It is of course a little early to be thinking about 2011, but for any extremely well-organised shoppers I am pleased to be able to announce that my 2011 ‘Dave Walker Guide to the Church’ calendar is now available. Well, at least one shop (Church House Bookshop) has it, which must mean it can now be obtained.

About the calendar. The theme is ‘Church HQ’, and is a depiction of what the church (I’ll leave you to decide which one) would look like if it had all of its functions organised centrally. So we have, for instance, the Kneeler Approval Department, the Sermon Illustration Lending Library, the National Flower Rota, and so on and so forth. There are 12 cartoons, cunningly arranged one per month, all of them new and unique to this calendar.

As I said a month or two ago, drawing this thing nearly killed me, and at the time I said, with all sincerity, ‘never again’. I shall probably change my mind, but we shall see. That said I think it is one of my favourite sets of cartoons from the various things I’ve done, which sounds rather like a desperate ‘please buy this’ kind of a plea, even if it isn’t intended to.

The style of the cartoons is a bit different to usual, in that they are all complete individual scenes rather than a mixture of formats. I’ve taken some inspiration from the work of one of my favourite humorous illustrators from the last century, William Heath Robinson. Not so much in terms of contraptions or inventions (though there might be one or two) or even the humour necessarily, but more the way the scenes are laid out. Not that my draughtsmanship comes even close to matching his.

I like to think that there are not too many ‘in jokes’ in this calendar and that someone unfamiliar with church would still appreciate it, but perhaps I’m not the person to make that judgement. Anyway, I hope you enjoy it when the time comes for thinking about such things.

Places you can find the calendar:

• The publisher’s website, Canterbury Press
• Church House Bookshop
• Your local Christian bookshop (you might have to place an order)
• Amazon UK or search on Amazon in your own country.

[Aside: Yes, I know, the sidebars are way out of date as they still show this year's calendar. Will update shortly.]

[Aside 2: Please forgive the 'teapots' mockup of this cover that appears on the various shopping sites owing to my slowness in getting artwork to people. The one above is the actual cover.]

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