When I first read about The Jack Chick Movie in The Imp #2 I knew I had to get it. It was gonna be a fully animated feature length film that would be the alpha and omega of Jack Chick. Well, it finally came out about a year ago and it's more like the ultimate Jack Chick film strip/powerpoint presentation.
Not that it's a bad thing. Fred Carter, the uncredited cartoonist who's done the art for most of the Jack Chick tracts relating Bible stories and the Crusader comics series, gets his long overdue credit here. Carter created 360 paintings for the movie and it's pure Chick imagery. Demons are horrible bruise colored figures, Angels are unblemished and dazzling white robes, and the lake of fire is, well, a garishly firey red and orange and yellow. Dispite these fantastic images THE LIGHT OF THE WORLD takes it's editing cues from Ken Burn's PBS Civil War series, and like Ken Burn's documentary it lulls you to sleep.
Still, the highlight of the film has to be the "THIS WAS YOUR LIFE" segment which covers the same ground as the imfamous tract. Seeing Carter and Chick's interpretation of TWYL only makes me wish Jack had approached Rodney Ascher and Michael Garon to make LOTW. Rodney and Syd's short "Somebody Goofed" used images from the Chick tract and combined it with other found images "taken from drawings, magazines, encyclopedias, record covers and personal photographs" and animated them in After Effects on a home computer. "Somebody Goofed" is more emotionally moving because it is moving. LOTW, by comparison, is as involving as an illuminated manuscript.
A couple people asked about The Jack Chick movie at OtakuHELL and I'm happy to report that it is available to buy from Jack himself. A steal at only $19.95!
"HAW-HAW-HAW!"
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