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The Cartoon Blog
The not- quite- daily internet column of Dave Walker. Dave writes and draws for the Church Times and is to be the 'Cartoonist in Residence' for the 2008 Lambeth Conference. (more)
Yellow is the color of manliness in this shawl-collared, saddle-shouldered, patch-elbowed pullover. Ann Budd added ribbing at the shoulders and patches in a contrasting yarn. Warm and fabulous. Made in Tahki Donegal Tweed and Bunny.
Yellow is certainly the colour of manliness. And if there’s a day for being warm and fabulous then February the 29th is it.
By the way, in case you have come here seeking information: Wibsite.com has broken again. Realistically it is going to be this evening before we get it fixed. Apologies again.
Posted by Dave at 1:45 pm on February 29, 2008 and filed under Sundry posts, Religion.
I’d like to give a quick mention to Paul, whose children’s comic book ‘Exile Road’ is being used by the Spring Harvest Christian holidays this year. Paul writes a ‘Wiblog’ on my other site (the one that was broken but is now less broken than it was). You can read information and discussion about it on the Spring Harvest Christian holidays site.
Just as an insignificant aside, is anyone who reads this weblog going to the Minehead Week 1 Spring Harvest Christian holiday from the 5th to the 10th of April this year? I have no particular reason for asking - it is just idle chatter.
The March issue of ‘Outlook’, the Diocese of Canterbury newspaper, has the SPCK bookshop story as its main front page headline:
A couple of quotes:
Closure notices on SPCK’s Bookshop in Canterbury have been taken down after Outlook contacted the Texas-based Chairman of the owners, the St Stephen the Great Charitable Trust… However Canterbury Cathedral Shop is looking at ways to fill the gap should this be just a temporary reprieve.
In October 2007, against a background of disturbing allegations about the affairs of the ailing bookshop chain in the church and national press, both the Bishop and Simon Kington resigned from SSG citing ‘conflicts of interest’ – and currently SPCK (with its lawyers) is “trying to work through the agreement with SSG”. One of the issues could be the name. SPCK has insisted that SSG stop using their name for the bookshops, but few, if any, shop facias have changed! On its website SSG claimed in December to have “successfully re-energized their financial performance in order to make them self-supporting and hence, viable retail outlets for Christian bookselling”.
The full newspaper can be downloaded here, but it is a large download (5.7mb) and was running quite slowly when I tried. In order to spare the diocesan servers I have put up a jpeg version of the front page containing the whole story here (jpeg, 345kb, will open in new window)
In related news
I have heard that the Sheffield SSG/SPCK shop reopened last week. Apologies for being behind with the news.
Posted by Dave at 10:19 am on February 27, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK, Religion.
This cartoon can be freely re-used on your blog - to find more of its kind see We Blog Cartoons.
I’m aware that this blog is not very good value at the moment. I can explain everything though - I have a major deadline this week and am also involved in a new project being launched in the very near future.
In the meantime please excuse my slap dash attitude: unanswered e-mails, blog posts with no titles, cartoons I’ve already posted six times, that sort of thing. Thanks for your patience.
Ben Edson has been causing the evolution of a worshipper cartoon to evolve. The interpretation will follow in a few days.
Perhaps other people would like to undertake the creation of their own evolution. I have uploaded the high resolution original of the 2008 version of the cartoon (with Emergent Guy) for you to download and photoshop. Or of course you can use the original original. Let me know if you do something with it.
Tomorrow morning, Sunday 24th of February I am being interviewed on BBC Radio Berkshire. It is nothing to do with SPCK or the Lambeth Conference, but rather because I used to live in Berkshire. I am told that it is this website that will be talked about on a show about ‘Berkshire’s religious news and ethical debates’. It will only be a five minute interview and will be at about 20 to 9 in the morning. I’m not usually very awake at that time on a Sunday morning, so I might say something outrageous. (Note to the producer: I’m joking.)
Don’t get up specially or miss going to church or anything. Who knows, you might even be able to listen again via the internet. I don’t know about that as I haven’t looked into it.
I’ve added an ‘interviews’ category to the blog. If this is the last and only time I’m interviewed I’m going to look pretty silly.
Update, Sunday 9am: Well, it happened. A fairly very short interview in which my church quiz specialism was revealed and I had to hide the fact that I haven’t been drawing cartoons of Archbishop Rowan. To listen again click ‘listen again’ in the right hand column of the Radio Berkshire page, go to the ‘Clare Catford’ show and go in 2 hours 45 minutes. My slot is after the song ‘I thought it was over’ by ‘The Feeling’ which is what you hear when you arrive at the 2minutes 45 mark. Steve Madden did the show rather than the usual presenter - just in case the fact that you hear a male voice confuses you.
Posted by Dave at 9:00 am on February 24, 2008 and filed under Religion, Interviews.
Phone lines go down
The phone lines at the SSG / former SPCK bookshops went down yesterday lunchtime. At the time of writing (Friday 8.30am) phoning any of the bookshop numbers gives you three beeps followed by ‘This number does not receive incoming calls’. There have also been reports that the PDQ machines which take credit card payments will be affected.
Cambridge reprieve?
I have heard that there is to be a reprieve for the Canterbury SSG / former SPCK bookshop. The closure notices in the windows have been taken down. I have no information on the details, whether it is temporary or permanent etc. More about this within the next few days.
Norwich
Another article on the Network Norwich site: Norwich SPCK closure goes on as union steps in. I notice that there is a comment from a bishop on this page, albeit a retired one. Bishop David Leake is the former bishop of Argentina. This is possibly (please correct me of I’m wrong) the first supportive public statement of any sort by any bishop about the plight of the former SPCK shops - lets hope it isn’t the last.
Publisher makes statement
My own publisher SCM-Canterbury press has made this statement on its website.
Posted by Dave at 9:06 am on February 22, 2008 and filed under Save the SPCK, Religion.
You can see a larger version of this cartoon here along with information about using it in your parish magazine and elsewhere.
This cartoon was originally published in the Church Times and can be found in the Dave Walker Guide to the Church published by Canterbury Press, available from good booksellers. Ask the person behind the till - they probably keep it under the desk wrapped in plain brown paper.
Warning: repeated use of the word ‘pisseth’ (as used in the King James Version of the Bible).
I found the clip via Real Live Preacher (who, incidentally, has a new website - worth adding to your feed reader). Apparently it is for real - it is by Pastor Steve Anderson of Faithful Word Baptist Church. To quote his website:
Pastor Anderson holds no college degree but has well over 100 chapters of the Bible committed to memory
As you’ll have noticed I haven’t been commenting and drawing much about Anglican goings-on. This is a temporary state of affairs. But I couldn’t resist making one or two insignificant remarks about the fact that the ‘Gafcon’ alternative Lambeth Conference has been rearranged so that the ‘political’ bit is now only for invited dignatories. You’ll need to go elsewhere for in-depth analysis of course, but just one or two things that I noticed:
The not- quite- daily internet column of Dave Walker. Dave writes and draws for the Church Times and is to be the 'Cartoonist in Residence' for the 2008 Lambeth Conference. (
Posted by Dave at 1:45 pm on February 29, 2008 and filed under Sundry posts, Religion. 
