SYNOPSIS: Suzie is over the moon – she’s just landed a date with Craig – "That Crazy Guy" – in two weeks’ time. She doesn’t want to mess this up so she asks "Ms Damien" (who I presume is one of her teachers – a rather shopworn-looking woman of the world in any event) for some advice. Ms Damien’s advice is basically "Go for it!". She gives Suzie some condoms and a supply of the Pill and tells her not to worry about diseases and so on – "science has everything under control" – just go out and have your fun.

‘Course Craig turns out to be a real jerk, calls her "Betty" by mistake in the back of his car and (we presume) is something less than the perfect lover (although from the looks of him, "Man-mountain" in The Sissy might not have thought so!)

A couple of weeks later Suzie is relieved to find she’s not pregnant, but her elation is short-lived when she discovers an interesting discharge "down there". She consults Ms Damien, who (in the usual Chick fashion) has apparently had a violent mood swing, and now wants nothing to do with her.

Enter Suzie’s (unnamed) beautiful and angelic friend who arranges for her Grandfather (presumably a doctor) to examine her. Ba-a-a-a-d news! Not only has she got the clap, she’s also HIV positive! Seems that there’s a filthy lie being pushed today that condoms can protect you against AIDS, but that’s really the work of the devil. "Experts" know that the AIDS virus can romp through the holes in the average condom like it wasn’t there.

Kindly doctor is, fortunately, a Chick-type Christian, and [loud exhalation], points Suzie on the right road to salvation. Oh yeah, she’s still gonna die and everything, but she doesn’t have to worry anymore!

ARTWORK: The drawing is good, and it starts out promisingly enough with good action and characterization, but it soon descends into the all-too-common "talking head" format, which could have been conveyed just as effectively without the illustrations. The lettering is obviously machine-generated.

MEMORABLE POINTS: The story doesn’t make all that much sense, really. If Craig used a condom, AND she was on the Pill, why was she worried about getting pregnant?

The schizophrenic Ms Damien frantically spraying disinfectant where Suzie was sitting when she learns she has the clap was pretty amusing.

"Why am I burning down there?" doesn't refer to the afterlife for
once:-)

ONLY IN THE CHICK UNIVERSE: Both Chick and the Doctor obviously don’t know that the bacteria that cause gonorrhea are enormously bigger than the AIDS virus – we’re talking rat next to blue whale here! In any case, although it’s theoretically possible for the AIDS virus to get through the holes in a condom, the risk is generally regarded as negligible, since it’s not all that easy to contract AIDS through normal heterosexual intercourse in the first place, even without a condom. Contrary to what Chick implies, most "experts" don;t particualrly recommend relying on a condom if you knew your partner was HIV-Positive, but this is because of the danger of the condom tearing, not because the AIDS virus might get through the unbroken rubber. You’re supposed to use a condom in case your partner might be HIV-positive. It also takes three months before you can be tested for HIV infection, so I don’t know what techniques the kindly doctor was using!

WEAK POINTS: The Doc doesn’t mention that Suzie could take anything up to 15 years to die, and she’s going to go through some pretty rough medical episodes until then, but this is the Chick universe! Actually I’ve read on other Web sites that Chick continually updates his stories. In the original version of this comic, Suzie is relieved to find it’s not AIDS, but it is Herpes. Now, dammit, it is AIDS!

It sounds kinda strange, Craig saying in the first panel: "Two weeks from tonight, I’ll pick you up at 7:30. Ok Suzie?"

I can’t help thinking that the original caption was simply: "I’ll pick you up at 7:30. OK Suzie?", but Chick and Co initially didn’t know that you need to be on the Pill for at least two weeks for it to work!

Download That Crazy Guy from Chick Publications