When you have a man with drive and direction,
a man really going someplace, people notice it.
And some of those people might try to change his direction
to somewhere he should not go.
So do you think that with such a calling
as we know that Jack had, the Devil wouldn't have taken notice,
and tried to derail him?
Wait till you find out some of the things
the Devil tried to do against him.
Hi, I'm David Daniels from Chick Publications
Jack told me that when he was a teenager,
his Catholic aunt who hated him pressured him to see a fortune teller.
When he went in, the lady said she could see books --
lots of books around Jack.
She said he would be a famous author.
And his books would go all over the world.
I remind you that teenager Jack wasn't a writer.
He was an artist and a budding actor.
Maybe devils can detect things about a person.
They've been around about 6,000 years.
Maybe there's something they can see in the spirit realm,
I don't know.
But the Devil somehow saw an inkling of Jack's destiny,
and his minions acted upon that tip.
So Jack went on to start acting school in 1942,
get drafted into the military in February 1943,
finish acting school in 1948, get married to Lola Lynn late March,
and by that fall leave the whole
Hollywood career behind.
Then for about the next three or four years he worked for his dad
at his sign painting company.
But his direction in his life never left him, not even in the midst of another job.
In the July, 1949 issue of The American Cartoonist,
Jack got this comic printed on the back cover.
Take a look.
A poor artist draws a tract with a wall full of rejection notices
behind him.
Then he goes to the mail box to put in his latest work.
But in a stroke of irony, a mail truck speeds past him,
hitting him.
Then we see an editor who loves the work.
And in the last frame, a postman walks away from a grave,
and the artist, with joy holds the acceptance letter
in his hand -- as a ghost.
He was finally recognized, after he had died.
Jack's 1949 comic illustrated an important truth.
It's very hard to make a living drawing comics.
Jack still needed a day job.
So in 1953 Jack got a job doing advertising art
and other graphic work for Aerojet-General Corporation,
an aerospace company in Azusa, about 20 miles
northeast of Los Angeles.
This was his ID card.
Aerojet created rocket engines, and greatly assisted in World War II
by the invention of the JATO engine, Jet-Assisted-Take-Off.
These are some of the advertising mock-ups Jack made
for the JATO rocket, to sell the idea
to various government buyers.
Too early for JATO -- showing historical attempts at flying,
too early for a rocket engine for takeoff.
But Jack didn't think only of his day job and his family.
He still wanted to draw comic art.
He had already approached Coca Cola
with an entire advertising idea, "Coke Around the World."
He showed people in different countries drinking Coke
within their own unique culture.
After they watched his presentation, one of them said to Jack,
"You're ten years too early.
We're not ready for that yet."
Jack was ahead of his time a lot.
That stayed a pattern in Jack's life.
A few years later, Jack told me, Coke acted on his idea.
But Jack didn't get any credit when they finally did it.
In the meantime he kept trying out new ideas.
In late 1952-early 1953 Jack had floated a new idea
to the Mirror Enterprises Syndicate of Los Angeles,
now called Times-Mirror.
His concept: to create a comic panel mirroring modern life,
but in the costumes and setting of cavemen.
Jack called it, "Times Have Changed?"
Mirror Enterprises Syndicate bought the idea --
but they wanted a daily comic, Monday-Friday, with a large, multi-panel color comic
on Sundays, starting in the Summer of 1953.
For a big job like this, they wanted an ideas-man,
who would feed new ideas and text to Jack,
so Jack could focus on drawing them for 6 days a week.
Enter Bill Clayton.
Whether Jack met Bill earlier, and he was Jack's contact
at the Mirror, or whether the Mirror
recommended Bill to Jack, I don't really know.
But either way, The two of them
were joined together.
But Jack was the only Christian.
So the advertising didn't go the way Jack would have written it,
at all.
Listen to this.
"Have you ever said: 'Boy, times have really changed.'
"Well, we have news for you.
"Times haven't changed as much as you may think they have,
and if you don't believe us, just ask Bill Clayton and Jack Chick.
Through the use of an old, cracked crystal ball,
an Ouija board left over from last Christmas,
a dash of magic and a lot of imagination,
these boys have been able to go back to the days of the cave man.
"And what did Clayton and Chick find when they turned back the clock
over a million years?
"Well, they found that things were a lot like they are today.
This might sound hard to believe, but it's true.
To prove their point, Clayton and Chick have recorded
all of the things they found when they returned
to the cave man world.
And, starting Next Monday in the new panel feature called,
'Times Have Changed?' you'll be able to share the fun
that happened when Mother Earth was a baby."
To quote Fred Flintstone, "Hooo, boy."
Oh, and speaking of that, here is the main character Glugford.
That's Glugford, almost like Alfred,
almost like ... Fred.
And this is Irmug, almost like Irma,
almost like ... Wilma.
It was a completely new idea: a modern stone-age family.
And Jack's art sold the idea.
Listen to this ad the Mirror sent to other newspapers:
"Times Have Changed? is the first really different panel
to come along in years.
"More than 40 leading papers bought it on sight
on the basis of a few proofs and well ahead of first publication.
"Times Have Changed?
goes back to first principles of cartooning.
It integrates the caption with the drawing.
Every situation will strike home every day to every reader
because it is one he will instantly recognize.
"One of the things that makes Times Have Changed?
so different is the wonderful backgrounds
and the minor characters who people the panel.
They give the reader a further series of chuckles
after the initial impact of the caption."
The strip was a huge success.
But Jack still had his day job.
That December Jack drew a Christmas card
for the guys at Aerojet.
That's boss Bill Taft as Scrooge, Bill King, Kenny Seaman --
and some dog.
Yes, that was the first appearance of Fang,
December 24, 1953, who has been hiding somewhere
in most of Jack's Chick tracts.
In 1954, things changed.
It turns out that Bill Clayton was a Roman Catholic.
He gave in to temptation.
He didn't have the indwelling Holy Spirit
to stop him.
So he went on the town and enjoyed his fame,
instead of doing the hard work of coming up with ideas
for Jack to draw in the panel.
He left Jack to do everything himself.
But Jack still had his day job.
By day Jack was working at Aerojet, long, hard hours.
Sometimes following blueprints for government projects,
and sometimes coming up with advertising all on his own.
And by night, he wasn't relaxing
and drawing new panels.
No.
He had to come up with all new ideas by himself,
and compose how they would look, then draw them.
That consumed both his nights and his weekends.
Jack was unequally yoked, and in over his head.
He was working to take care of his family.
His wife was starting to be sick.
He had a 2-year-old daughter.
Something had to change.
So in early 1954 Jack took readers' submitted ideas
for panels, and then gave them credit.
Here is May 5th, 1954.
Here is June 24th.
Here is July 14th.
Finally, Jack had it.
He went to the Mirror and said, "I have to break my contract.
I can't keep doing all the work myself."
But the executives at the Mirror said, "If you break your contract, Jack,
you will never get a syndicated comic again."
Something was about to break: either Jack or the contract
Jack broke the contract.
That was the sad ending of being unequally yoked.
The ad copy was un-Christian, and his unsaved partner
didn't have a relationship with the Father
through faith in Christ, to keep him from danger.
When Bill Clayton didn't pull his weight,
the partnership couldn't take the strain
and finally fell apart.
Jack learned a valuable lesson.
2 Corinthians 6:14 "Be ye not unequally yoked
together with unbelievers: for what fellowship hath
righteousness with unrighteousness? and what communion hath
light with darkness?"
If Jack were going to make comics, he'd have to do it himself,
or with a reliable, Christian partner.
Next you're going to see how God used all of Jack's life-lessons,
and some Chinese comic books, to bring Jack to the next stage
in his life.
Until then, God bless you, and have a wonderful day.