ISBN: 978-0758911865

It is likely that at some point in your life, you have seen or met someone who has come across a Jack Chick tract. This fact alone speaks to the wide reach his small booklets have enjoyed and it is probably the case that one would be hard-pressed to find a more circulated author.

David W. Daniels has inherited the legacy of Jack Chick and has undertaken the task to tell his life story when the world-famous publisher died in 2016. Mr. Daniels opted for the pun from the phrase "You don't know Jack", as the title of the book. This, not surprisingly, gets mixed up with the internet game quiz show "You Don't Know Jack" when one does an internet search. The title, the reader learns, is meant to be an answer to people who might have questions or criticisms about Jack Chick. The remedy, then, concerns reading the book and viewing the vlogs produced by Daniels (videologs) so one can then say they know Jack—or at least something of him.

A careful reading of Mr. Daniels work does reveal much about Mr. Chick that is otherwise obscured. For instance, while Mr. Chick is well known for his tracts, one could easily argue that his comic books are his greater contribution. Why? Because Mr. Chick undertook to expose the Vatican during a time when few ventured to take such risks. He did this by telling the story, in comic book form, of an ex-Vatican Priest—a man named Alberto Rivera. The exposure Mr. Daniels gives to this endeavor adds much to the story. Mr. Chick was approached later by an ex-Priest, for instance, who was a homosexual but who also needed medical attention and who asked for Mr. Chick's help and financial assistance. Mr. Chick's suspicions are raised over the request, but he ultimately decides to assist the fellow. How does it turn out? Well, for that, you will have to read the book, but it can certainly be said that the tale tracks with the rest of data presented in the comic book series.

The reader further learns that Mr. Chick invented the "caveman" cartoon craze that comic strips like BC and cartoons like the Flintstones were able to capitalize on. Mr. Chick was unable to, despite being the first to think of the idea or at least to do it, because he had to break a contract that he was under where a partner had backed out on him. The breaking of the contract angered the publisher who promised they would not allow his cartoons to be published elsewhere and it seems that they were able to make good on that promise as Mr. Chick struggled to find any other paper who would take his work afterwords other than perhaps a political cartoon here or there.

We also learn that Mr. Chick is a budding actor and has a career planned in television before he gets drafted into World War II where he is placed into a unit concerned with cryptography. He is not saved at this juncture, and it is only after he meets his wife and her parents that he becomes convicted by a radio preacher that he needs to be. This, it turns out, rubs his parents the wrong way.

Because he has this experience in World War II in security-related fields, it is not surprising to learn that Mr. Chick does find employment in the aerospace sectors where he works for places like Lockheed and Jet Assisted Take Off. (JATO) At one point, as Mr. Chick is tasked with drawing for these companies, he pieces together what it is that each person is actually working on. This, of course, defeats the purpose of having each person work on a specific part since if people do not know what they are working on then they cannot be made to divulge what they did to anyone else.

A question that might naturally arise, to a reader, is how Mr. Chick was able to square the morality of working in the Defense industry as a kind of contractor against his firmly held Christian beliefs. In reaching out to Mr. Daniels for information on the subject, the basic impression left is that Mr. Chick had a family to feed, and everyone was making rockets at that point. Those who helped finance him, although working in tandem with those sectors, proclaimed themselves to be Christians. Whether or not that passes at the Great Throne as an argument for the actions taken by those involved is an exercise best left to the One Judge and possibly the opinions of the reader. It can be said that post World War II America was more trusting of authority, and certainly felt like it had a moral victory in pushing back Nazi Germany.

Mr. Chick, though, downplays that role. Daniels mentions outright that Mr. Chick said that though everyone referred to them as the Greatest Generation, they were but filthy sinners in need of salvation and speaks of his time in the military as demonstrating the presence of a high-level of moral turpitude. It is true that the US did not exactly willingly enter World War II but more found itself dragged into it like a stubborn mule. Perhaps the Almighty presents the carrot first, and introduces the stick when the time to follow the carrot has passed.

Toward the beginning of Jack's life, he is made to go to a fortune-teller who tells Mr. Chick that he will be world-famous author some day. Mr. Chick, later, almost gives this destiny away to Coca-cola with his idea that people could be seen to be drinking the beverage around the world which he pitches to an ad agency. He is told at that point he is ten years too early, but the idea of Chick doing something that goes around the world does indeed happen through his tracts instead. And oh, also, Coke does that famous commercial of people drinking it around the world with no credit to Mr. Chick.

Mr. Daniels speculates that perhaps this fortune was rendered by a devil as maybe they can see something of a destiny around a person having been around for thousands of years. On the other hand, there are many instances where God speaks through those who it seems He might normally not. One example, for instance, appears in 2 Chronicles 35:21. As Chick is a staunch King James fan, we will use the translation it utilizes:

The "he" in this passage is King Josiah, and Josiah gets shot through with arrows, ultimately, for not listening. The speaker is none other than Pharaoh Neco—who, to Israel, is about as devilish as they come. Yet, here he speaks clearly that he is working on behalf of God, and so, we are given to understand later, he is. One learns that the spirit of Prophecy travels where it will and through whom it will, whether we like the messenger or not. Josiah learned this the hard way. Discernment is a finely balanced blade and must be honed continuously.

The final outcome of having read Mr. Daniels work is to better understand the complexity of Jack Chick. The tracts themselves have become so huge they have eclipsed the man. This book is worth reading to understand how the artist became the phenomenon that is known across the world as Jack Chick. While one cannot definitively say they know Jack Chick afterward, they might be able to say they know something more of him. It is worth the time and the read to engender this end.