Choices, choices.

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To be fair

While I've been doing these dissections something has occurred to me. I spend vast amounts of time making fun of Jack Chick's lack of artistic skills. But my own artistic talents aren't that great either.

So just to be fair, here's a youtube video I made. I didn't perform the dialog or write the joke, but I did draw every panel myself by hand. 

Feel free to tear it to shreds and/or laugh uproariously. 

Heads replaced to appeal to black audiences

Jack Chick adapts some of his tracts "for black audiences". These are hilarious because the only changes usually made are to tint the characters skin or, in the case of this Tract, to replace their heads with new ones drawn by Fred Charter. 

I thought I'd try doing a dissection of an original and adapted Tract in tandem.

You can tell Fred Carter helped Jack Chick with this one because there's shading. The "adapted for black audiences" title is the only change Jack made to words in the tract. 

It would seem that navel-mouthed surprise at the poorly draw daisies was essential to the plot. 

So far I'm loving the antenna & sensible bun hairstyles the "adapted" girls are rocking though. Way better than the unsaved friend in the original. That girl needs to stop cutting her hair with hedge trimmers. 

The sexually charged look Friend is giving to Christian in the second panel is also essential to the plot development. If anything "adapted" friend looks more lustful and "adapted" Christian seems less nervous at that turn of events.

Wait a second! Why isn't Fang "adapted for black audiences"? Shouldn't he be a black lab now? Or, considering the hairstyles maybe a puli? 

While they were adapting the face, why didn't he draw in the fence that magically disappeared in the second panel?

Even God Himself has been "adapted for black audiences"

Wow, "adapted for black audiences" Adam & Eve are hot! & I had no idea there was hair relaxer 6000 years ago. Original Adam & Eve look like their missing far too many chromosomes to be the font of all humanity. 

Speaking of which, why are there two sets of Adam & Eve? The incidental characters I can understand, but Chick thinks Adam & Eve were real people. Shouldn't it be blasphemy to imply there were two sets of them? Then again even God and that angel have gotten a tan. This must be some of that sophisticated theology I keep hearing about.

The intensely creepy girl in the far right if the left panel has been redrawn. Not "adapted for black audiences" but just redrawn even creepier then she was originally. Which I wouldn't have thought was possible. I don't know why Fred didn't redraw the unsaved friend's noodle arms in the second panel.

"Adapted for black audiences" Christian has had her head shrunken so that her antennae can fit under the speech bubble. 

Oh come on now. Even the "adapted for black audiences" angel is pissed at the jarring inconsistency in the artwork. 

Look at me.

Now look at my hand.

Now look at me.

Now back to the hand.

Now look at that band of hooligans. 

Now back to me.

I'm on a cloud.

"The Bible, silly!" 

When imagine what Bold Capitalized Italics sound like, I usually think of a Deep, Resonant, Booming Voice, silly!

Hey! where'd the guy with the bird hat go? Of all the weird unrelated crap that's going on in the background, that's what gets cut? This frame especially reminds me of those "circle the five differences" placemats they give children to keep them quiet in restaurants.

Original unsaved friend looks especially disheveled in this panel. 

Navel-mouth + "adapted" lips = blow up doll. In this case a blow up doll with granny hands. "Adapted" Christian has a worryingly large goiter on her neck. 

Again I'm left a bit disappointed that the swan hasn't been "adapted for black audiences" by being given a tan. After all, as we can see all it takes to make your artwork and message truly speak to an entire race are minor pallet and head swaps. 

Did they forget the pallet swap on this one? When God was chucking the planets into the sky a few panels back, he looked distinctly swarthy.

It's amusing that the depiction of Africa on the "adapted for black audiences" globe still looks nothing like the actual continent. 

"The world" contains four black people. Two of whom used to be children.

If that's God and that's Jesus, Mary has some explaining to do.

I see, Mary's been "adapted" as well. That's actually a bit more accurate of a skin tone for someone from the middle east. But again, shouldn't it be blasphemy for Jack Chick to go around reassigning the races of biblical characters?  

Because Fred Carter's heads are a bit more proportional then Chick's, "adapted" friend looks less like she's just suffered a broken nose, and more like she's checking to see if her breath stinks.

In "adapted" tracts only about 20-25% people in crowd scenes are black, but 100% of angels are. Make of that what you will.

The original Christian friend's head looks a lot like a giant kidney bean in this panel, I notice Fred Carter also makes his unsaved characters less intentionally hideous.

Original Friend is holding her cheek in wonderment. "Adapted" friend is staring at the palm of her hand in joy because her head has again been shrunken by Fred Carter. 

Looks like neck goiters are a symptom of being "adapted". 

So black people, are you saved now? No? You must not be trying hard enough. After all, the original-colored people who read the original version are instantly saved. Right?

Right?

There's also a Tract called "This was your life" that is adapted not only for black audiences (It's your life*), but for female audiences as well (You have a date**). In the near future I'll try doing a dissection of all three Tracts in triplicate. 

*Completely redrawn by Fred Carter

**This was your life, now with more lesbian subplots!