Your Weekly Dose of God

I don't know if this is the same person I've seen in the Park Street T stop since moving into Boston or if it's been been several different people who somehow all look the same, all with the same paraphernalia from when I first saw them.

Well, almost the same paraphernalia.

This week's Dose of God comes with a story.

When I first saw this person (these people?) in Park Street, instead of handing out your standard, indistinguishable Jesus literature from a special belt, they were handing out Chick tracts, fascinating mini-comics with an extreme religious viewpoint drawn or overseen by cartoonist Jack T. Chick, whose work continues to be shared (and still created?) even after he passed away in 2016.

I had seen these comics in the past, starting with This Was Your Life, which I likely came across in a restaurant somewhere in Woonsocket, Rhode Island. Religious views aside, his apologetically dark tone has been compared to other underground cartoonists, and rightfully so.

Reading This Was Your Life was strangely traumatic and fascinating. I never forgot it; and when I got older, I wanted more of that, thank you. Thanks to Daniel K. Raeburn, whose beloved zine The Imp dedicated a whole issue to Chick's work, I now knew what to look for. And to hell with the online versions of his work. I wanted the actual physical things! Unfortunately, there were only so many laundromats and payphones to search out in the Boston area.

One day at Park Street I saw the person inside handing out Chick tracts. Instead of taking one or two directly from his hand, I sneaked around him and picked as many comics that I could from his belt. And he didn't even notice me.

Or did he?

Not long after that, when I saw him again, his collection was completely devoid of Chick tracts. No comics. Just the generic "Let Jesus Save You" literature you can see in a hundred other places. in and out of the city.

I've always suspected that the person (or persons) finally figured out that their work was just getting into the hands of comics fans without converting anybody, so they changed their game and switched to more generic material. I've always suspected that I was the final catalyst who made that happen.

If there are any New England based comic fans reading this I think I owe you all an apology. I may have messed up a great thing for all of you.