I’ve posted my rural deans cartoon – the image above is but one bit of it. Cartoon from My Pew / Church Times.

I’ve chosen to post this one for those who have the bishops and archdeacons cartoons and are looking to complete the set. Yes, I know, you call them ‘area deans’ in a lot of places these days. But, as terms go, rural dean is more fun to work with. I had forgotten all about the tractor / sheep image in each picture until I did the computer editing just now.

Thank you once more for your help with yesterday’s questions, by the way. It really was a huge help. I’ve now drawn the hassocks / kneelers cartoon but am very open to further suggestions on tables and vestries. I might be as bold as to ask for ideas ever so slightly more often from now on in order to protect my own sanity.

Posted by Dave at 10:18 pm on October 5, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

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Pure silliness. Fortunately, it being Monday, very few people are reading.

Optional activity

If anyone has time on my hands I’d welcome thoughts on the following.

Question 1
What do you keep in your vestry? Odd or peculiar items from vestries you have known welcomed.

Question 2
What is kept on the tables at the back of church? Odd or peculiar items from tables you have known at the back of churches you have known welcomed.

Question 3
What might people who pilfered kneelers do with them?

Update: Please feel free to repost this cartoon on your blog – all I ask is that you put a link to my site. Thank you!

Posted by Dave at 7:42 pm on October 4, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Ideas appeal.

44 Comments

This cartoon is taken from my 2010 calendar, in other words the one people are three quarters of the way through at the moment as opposed to the new one. I can’t tell you which month it is, but I’m hoping it is one of the ones that have gone so as to avoid spoilers for those who don’t look ahead at forthcoming months. Yes, it is true, I don’t have a copy of my own calendar in the house owing to having seen all of the jokes before.

Given that it’s Sunday and no-one’s reading I was going to go into some detail about some of the cleaning I’ve been doing around the house. It would have been fairly interesting. But it’s Sunday, and no-one’s reading, so I won’t bother. Instead, a vacuum cleaner anecdote. Once, I went to a Christian camp for youths held in an old house. I was given the job of vacuuming some rooms at the end and was told off for doing a poor job. It was not my fault though, as the vacuum cleaner was old and rubbish. I don’t feel any ongoing bitterness about this.

To be honest it is a good thing I can use diagrams on this weblog. If mine were mainly an anecdote-based blog I think I’d have difficulties.

Posted by Dave at 8:39 pm on October 3, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, New CartoonChurch cartoons.

5 Comments

Cartoon exhibitions
This (above) is a picture from one I did in Southminster the other week. I paid some members of the public to look interested. I’m very willing to come and talk and/or exhibit cartoons elsewhere – contact my agent for details. Or, upon discovering that I don’t have one, contact me.

Christian Marketplace review
Another very kind review of the book, this time in Christian Marketplace magazine by (I assume) Clem Jackson. I particularly enjoyed: “If you have friends who think church is dull and boring… then this might just settle their minds once and for all”. You can find it via this page, or this direct link to the page-turning copy. Page 11.

Church Times book chart
Pleased to see that the book is number 3 this week. Thanks everyone!

Christian New Media Awards
The cheeky rodent dessertblogger the Church Mousse has got his paws on the confidential shortlists for the Christian Blog Awards. Good Heavens – our combined 110% efforts have paid off thus far. Thanks everyone!

Christian New Media Conference
I’m going. Are you? If so let’s go for a drink afterwards.

Church Times cartoon award
The Church Times is probably the most cartoon-friendly publication in the UK (besides Private Eye), and it is their support that has enabled me to do what I do. I’m pleased therefore that they have been recognised by the Professional Cartoonists Association, an organisation that I might have joined had I been better with paperwork. A report (and slightly risqué cartoon) is here.

Posted by Dave at 8:17 pm on October 2, 2010 and filed under Cartooning, Festivals and Exhibitions.

7 Comments

See this picture in full on the main CartoonChurch.com site: the home group. It’s another from the My Pew book.

Comment (of sorts): I go to a church home group (group that meets in a home). Yes, I know, this could come as quite a surprise. The truth is that I really quite enjoy reading the Bible and sharing my ignorance with others. It has, ever so occasionally, been known for me to think to myself, or indeed out loud, ‘Oh dear – do I have to go home group tonight?’. But I nearly always come away having benefited from the experience in ways that I can’t necessarily articulate here (not all of them involving tasty treats or snacks). For me it is perhaps the most ‘genuine’ aspect of going to church, in that actual talking to other human beings is involved. I’m peculiar I know, but I find that helpful. I suspect I’m not alone in this. I don’t know that home group attenders are included on official church statistics though – at least I’ve never known anyone standing there with a clicker counting us in and out. But then it is quite often dark.

I regularly find the study notes used at home groups rather deficient. I keep meaning to write my own, (with diagrams), but such a project is always about seventh on my list so never gets started. The (perhaps not so) strange thing is that the Bible somehow has its own ability to transcend the irrelevance of the study material. Theologians have a word for that kind of thing, but I forget what it is.

I should add that I drew this in November of 2006, which I think was before I started going to the group I go to. This means that no fellow participants, in the unlikely event that they should be reading, need fear that they are depicted. No, the people in the drawing are all people who went to former home groups of mine from the 1970s (I started young) until the 2000s. Probably you.

Posted by Dave at 4:19 pm on October 1, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church.

10 Comments