I love this beginning. At first, you think Chick is getting soft on us, but then he whips out the aggressive anti-evolution stuff. If you ask me, I think, once again, his artwork works against him. Here we have two cute, loving apes holding each other, displaying their affection for each other even if they’re making themselves completely vulnerable to a lion attack.

Then you have Adam and Eve, post-apple eating, since they’re wearing clothes and the legless serpent in the background looks pretty full of himself, because he's Satan, and he knows this isn’t the last of God’s acts that give him a lot of free souls. In fact, Adam and Eve look pretty smug with themselves, too, like they just realized that if they each combine what the loin cloth covers, it’s more fun than all that animal-naming, if you catch my drift. Personally, I’d rather have the cute apes as my parents over those two perverts.

Anyway, the Great Flood came and only Noah’s family survived. Apparently though, there were a lot more people who managed to stow away in that ark. Catholics, Buddhists, Serbs, terrorists, street punks, and even Osama bin Laden (damn, this guy is good at hiding)! Man, Noah must have had some really bad security on that ark, or those people had really good animal disguises.

The real point of this is that we all came from those eight people (more incest, it seems, as if Adam and Eve’s saga weren’t enough) and, again, we all have something in common. Kind of makes you feel like one big happy family of sinners, doesn’t it?

The next part is really depressing. Chick goes on about how we all have emotions. The people who illustrate this are clearly sinners, since there’s a guy laughing at a crying women, another guy getting really mad because he’s just taken his seventh telemarketer call that day, and a dopey guy who punched a mirror and clearly didn't realize that it would break and injure him (this falls under the emotion “doing things we shouldn’t,” a common one).

Chick explains that we all do bad things because we’re sinners (and you can tell that the people in the panel are sinners, because they don’t look too happy to be part of this tract), thanks to that butthead Adam, who cursed us all with his falling to temptation. Together with Eve, they look like they really enjoy chowing down on that cursed Fruit of Wisdom (or, by the looks of it, Pork Roast of Wisdom).

Because of this, we’re all going to Hell, and “that’s NOT cool!” (ha, ha). So, how do we “get out of this mess? THERE’S ONLY ONE WAY!"

Big surprise: it’s Jesus! Chick goes on to talk about how Mary gave birth to Jesus and he died on the cross because “he attacked the religious system” by calling the religious leaders (or at least I think they’re supposed to be the religious leaders) “phony hypocrites! Liars! Vipers!” Ouch.

So Jesus died and rose again, and the sinners couldn’t believe it, especially the biggest sinner of the crowd, identified by the flies circling his head. Of course, no one believed Jesus, and the foolish humans will of course “make it [their] way.” "Oops," looks like Chick is now better than the rest of us, because he’s going to Heaven and we’re going to Hell! We don’t have everything in common anymore!

Now we see everyone walking the Path of Destruction, saying the world’s stupidest final words ever. Seriously, they’re so dumb, I’m not even going to comment on them, except to say I don’t get “I’m a Buddhist and you don’t exist,” and don’t understand the relevance of “We’ve shacked up for years…” If you ask me, Chick consumed a little too much communion wine when he wrote this.

I love how Chick likes to depict sinners by making them blatantly admit that they are evil. This is probably part of his propaganda technique. By dehumanizing the enemy (a common technique in propaganda, especially in the World War II era), they're easy to kill, or, in this case, ignore (I wouldn’t put murder past this guy). I find some danger in this for fledging Christians. If the idea gets in their head that evil only comes in forms of people that openly proclaim that they love sin, they’re going to get tricked a lot in the real world, which, according to Chick, is full of people who hate God and exist to spite him. In Chick’s world, people with different beliefs only have those beliefs to defy him and God. Yep, too much wine.

A single young dorky boy jumps up from the crowd and proclaims “Hey… I don’t want to go to hell with the rest of these guys!” You know how it turns out: he asks Jesus for forgiveness and is on the fast arrow to heaven. Yea!

Then, a sinner claims that salvation seems too easy, but his good Christian friend assures him that it’s true. The sinner decides to “think about it,” which pretty much means he’s going to Hell. In fact, he literally choices the box marked “Forget it… it’s all nonsense.” Okay, that doesn’t sound like a choice inasmuch as putting it off again, which apparently is the same as picking up the box that says “Join Satan in the fiery pits of Hell,” which isn’t as catchy. Actually, I want a box that says “Forget it, it’s all nonsense.” That works on so many levels.

Well, we get to “SEE THE RESULTS…” and it doesn’t look good. The tract explains “Then after death, when you’re down in the horrible dark place… You’ll remember reading this little gospel tract… [picture of tract] And you will curse yourself for all eternity for making the wrong decision.” Yikes!

Actually, Chick, I plan that, if it turns out that you’re right, to yell at God for sending you spiteful yahoos that no one will believe to spread the Word. If I somehow get to stay in Heaven and you don’t, I’ll laugh at you from above and pitch bottles of Aquafina just out of your reach while you tap dance on burning sulfur. If you’re up there too, I might just grab a drink and leave, since you don’t seem like a fun guy to have at a party. If you’re both wrong and end up in Hell, I’ll be sure to turn you so Satan pokes you in the butt more than me. Of course, I could be like those quivering sinners at the end of half of the Chick tracts, but since I’m not invested in the idea that I’m going to Heaven my way, I’m not positive this would happen if it really goes down like it does in the tracts.

Fortunately, we get to take another chance and choose again. Either way, we “WILL bow down before Jesus.” And with that, we see how we all have something in common, except Chick, who is better than us. In fact, I think that’s pretty much today’s lesson.

So remember, kids, we all have something in common: we’re all going to Hell! At least you’ll be in good company, but all that fire and burning might make me cranky.

All images are from Chick.com and are owned by them, as if anyone else would want to claim responsibility. If you want to check out this tract in its entirety, click here. If the address doesn't work, contact me immediately, since there's an off-chance our friendly Chickians decided to change the URL. What, they don't want MORE hits?