chick publications

do you know about chick tracks? my grandmother used to leave them everywhere, so, if you've read them, there's a good chance that you read one of the ones she left laying in restaurants, public restrooms and phone booths.

bemis loves to drop them off in the office, knowing that i collect artifacts of incredible "christian" kitsch.

She dropped off Trust Me yesterday. The first three pages crack me up. (and i don't mean *crack* in *that* way)





i don't mean to give away the ending or anything here, but the kid gets hooked, sells drugs, goes to jail, gets raped, gets aids, dies. Seriously.

but what cracks me up is the depiction of the underworld that sucks this kid in.

what draws this kid to this unlikely group of friends, drawn from the cast of an MTV reality show?

it convinces me that the audience that this book is *really* supposed to hit -- is the kids Grandma. Who sees her good little kid being sucked in by "the wrong crowd."

and of course its supposed to reinforce all of her ideas about who the wrong crowd is, what they do, and what the destiny of her good little grandkid will be.

My grandmother used to take great delight -- secret-agent-identity-delight -- in covertly leaving these books everywhere. It added a great deal of drama. Of course she also passed them out by hand to everyone she met.

My grandmother was a bright, educated thoughtful person. She read the classics, knew great art, had impeccable taste. So why jack chick?

Fundamentalism baffles me more the further I get from it. Which, I suppose, is the point.