Comments on: Farewell, Jack Chick

By: Serdar Yegulalp

Serdar Yegulalp — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 18:27:12 +0000

@Tim

Right – it’s not that I want to tell other people they are wrong for enjoying his work as kitsch. It’s that I couldn’t make their fun into my fun.

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 17:58:05 +0000

@Serdar

I can see both sides here. On one hand, how much you were part of or identify with groups he targetted is going to colour the way you perceive his work. On the other hand, I don’t believe anyone has the right to police anyone else’s opinion of him. Not that you’re guilty of that, but I have seen that from other people.

By: Serdar Yegulalp

Serdar Yegulalp — Wed, 26 Oct 2016 15:23:06 +0000

I was always uncomfortable with the idea of celebrating Jack Chick’s work as religious kitsch, something a few people I knew did. I wondered if that was because I had slightly more first-hand experience with the kind of bigotry that informed his work and they had not. As someone else once said, “Sorry, I can’t get my lips to smile.”

By: Tim Hall

Tim Hall — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 13:49:30 +0000

The whole D&D is a gateway to Satanism and witchcraft thing was common in evangelical circles in the 1980s, and it gained traction because too few people knew enough about D&D to recongise how silly the claims were.

They tried the same against Harry Potter a generation later, and just got steamrollered, because too many people had actuallly read the books.

By: David Meadows

David Meadows — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 12:14:44 +0000

There’s a school of thought which says “Don’t speak ill of the dead.” I think it’s more honest to continue speaking of them the way you did while they were alive. Jack Chick was an uninformed bigot (I realise that’s probably a redundancy).

By: PaulE

PaulE — Tue, 25 Oct 2016 12:10:26 +0000

Of course! It makes perfect sense now. D&D is just a gateway to encourage witchcraft. Just like Chess encourages regicide or Civilization encourages genocidal meglomaniacs.
I’ve played a lot of Civ, so I should be primed and ready for the call to join Spectre.