Don’t bad-mouth the Bible – you may live to regret it

SYNOPSIS: Charlie Conners is a bit of a roughneck construction worker who obviously doesn’t have time for organized religion, the afterlife and so on. There’s the usual clumsy Chick-ish misrepresentation of the viewpoint of your "average" non-believer. Chick also brings in the tried-and-not-very-true notion that you can demolish your opponents’ argument simply by accurately stating it.

Charlie suddenly gets blown off the scaffolding by a sudden gust of wind and is killed (the title of this tract comes from the Grim Reaper’s quaint greeting: "Hi There!") Needless to say, he doesn’t go to Heaven, but (contradicting what happens in a lot other Chick Comics) he’s left to cool his heels (if you can do that with all those flames around), in some sort of subterranean cavern for 1,000 years, until God finally gets around to telling him to piss off! As usual, there’s an angel there to tell Charlie about the error of his ways, although what the point of this is isn’t really clear, since he makes it absolutely clear that Charlie is going to burn, and there’s absolutely no way of avoiding this!

ARTWORK: Nothing whatever to complain about there. The characters are well-drawn, the faces are all individuals and all consistently rendered. The lettering is first-class, obviously hand-written and the work of a craftsman. It’s truly a shame such talent is reduced to producing dross like this!

MEMORABLE POINTS: The angel has short curly dark hair and, wait for it, sideburns! This makes a refreshing change from Chick’s usual blonde permed creations. God has a face of sorts, looking remarkably like Charlton Heston. "Charlie" looks remarkably like Charles Bronson.

WEAK POINTS: As usual, God never really answers the question: Exactly how are the Buddhists, Hindus etc who have never been given the privilege of reading one of Chick’s mighty works, supposed to know that they’re gonna fry in the afterlife?

Download Hi There from Chick Publications.