Anti-Masonic Comic Creator Jack Chick Dies

A chapter - albeit, a small one - has closed in the bizarre world of anti-Masonry. According to his Facebook page, comic book religious tract artist Jack T. Chick joined the Choir Invisible yesterday at the age of 92.

Chick was a California evangelist who took up the pen and brush against any religious belief, tradition, or philosophy that was at odds with his own brand of fundamentalist, evangelical Protestantism. Over five decades, his company purportedly distributed more than 750 million of his tiny comic books (once described by media critic Steven Brill as "religious pornography") that railed against Catholicism, Judaism, Mormonism, Islam, homosexuals, divorce, Dungeons & Dragons, Harry Potter, Freemasonry, and many others, at less than two bits apiece.  He eventually published more than 150 different titles in 100 languages.

He was especially savage towards Roman Catholicism (referring to the communion host as a "death cookie"), and blamed many of the world's problems on that faith, including the Ku Klux Klan (!), the Holocaust, and world Communism.

Unsuspecting "sinners" often found these little gems of paranoia, brimstone, and hatred tucked under their windshield wipers, stuck between the beans in the canned vegetable aisle, or jammed into the seat pocket on their vacation flight. Sadly, some even made their way into care packages sent to U.S. troops overseas.

"Oops! There's Baphomet again!"

In the Masonic world, his tracts That's Baphomet?, The Curse of Baphomet (now out of print), and The Unwelcome Guest were notorious for perpetuating the 19th century Leo Taxil hoax, among other hoary whoppers. Albert Pike got strategically misquoted (or just plain had quotes invented), "Satan" took up residence in lodge meetings, the Eastern Star ladies were accused of witchcraft, and even Shriners got a swipe for their red fezzes, because, according to Chick, the Muslims originally dipped them into the blood of Christians. 

Unfortunately, the pervasiveness of his little booklets perpetuated this madness to an unsuspecting public, and plenty of Masons over the years have had to answer questions from nervous friends and relatives who got their delusional information straight out of Chick's tracts.

According to the company's website, they intend to keep distributing his miniature missives, despite the loss of their founder who has been wafted away at last to join the silent ranks of the Great Majority.

Requiēscat In Pāce



(See also The Tall Tales of Leo Taxil)