If you were unlucky enough to spend sproghood behind enemy lines as I was, you may have encountered little cartoon tracts entitled Chick Publications. I caught up with them, and discovered much potential for amusement... Jack Chick (1924- ) is an Independent Baptist fundamentalist and author of almost a hundred annoying little tracts and comic books. He's also a conspiracy theorist who believes that Paul Cameron is the full quid when it comes to lesbian and gay rights. However, his real venom is directed at the Catholic Church. According to Mr Chick, Satan runs the Vatican, and (deep breath), Nazism, Communism, lesbian/gay rights, the pro-choice movement, role playing games and Dungeons and Dragons, Wicca, Pentecostalism, rock and roll, Jonestown, the Jehovahs Witnesses, Mormons, Islam, the assassination of Abraham Lincoln, Freemasonry, werewolves, etc are all the dark progeny of the Papacy. For the uninitiated, Chick tracts are tiny, three panel per pagecomic booklets that are unsophisticated, kitsch, paranoid and dogmatic little numbers, intimating a mindset that is scared of its own shadow lest it defect to the satanic-Vatican conspiracy too. To get its own way, the Vatican resorts to car accidents, murder, torture, revolution and civil unrest, and will ultimately take over the world! Jesuits coached Karl Marx! Dinosaurs still walk the earth! Even some other fundamentalists steer clear of Chick Publication tracts, as the elderly crank's credulity knows no limits. In addition to Paul Cameron, Wikipedia listed the following flawed Chick sources. Armando Rivera was a Spanish fake ex-Catholic priest, credit card fraudster, bad cheque writer and inventor of lurid sadomasochistic pamphlets about imaginary nun sisters who overdid flagellation somewhat. Rebecca Brown (aka Ruth Bailey) was struck off Indiana's medical register in the early eighties after repeated cases of misdiagnoses of blood problems, brain tumours and gall bladder mishaps, and several of her former patients had to be hospitalised for prescription drug addiction. Brown/Bailey was described as suffering from drug addiction and religious fanaticism, and saw the Satanic Conspiracy everywhere. Kent Hovind is a young earth creationist who believes God really did do his spiel in seven days. His 'qualifications' come from a Patriot Bible University, and are in "Christian education', not palentology, geophysics, geology, chemistry or other relevant scientific disciplines. He and his wife have tried to declare financial bankruptcy twice, and they were investigated for tax evasion in the early nineties. Of all of these grotesques, John Todd is the most twisted. In the early seventies, he became a fundamentalist and claimed that the Bavarian Illuminati were out to get everyone, and that they were actually all witches, Jimmy Carter was the antichrist, and even prominent fundamentalists were part of the Vast Satanic Conspiracy. That is, before he was arrested for statutory rape, and then fully fledged sexual violence in South Carolina in the early eighties. Todd currently resides in South Carolina's Behavioural Disturbance Unit. Unbelievably, fundamentalists still try to use these silly little tracts to scare the gullible and prepubescent into their ranks. All the above, and Paul Cameron too. Still, at least he's in appropriate company with the cavorting hallucinatory carnival of Jack Chick's supporting cast. Recommended: Chick Publications website: http://www.chick.com Family Research Institute (Paul Cameron): http://www.familyresearchinst.org Wikipedia Chick Publications page: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Chick_Publications Craig Young - 25th March 2006