Shopping Tips and Guidance by Mandy Claire

Welcome to "The Gods Are Bored," where you can come for a chuckle at the end of your long, tough working day! Tee hee! (See? I told you!)

All this talk of burning the Koran has put me in the mood to torch some tomes. Don't you feel the same way? Like, if we're going to light a fire, shouldn't we throw lots of stuff in it?

Well, I was going to use the Great Gainesville Koran Burn as a locale to ignite some Chick tracts. You know who Jack Chick is, don't you? He's the guy who writes all the "you are going to burn in hell forever" comic books for happy little kids!  Except that after they read the comic books, the kids aren't happy anymore. They're anxious and depressed and wondering how God can be so mean. (I speak from experience.)

Burn them! Into the fire with all Chick tracts! They'll make a terrific conflagration, much better than the dull Koran!

I'm having second thoughts. Here's why:

When I went to the Chick website to pick up the link, I saw that the great master Mister Chick has published a brand new comic (the guy is like, 85 or something). This comic is Halloween-themed, but by golly it's almost as silly as the Cthulhu rip-offs that keep getting pulled from the Web.

Here it is, go have a laugh. http://www.chick.com/reading/tracts/1065/1065_01.asp

What I love about this is that Halloween is suddenly okey-dokey with the notoriously anti-Pagan Mr. Chick. As long as some nice Christian lady is handing out Chick tracts instead of candy (and the message about sin and damnation gets in there), we can all trick-or-treat!

Dare we say it? Is Jack Chick going soft?

You know what? Even if he is going soft, that old stuff of his is rancid! So the tract burning is back on again! This Saturday at sundown, we at "The Gods Are Bored" will kindle a fire and then stoke it with classic Chick tracts, all the while chanting, "Chick is a hater! Chick is a hater!"

Damn. This sounds like one fun plan. Mark your calendar, I feel a book-burnin' comin' on!