Джек Томас Чик: Америкалық суретші және «Чик трактарының» авторы

American cartoonist (1924–2016)

Jack Thomas Chick (April 13, 1924 – October 23, 2016) was an American cartoonist and publisher, best known for his fundamentalist Christian "Chick tracts". He expressed his perspective on a variety of issues through sequential art morality plays. Many of his tracts accused Roman Catholics, Freemasons, Muslims, and many other groups of murder and conspiracies. His comics have been described by Robert Ito, in Los Angeles magazine, as "equal parts hate literature and fire and brimstone sermonizing". Chick's views have been spread mostly through the tracts and, more recently, online. His company, Chick Publications, says it has sold over 750 million tracts, comic books, videos, books, and posters designed to promote Evangelical Protestantism from a Christian fundamentalist perspective. They have been translated into more than 100 languages.

Chick was born in the neighborhood of Boyle Heights in Los Angeles, and later moved with his family to Alhambra. There Chick was active in the high school drama club. According to Chick, he was not religious in high school. After graduation, he continued his drama education at the Pasadena Playhouse School of Theater on a two year scholarship. He served for three years in the Pacific theater, serving in New Guinea, Australia, the Philippines, and Japan working in cryptography. Chick credited his time overseas for inspiring him to translate his tracts into many different languages and said that he had "a special burden for missions and missionaries". Priddle and her parents introduced Chick to the Charles E. Fuller radio show The Old Fashioned Revival Hour, and Chick said that he was converted while listening to an episode of this show. In February 1998, Priddle died. Chick had limited personal contact with the public; he gave only one known professional interview after 1975. The lack of available public information about him created some speculation that he was a pen name for unnamed authors.

From 1953 to 1955, Chick drew a single panel cartoon, whose text was written by P. S. Clayton, titled Times Have Changed? It thematically resembled the B. C. comic strip and The Flintstones animated cartoon, but predated both. These were syndicated by the Mirror Enterprises Co. in Los Angeles area newspapers. After converting to Christianity, Chick wanted to evangelize others, but he was too shy to talk to people directly about religion. He decided to create more tracts and began "using his kitchen table as an office and art studio". Initially, Chick wrote and illustrated all of the comics himself, but in 1972 he hired another artist to illustrate many of the tracts.

Chick Publications released at least 23 full size "Chick comics" since its founding. They are full color comic books, and most were first published between 1974 and 1985. The first eleven form the Crusader comics series, which follows the stories of two fundamentalist Christians and addresses topics such as the occult, Bible prophecy, and the theory of evolution. Chick Publications also distributes "Chick tracts", small comic tracts with religious messages. Most of these can be viewed in their entirety on the company's website. The most popular Chick tract is "This Was Your Life!". It has been translated into around 100 languages, and many other tracts are available in widely spoken languages such as Arabic, German, Spanish, and Tagalog. Several of Chick's tracts have been translated into less widely spoken languages as Blue Hmong, Huichol, Ngiemboon, Tshiluba, and the constructed language of Esperanto. Chick is known for his conspiratorial views and his belief that secret groups, such as the Illuminati, exert influence on the world to advance evil. In "The Broken Cross," Chick introduces John Todd, a former grand druid priest who claims that secret groups, including witches and the Illuminati, are working to advance evil. Chick's version of Christianity emphasizes the role of Satan and his minions, portraying them as the principal evils in his comic. He sees Satan as the one behind all major events, including biblical occurrences like Adam and Eve and the Great Flood, as part of his ongoing battle for control. In this worldview, God's actions are seen as reactions to the Devil's actions, creating a dynamic game between the two sides for the fate of humanity. Wiccan author Kerr Cuhulain has described Chick and his theories as being "anti feminist" and "anti Pagan", noted that a Chick Publications comic book was the source of a Rapid City, South Dakota police detective's presentation on the history of Satanism given in 1989, and describes him as "easily the least reputable source of reliable information on religious groups". Six of Chick's full size comics feature Alberto Rivera, specifically: Alberto, Double Cross, The Godfathers, The Force, Four Horsemen, and The Prophet. Rivera was an anti Catholic religious activist who claimed to have been a Jesuit priest before becoming a Fundamentalist Protestant. Rivera was the source of many of the conspiracy theories about the Vatican and the Jesuits espoused by Jack Chick. Catholic Answers has called Chick "savagely anti Catholic", describes Chick's statements about the Catholic Church as "bizarre" and calls for the tracts to be pulled from the market and corrected. Christianity Today described Chick as an example of "the world of ordinary, nonlearned evangelicals", for whom "atavistic anti Catholicism remains as colorful and unmistakable as ever". Michael Ian Borer, a sociology professor of Furman University at the time, showed Chick's strong anti Catholic themes in a 2007 American Sociological Association presentation and in a peer reviewed article the next year in Religion and American Culture. Chick responded to these accusations by saying that he was opposed to the Roman Catholic Church as a sociopolitical organization, but not to its individual members. On his "Roman Catholicism FAQ", Chick said he began publishing his theories about the Roman Catholic Church because "he loves Catholics and wants them to be saved through faith in Jesus". In the wake of Jack Chick's death, a biography, You Don't Know Jack: The Authorized Biography of Christian Cartoonist Jack T. Chick by David W. Daniels, was published by Chick Publications in 2017. The book contains a number of previously unpublished photographs of Chick.