Operation Bucharest

The Crusaders #1

by Jack T. Chick

Formatted for Kindle Fire.This is the first full color comic book in Jack Chick's classic series, first published in 1974. Set during the Cold War, you will meet the Crusaders as they smuggle Scriptures into forbidden territory. KGB Headquarters is alerted to the Crusader's trip to Bucharest. The plan is to create a scandal to embarrass the United States. However, the Lord's plan prevails and the Crusaders lead a spy to Christ. Parents have reported that these comic books played an important role in faith-building and instruction for their Christian youth. Theme of this Salvation.

Genres: Religion, Fiction, Comics, Christianity

32 pages, Kindle Edition

First published October 8, 2013

About the author

American protestant-evangelical comic writer.

Chick considered himself to be an Independent Baptist and follower of the King James Only movement.

His comics can be considered to be controversial because they accuse Muslims, Catholics, Freemasons and other non-protestant religions of murder and diverse conspiracies.

Chick also ran his own publishing company named after himself.

Reviews

[C. John Kerry]

A reviewer for the magazine The Comics Journal referred to this title as Blackhawks for God's sake. I can sort of see why they might have thought that. Goodreads describes this as a single issue magazine but that isn't accurate. It is actually the first of a series put out by Chick Publications. The two men who star are part of a Christian organization of some sort. Its name is never mentioned. In the story they are attempting to smuggle a microfilm of the bible in Romanian into Romania. There it can be used to print many copies of the Bible which at the time was forbidden in that country. Interestingly the KGB in that country is attempting to put some obstacles in their path. However they don't seem to know about the mission. Rather they want to embarass one of the men's uncle, who happens to be a United States ambassador and has the same name as his nephew. The plan is to get the nephew into a compromising position with a young lady, photograph it and then release the evidence. So we actually have two storylines to pursue in this one. The two Americans are successful in theirs, the KGB though is another matter. It's not easy to get a young man into such a situation when he is as much a committed Christian as our guy is.
I find it interesting that really, if you take away the religious elements from the story this could easily be a straight adventure/spy story. Chick Publications was a very conservative Christian publisher but this story doesn't really reflect this. Yes it was anti-Communist but then a lot of Christian writing, especially from some Protestant denominations and organizations was at the time. Remember that at this time the Christian Church was, for the most part, persecuted in the Soviet bloc. So not a bad book. If you enjoy political thrillers you might enjoy this one. Happy reading.

[Rena Sherwood · Rating 1 out of 5]

Left my BIble by the side of the road

-- Tom Waits

The Crusaders were one of those deeply weird comics on oh, so many levels. It was a Christian comic series, meaning it was a series I was not only allowed, but encouraged to read. I was raised a Born Again Christian, so my reading material was intensely supervised.

The series is aimed at non-Christian young people. For delivering the Born Again Evangelical message, it sucked. I was a true believer at the time, so it was preaching to the choir.

I read this for the same reasons that most kids read it -- for the prurient bits. There are bugs crawling in food served in a jail. There is danger in practically every panel. There is a scantily clad blonde spy, who hikes up her dress to tend to her hurt knee, causing great shock to the Crusaders. I remember staring at that, wondering why the heck the Crusaders were shocked. I was raised a Born Again Christian, but we were allowed to wear shorts. Knees were nothing new.

Now, about that buxom blonde spy. She was part of an undercover group called the Swallows, which seduced men in order to get their secrets and put them in a gulag.

Swallows. Chick had no idea of the double entendre there.

The main plot was that the Crusaders were helping to smuggle Bibles into the Iron Curtain.

Which, I found out decades later, would've been completely unnecessary. Stalin allowed Christianity back in the USSR during WWII. You could legally own a Bible. However, it was illegal to distribute Bibles or bring Bibles into the USSR.

So, risking your neck to bring into the USSR what people had anyway.

Jesus chertovski Christ.

[Supra Dee · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like the crusaders comics, great message in every comic, as simply as this only way to be saved is with the blood of Jesus, any type of occult or different states of consciousness is all satanic, only Jesus can save you, not smoking DMT, not drinking ayahuasca, not doing shroom seeing the spiritual side, all these are tricks of Satan to seduce the soul into submission, only Jesus can save...

[Sctnyve Sr. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent start of a series

It’s been many years since I have read this series. It is always a good encouraging series to read. Been a fan of Jack Chick most of my life, he was a great man of God

[Greg Edwards · Rating 5 out of 5]

Love Chick Publishing

These comics are great. Looking forward to reading the next. I have a couple of the books, as well. Thanks!

[Nataliia]

"Yaaaaah! She became a Christian!"
"Not only that, colonel, so did the cameraman!"
XD