I think that the online world tends to cope better with happiness than sadness. This is a generalisation of course, and generalisations are usually wrong. That said people will rally round on your Facebook page during times of trial, so perhaps it depends more on the nature of your happiness or sadness. The same is true of the church. Loneliness or depression, for instance, do not tend to attract as much sympathy as something involving an impressive bandage.

The causes of online absences are notoriously difficult to diagnose. It could be that your friend who has not been seen on Twitter for a week is desperately unhappy, or it could just be that they have forgotten their password or that the wire has come out of the back of their computer. Sadly the likelihood is that few people will notice, as there is always someone else posting something interesting.

They could, of course, have realised that nothing beats face to face contact with an actual human being who is in the same room. But that said, some of these people could have been ones they met through a shared interest in being on the internet.

What I’m trying to say, in essence, is that the world of online computing is both terribly good and terribly bad. I realise that this is not a clear and coherent statement of belief, which is why I have never been asked to play any significant role in devising creeds for any of the world religions.

ENDS

Posted by Dave at 6:59 pm on November 26, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Profound, Utter nonsense.

6 Comments

Notes on these notes
1) They are very rough notes.
2) At this point the bad news that Bishop Pete had been ‘withdrawn from active ministry’ had not become public.
3) Apologies to Riazat for the appalling picture.
4) At the end my notes faded away a bit. This is because before the service and the sermon are the only times that notes can really be made.
5) The story about the woman trying to bring in a flare (the kind you break in half to make a big light) is totally true. I think eccentric outdoor type rather than protester or terrorist.
6) I was off to the right, not the left. As you can tell a lot of the stuff I do is made up.
7) The Queen was there but I didn’t draw her. It’s probably treason or something.

Posted by Dave at 11:26 pm on November 23, 2010 and filed under Cartoons.

10 Comments

I’m doing a comedy gig in London next month. I will be one of a number of performers at ‘Happy Birthday Jesus!’, organised by the people who do Last Orders / Happy Hour at the Greenbelt Festival. It is on Wednesday 15 December at All Hallows On The Wall, 83 London Wall, EC2M 5ND from 7.30pm. Tickets £5 on the door.

There is a Facebook Event page where you can say whether you want to come along or not. Do I need to invite you? I’ve no idea. Also the Greenbelt Blog: Happy Birthday Jesus! The Sketch Show.

I realise it’s a school night, but if you wanted to come along then that would be lovely.

I have, if you remember, done one or two gigs like this where I show some cartoons and talk. Mainly read out the captions. It sounds like it wouldn’t work, but it seems that it does. I call it cartoon stand-up. (Note that it may be performed seated for comfort reasons.)

Here (above) is a picture of me doing this in front of 3000 people at Greenbelt (Thanks Bex for the photo). I am turning around to look at the screen in an unattractive manner. Also I wasn’t convinced by the pink hair – you could have cut the ice with a stick at my meeting with the colourist.

Anyway, at this London gig it will be all to do with Christmas and that kind of thing. And a little bit longer than I did at Greenbelt. And there will be new material. There are some brilliant people taking part doing sketches and this and that. Sarah Dean, who is ace, is behind it, then you’ve got Tom Wateracre and Rev Gerald Ambulance and others.

Posted by Dave at 10:32 pm on November 16, 2010 and filed under Cartoon stand-up, Cartooning.

5 Comments

I have updated my We Blog Cartoons website for the first time in quite a while with this diagram, entitled Embarrassing incidents. We Blog Cartoons is my site with cartoons that you can repost for free on your personal weblog. For print rights and suchlike please contact me.

This diagram was drawn for those who, like me, squirm continually at the thought of the things they have said and done and then regretted.

In my mind I’m beginning to compile a liturgy for the healing of embarrassing incidents. Examples would be read out, and then the congregation would respond with ‘Dear me, that is embarrassing!’ or other appropriate words. I’ve not got far with it as you can tell. If it turns out to be any good I’ll submit it to the people at Common Worship and see what happens. Or I might take it along to Synod, loiter in the corridors and see whether I can get any bishops to endorse it. To tell the truth I haven’t really looked into how one goes about these things.

Posted by Dave at 11:03 am on November 15, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, New Weblogcartoons cartoons, Spirituality.

9 Comments

Last week I asked readers of this blog to send me choir hat designs. There has been a great response, and here, a little belatedly (apologies), is the final selection of designs. The credit and commentary for each is after each drawing.

Hat by Joel I. The only one to feature space for a quiche. Good to have season flexibility and balancing requirements considered too.

‘Hats for choir members’ by Judith R. A selection of church styles has been considered, as has a range of climatic conditions. I can see some mild chaos as the free church choir run after their blown-away headgear.

Angel hat by David Bowen. He writes ‘The purpose of the choir hat that I have designed is to remind the congregation that they are but part of a larger spiritual realm in which the angels participate in worship’.

Chris C has drawn these hats from above. I won’t pretend to understand all of the symbolism – there is some debate at CartoonChurch HQ as to whether the four items on the pro women bishops hat are flowers or pom poms. No doubt Chris or indeed someone else will be happy to enlighten us.

These are Sara’s designs. The hat is accompanied by a CSI-style kevlar vest (credit to the Unshelved.com Library Raid collection and St Leonard for the idea). This design is definitely for you if you feel, whilst singing in the choir, that some kind of bulletproof body-warmer is appropriate.

Anne’s Mark 1 choir hat, which has every kind of advanced feature you could require. Note that it does require the ‘amenities dispenser’ (available separately).

This design is one my wife drew and threw in the bin. I quite liked it though, hence its inclusion. The bracket can be used for music or to house a mirror, for vanity or to enable awareness of manoeuvres being carried out by choir members in the back row.

Lastly a couple that I have drawn, although this one was Sara’s idea. There are secret compartments for biscuits, periscopes and strepsils. The points can be raised or lowered to access the oddments using a series of pulleys attached to the handle.

Finally, my church choir hat. Flags of different liturgical colours can be flown, and lowered to half-mast during times of national mourning.

Thanks once again for all contributions. Feel free to debate these hats in the comments below, or on Twitter using the #choirhats (not currently trending) hashtag.

Update: Crimperman on Twitter has kindly posted a design just as I’m leaving the office (hence not included) – you can see it here.

Posted by Dave at 5:29 pm on November 12, 2010 and filed under Cartoons, Church.

4 Comments

One or two people have been asking me for Fresh Expressions cartoons as the subject has been talked about in various places this week (although I don’t really want to get into that here).

First of all, my Graham Cray cartoon from the Church Times blog earlier this year:

Secondly my cartoon entitled ‘The alternative worshippers‘ from a while back.

There must be more, but I can’t remember them. You’re welcome to post these on a personal blog, but please link back. Thank you!

[Aside: there may be a slight delay on the choir hats pictures, as I've not got around to scanning and suchlike and I'm trying to get an important drawing job done.]

Posted by Dave at 4:58 pm on November 9, 2010 and filed under Cartoons.

5 Comments

This blog post does not merit being called anything.

I was out and about in the neighbourhood, scouring the empty shopping trolleys for completed cartoons that I could post on my blog or send to ecclesiastical newspapers. Once again I found nothing, so this will have to do:

This note was discarded, one assumes, by a chef purchasing essentials for some of the local delicacies. Note ‘Sasuages’, which are a form of sausages, but posher.

Questions for study groups
1) What did the author intend to write for item 6, before deciding upon ‘drinks’?
2) That’s an awfully thick pen for a shopping list, don’t you think?
3) Spend some time wandering off the topic for a bit.

Posted by Dave at 7:07 pm on November 7, 2010 and filed under Mundane, Utter nonsense, shopping lists.

15 Comments

This morning I went to St John the Evangelist church in Moulsham, Chelmsford, for an unusual assignment.

It was a young people’s ‘Big Brother’ style event, in which a number of housemates have been shut in an upstairs church room and are remaining there for 24 hours doing fun tasks and interviewing special guests. They were looking for a celebrity to take part, but couldn’t find one, so I was asked instead. It was great fun – I got to go up in dramatic style in the disabled lift to meet the four remaining housemates, who interviewed me about cartooning and had to find out some specific information in order to get points so they could have lunch.

The picture shows my friend Ruth, and the youth worker, (we’ll call him David), talking to the housemates in a Big-Brotherly kind of way. The screens show what is going on in the house, and people can come in and watch whilst buying cake for charity. I think that is a correct assessment of what was happening anyway.

If ever you can’t find a celebrity for your event and think that I might do please talk to my agent.

[Advertisement: Agent required. Apply within.]

Posted by Dave at 2:55 pm on November 6, 2010 and filed under Cartooning.

5 Comments

There has been some interest in the choir hats discussed in my previous post. However, I am sure that these are not the most innovative choir hats that we could, as a group, come up with. I am therefore opening up the pages of this blog to your choir hat designs. If you think you can design a superior choir hat please do so and sent it to me, and I will endeavour to post all submissions on a future blog post. (Obviously were I to receive a huge number of entries I might have to be selective.)

The design can be sent in electronic form via the e-mail address on this page (or any other I’ve contacted you on) or via post to the PO Box address on the same page. Or you can post them on your blog and I will link. Shall we say by a week’s time, Tuesday 9 Nov? That way you can devote the weekend to the task. Non-UK readers might be best scanning or photographing their submissions. I can’t return artwork without an SAE (this is sounding a bit like Take Hart).

This is just a bit of fun rather than a competition, so there aren’t any prizes. That said if you were to include an address… you just never know. There is no requirement for the hats to be pointy.

If there are some good suggestions I may taken them along to General Synod and show them to anyone who will listen. The Queen will be there one of the days, so there is a small chance you could end up supplying choir hats by Royal Appointment to HM’s Choirs.

If there are no submissions I will do some myself, add fake names to them, and then post them to myself.

Posted by Dave at 7:09 pm on November 2, 2010 and filed under Art, Cartooning.

8 Comments

Image: choir hats. For illustration purposes only.

I’m sorry not to have updated this blog for over ten days. I’ve been suffering from low morale and general loss of diagrammatical confidence and so didn’t have anything good enough to blog. I still don’t have anything good enough to blog, but have decided to remedy the situation by lowering the bar of quality considerably, so that any old rubbish will be fit to post.

This is a picture of the hats as worn by the choir members at my church. When I say ‘my church’ I mean the one that I go to on an occasional basis. Apparently hats of this kind are unusual in choral circles. I certainly think that these are some of the pointiest* hats that I have seen. The choir is also unusual in that there are four women and they all look identical**.

* It irritates me that my spellchecker doesn’t like the word ‘pointiest’.
** I’m just being silly now. Expect more of this kind of thing.

Posted by Dave at 12:15 am on November 1, 2010 and filed under Blogging, CartoonChurch progress.

21 Comments