'er-do-wells joined Joe but eventually they all hit rock bottom; they begin reading the Bible Joe's daughter slipped into his luggage, and then devote their lives to Christ. The three symbolically destroy the whisky barrel with an axe.  

The art and adapted script are by veteran comic book artist Deryl Skelton. This is a particularly rare version of the tract that was printed by A New Thing Ministries (more about them here).

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.

Weird Tract Number 46: "Are You Descended From A Monkey?" by Eric Jansen

Troy Davis writes:

This seven-page 2000 pamphlet published by Foursquare Missions Press isn't anywhere near as entertaining as Jack Chick's "Big Daddy?" though of the part this tract where Piltdown Man and other controversial discoveries are discussed appears to be cribbed from Chick. Jansen also argues for a young Earth and claims supposed sightings of the Loch Ness Monster are evidence that dinosaurs and humans coexisted. The tract is full of okay art and godawful pseudoscience.

The Museum of Weird and Demented Religious Tracts is a project of Les Zazous Postmodern Art Galley of Bellaire, Ohio. Read the Welcome Statement of The Museum here.

For more on the gallery, check out the web site here and the gallery's Twitter handle is @ZazousLes.  The Twitter handle for the museum is @WeirdTracts

The index of tracts for the museum's website is here. 

Contributions of weird tracts to the museum can be made by mail: send your weird tracts to Les Zazous Postmodern Art Gallery 3475 Guernsey Street, Bellaire, Ohio 43906.