Jack Chick Dies: Pioneering Publisher of Illustrated Gospel Tracts Was 92

Jack Chick, who founded Chick Publications to make cartoon-illustrated gospel tracts, died Sunday evening in his sleep. He was 92 years old.

Chick loved drawing from a very early age, even failing first grade because he was too busy drawing, according to his biography at Chick.com. He became a Christian on his honeymoon while listening to Charles E. Fuller’s Old Fashioned Revival Hour on the radio. He and his wife, Lynn, were married for 50 years before she died in 1998.

After serving in the Army for three years, Chick got a job at AstroScience Corporation, but he also started sketching a book called “Why No Revival?” He had to get a loan to publish the book because no publisher was interested. The concept of Christian cartoons was too new and different at the time.

He drew and wrote tracts independently until 1970 when Chick Publications was officially established. Chick Publications has made tracts and comic books from a Christian fundamentalist perspective and has angered some by speaking negatively about the Catholic church, Wicca, rock music, and homosexuality, among other topics.

Chick's tracts have been published in almost 100 languages, and copies were requested by the Smithsonian Institute for one of its displays on American culture. More than 740 million tracts have been sold.

Chick continued writing new tracts until as recently as a year or two ago, and these new tracts have been some of the most popular.

Chick’s tracts were powerful for the simple way the gospel was presented so that all different types of people could understand it. David Daniels of Chick Publications has vowed to carry on Chick’s legacy and said on Facebook, “Nothing changes: the method, the vision, the purpose.”

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