Gosh, it's the evils of Dungeons and Dragons! This tract explains how D&D is the entryway into the occult, where you can learn to cast real spells! But, Oh No! There is a price! Jumpin' Jehoshaphat! I have really misused all my years of playing and refereeing the game and thinking it was all make-believe. My conservative Lutheran mother talked to me about it several times while I was growing up, but also understood that it was make-believe, just like reading fantasy novels. Uh-oh. ( )

Disclaimer: As an unbeliever, I read these for entertainment and for insight into a particular extreme fundamentalist mindset.

Gee, I didn't know D&D was a religion and steppingstone to full-blown Satanism. Good thing none of my friends wanted to play and I was too cheap to buy the paraphernalia! According to this, I would have had to burn it to set myself free. But I would probably have to stand in a long line behind all those folks who are burning all their rock'n'roll stuff.

These tracts are the work of a sick mind. ( )

Well, let's see. First panel: no problems.

Second panel: Okay s the girl's character dies and everybody's like "get out of here you don't exist anymore" and she's all I DON'T WANNA DIE and so immediately this is bad parody and you know that the writer either knows nothing about D&D or has been misled by some mischief gnomes or is being a total fucking liar.

Third panel: Well, so much for Marcie. Meanwhile, Debbie has reached 8th level and is allowed to learn about "the real power", which I guess makes me a Godless warlock (in real life) about a dozen times over.

Fourth panel: ENTER THE COVEN!!!

Fifth panel: Absolute Satan corrupts absolutely, Debbie.

Sixth panel: AND SHE USED THE MIND CONTROL SPELL ON HER DEAR OLD DAD! They aren't even trying to make this shit believable. They're just relying on the fact that their sheeple will believe whatever they tell them as long as it fits with their prejudices. I could agree completely that roleplaying games=Satan and everything in this comic would still be empirically false. Why not make it plausible?

Seventh panel: Filthy lucre, Debbie. If the worst you're doing with your spells is getting your dad to buy you stuff, then Satan doesn't seem so rough, and in fact him and Paul Krugman and Larry Summers should get together and talk about priming the pump and getting us out of this recession.

Eighth panel: Evidently Debbie is "fighting the Zombie" alone, at the table, with the whole game set up but no other players, in her mind. Did D&D make her insane or does she just have no idea how to play? I'm starting to think this is more an anti-Debbie tract than anything relevant to the hobby in any way.

Ninth panel: Setup. Marcie iz fuct.

Tenth panel: So Marcie hung herself, surrounded by miniatures. Nice fucking rendition with the jumper and the Mary Janes. Why do fundamentalist Christians always lovingly linger on the awful and ugly? This is starting to get depressing. I hope drawing that dead little girl (and since when do little girls play D&D?) got you so hot, Jack Chick. Ugh.

Eleventh panel: Marcie blames herself for her character's death. They sure seem to oscillate between conscienceless occultists and broken sad children.

Twelfth panel: Debbie has doubts, Evil DM cracks whip. I wouldn't trust anyone who yelled at me when my friend died and hat that obviously evil (because ugly) face, myself. Another pernicious legacy effect on the whole tract tradition: Pilgrim's Progress. Everyone is what we get hamhandedly beaten into us they are.

Thirteenth panel: Lil sly dig at Nietzsche.

Fourteenth panel: "You're getting out of control.I think you'd better let Elfstar take over." Okay, that's just funny. My mood is improving.

Fifteenth panel: Oh, I see! Handsome Mike the pastor is here to re-assert patriarchal values. Debbie, you gon' be saved--for a lifetime of household chores and "loving physical discipline".

Sixteenth panel: Those backgrounds are actually not without artistry. It's like they're in an eldritch wood, Lothlorien and shit.

Seventeenth panel: Tony Stark tells the occult twelvesteppers that they are getting all tricked by the Devil. This thing where everybody's all "black magic is real. I seen it" fascinates me. Is it delusion, or just that their god demands they believe demons r messing with our shit? How do they deal with the total lack of ANY evidence? I mean, same with God, but at least he's sort of pleasant to imagine in ways. Why would you create evil magic in your head except that you had a very scary and alienating cognitive disorder?

Eighteenth panel: Finally! A bookburning!

Nineteenth panel: Paris Hilton and the Talented Mr. Ripley are in the crowd, I see. If anyone needs Jesus, it's probably them.

Twentieth panel: In the name of Jesus, Tony Stark orders the demons to leave Debbie (use your repulsor rays, dude!), but what makes me mad is the asterisk that says "WARNING: See Acts 19:13-17". I don't have time to check the warning! My sister needs exorcising now!

Twenty-first panel: Sorry, everybody. I don't buy it. Flames and dark human shadows have been scary and intimidating things from the Paleolithic past straight through to Kristallnacht, and the final image of the pastor and Tony Stark and Debbie gambolling around the fire in their Dark Carnival makes it impossible to believe that I'm just not trying to bridge the cultural gap here or that the art was just ill-considered. No, this was designed specifically to make us cringe and cower before God and fear him. These are thugs, the original power-gamers. Want proof? Read the supplementary essays "Should a Christian play dungeons & Dragons?" and "Straight talk on Dungeons & Dragons", and maybe for safety pick up Chick Publications's gripping memoir Lucifer Dethroned, by William Schnoebelen--because vampires are real, too, and he was one and if Jesus hadn't saved him he'd be slupring the ichor of your unbaptized newborns. Fuck, it's 1:24 in the AM and I am busy and don't have time for this filth. You killjoys are like Chaucer's Panderer and Summoner, who instead of the majestic big sin go for the small--the destruction of people's harmless pleasures. And you can git tae fuck. (Oh, sorry, Jack Chick, I know you don't like swears and will use this as the basis for shrill ad hominem attacks. Enh, you probably won't read this.) ( )