Vampires, Werewolves, and Other Assorted Creatures: The Apocryphal Bestiary of Chick Publications

• Published in: Journal of religion and popular culture 2012, Vol.24 (2), p.277-295
• Main Author: Phillips, Alan G
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• ISSN: 1703-289X; 1703-289X
• DOI: 10.1353/rpc.2012.0028

For decades, Chick tracts and comics have relied on provocative images drawn from an eclectic blend of popular culture, urban legend, and self-professed, religious authorities. Ostensibly, they endorse a King-James-only interpretation of the Bible in all areas of Christian belief and practice. In this paper, I will argue that many images and themes in Chick Publications produce results consistent with what the historians George Marsden and Martin Marty identify as the paradoxical and ironic elements in modern, American fundamentalism. While criticizing Catholicism and other faith traditions for relying on apocryphal texts and themes, Chick's publications use many extra-biblical images of monsters in otherworldly locales, thus creating a modern bestiary analogous to those from the Middle Ages. In spite of setting his biblical fidelity apart from Catholic doctrine and practice, Chick's tracts and comics are replete with monstrous beings and personalities on the margins of a strict reliance on the Authorized Version of the Bible. Ironically, as a long-standing opponent of both Catholic and non-Christian thought and practice, Chick's publications end up using non-Protestant imagery and iconography when representing demonic and monstrous beings in its widely distributed books, comics, and tracts.