More people have caught Dead Elvis on film than photographed
the living Jack Chick. Dan Raeburn, author of The Imp (a fun book
well worth reading), published what he thought was a self portrait of Jack
in Imp #2 (see above). But alas, it was a false alarm. I emailed a scan
to Dwayne Walker and he said he didn't think it was Jack, but wasn't positive.
He had only seen Jack once a long time ago.
Richard Lee, on the other hand, was emphatic. He wrote:
"This is DEFINITELY NOT Jack Chick! This is one
of his many drawings of perplexed people! This is a drawing of an old man,
and doesn't even come close."
Richard is a seminary student who has visited Jack several
times through the years. (Although Jack is cautious, he is far from a recluse.
Richard says he is a very generous host.) He describes Jack a little differently
from how Dwayne remembers him. Richard says he has a high forehead with
white thinning hair, but is not bald. He estimates Jack's age to be around
75 and he has a typical build for a man that age. He also says he doesn't
seem to dress formal, avoids suits and ties, and can resort to a "vocabulary
with a military flavor" when he gets mad! That being said, he points
out that Jack is very friendly and not easily angered.
So the search continues. Will YOU be the first to catch
Jack with Kodak? Better keep that camera ready just in case. You just never
know!
The closest we've gotten to a photograph of Jack so far
is this drawing by Fred Carter (shown below). It appeared in an early issue
of Battle Cry and features a young Jack Chick speaking before a group
of prisoners. (That's where Jack started making his cartoons, as visual
aids for his prison ministry.) Jack is much older now but you can still
recognize many of his features from this cartoon. (Don't you wish it were
BIGGER?!)
NEWS FLASH!
We've just received multiple drawings of Jack from Rich
Lee! These are comic book drawings of Jack by Rich based on his 1986 meeting
with Chick. The art is a little crude but the faces are detailed. Rich provides
a two page recreation of his meeting and it's pretty funny. To view page
one, click here.
For page two, click
here.
Another discovery: Jack's high school
photos! (Handsome devil, isn't he?)
One reader thought this panel (page 7a) from The Tycoon was a
Jack Chick self portrait. You decide. ("Get this CREEP out of here!")
Never one to ask others to do what he wouldn't do himself, Chick posed for Fred Carter's GAY BLADE cover. So if you ever seen anyone with this exact silhouette, chances are it's Jack Chick!
Here's a drawing by Catholic Apologist Jimmy
Akin's blog. He had a chance encounter with Chick and wrote about it
in THIS ROCK magazine (distibuted by Catholic Answers).
And finally, the latest and greatest image of Chick is inside the newer Crusaders comic, Unwanted. This is a comic all Chick fans will want, because it has not one, not two, not three, but FOUR images of Chick as illustrated by Fred Carter. None of the images say it's Chick, but those who have read Chick's open letters and Battlecry testimonials will infer it. Unwanted tells how Chaplain Dann, aka, the Human Tract Dispenser, first saw Chick in the 1960s as he witnessed to audiences using his cartoons in a flip chart presentation. That same artwork would eventually become the basis for Chick's best selling tract, This Was Your Life. But Dann wasn't ready for The Lord back then, he stormed out of the presentation, haw-haw! (Eventually the two became good friends and brothers in Christ.) This still isn't a photo, and being 50 years younger, no one could use it to recognize Chick today, but coming from Fred Carter, one doesn't have to use much imagination to see what Chick was like back in those days.
Jack Chick died in his sleep on October 23rd, 2016. No longer fearing for his life, his company and friends no longer withheld photos of the cartoonist. This image is from the Chick website.
In fact, his assistant David Daniels (who helped Chick with the writing and research of the tracts) has produced a series of several videos about Chick, including many images of Chick. They can be found on youtube at:
And there are at least three others there as well.
