Book news. The ‘My Pew’ barrel has run dry (no idea why we keep them in a barrel). It is being reprinted and I am told that the ink on the new copies will be touch-dry in about a month’s time. The ones in the picture above are cardboard replicas and not real.

Don’t despair though, my other cartoon publications are still available. Church House Bookshop currently have special offers on the 2012 calendar (2 for £12) ‘The Exciting World of Churchgoing‘ (£6.29) and ‘The Dave Walker Guide to the Church‘ (£5.39). UK postage is £2.50 for orders under £25.00. Other booksellers are available of course, and I link to some of them on my books page.

I can also hint at the fact that there could well be another book next year. It will perhaps be launched in approximately summer (add or subtract two seasons in either direction). The title of this entirely hypothetical volume is still to be confirmed. Thinking of a title usually takes two months of full-time looking out of the window, so if anyone has any ideas let me know.

Below: sample cartoon from the calendar: Furniture

[Large version]

[Cartoon unrelated to content - for illustration purposes only]

Here are this week’s notices:

Thank you
Thanks so much to everyone who has contributed to my ideas post. There are many brilliant ideas that I will be able to use, along with some sent by e-mail. Please do continue though if you think of anything else. Now all I’ve got to do is a bit of drawing.

Interview
To read an interview with me in which I talk about this and that see the Big Bible site. The interview is mainly to do with this website. Big Bible is all to do with the Big Read, a campaign encouraging people to read the Bible during Lent 2011. My friend Bex runs the website. Whether the introduction of ‘Big Bibles’ is part of the plan I have no idea. These would be for those who like to share a Bible with several friends or who find smaller print irritating. I may well suggest it.

2011 Calendar about to sell out
I have it on good authority that stocks of next year’s calendar will run out very soon – over 90% of the stock has now been sold. Last year they were on sale after Christmas as they didn’t sell out, but the same won’t happen this year. Various shops may have stock – otherwise you can order via Canterbury Press here.

Book not about to sell out
As long as people are sensible about it and form an orderly queue there will be enough copies of The Exciting Word of Churchgoing to go around. Thanks to everyone who has been buying it – it has made the Church Times Top 10 for a third month which I’m very pleased about.

Essubi
Finally, if you’re looking for a small charity to support this Christmas may I recommend Esuubi, which works with children in Uganda providing education, medical care etc. My friend Kate set it up and I can vouch for the people involved. Some of my family may be getting some alternative gifts from there (please don’t tell them if you see them).

Click here to see this cartoon in full on the main CartoonChurch site. Once again this is from the last book, My Pew.

In other news: Thanks to everyone who has been buying the new book (sidebar, above left). It has been selling well at Church House Bookshop, where it is No 3 in their top 10 books. At least, I’m assuming that it is No 3, and that No 1 is at the top of the page. No 1 can’t be at the bottom of the page can it? That would make Fresh Expressions more popular than marriage services.

[10% discount on Church House Bookshop purchases until 12 noon UK time tomorrow, Wednesday. Use code BDLPGEBTZ226 ]

A note for readers in Oxfordshire, Berkshire and Buckinghamshire. You can win one of my books by entering the competition in ‘the Door’, which is the diocesan magazine. Failing that it isn’t too late to enter for the Olympics (see lead story, above) if you still have anything in reserve to ‘raise your game’ following my recent demand for 110%.

I’m aware, by the way, that most people can’t enter this competition for geographical reasons. I’ll run one myself before too long so that everyone has the chance.

The Door can be obtained from any branch of the C of E in the above counties. I don’t think that the competition is on the web version so you’ll actually have to go to church to get a copy. While you are there please attend a service, put some money in the collection and join a rota. I was formerly employed in the diocese, being a youth worker in one of the parishes until my retirement, hence my interest.

It is tricky coming up with a name for a diocesan magazine. Things seen around the house can be a good source of inspiration, hence the Door, the Window, and (probably) the Lampstand. In time all of the good names will be used up, and so we will have the Dishwasher or perhaps the Recycling Bin.

Do let me know your ideal diocesan magazine name via the comments. If we get a good list of suggestions we could forward it on to the Church authorities who I’m sure would be glad of the help.

This is a bit self-centred, but there again this is my blog, so it is allowable as long I don’t revel in it. Simon Jenkins, the Captain of the Ship of Fools, has written a most positive review of my book of drawings, The Exciting World of Churchgoing, on his blog. See here to look at it on the internet. Thank you Simon!

In other news, there are one or two reasonably exciting developments. My people (ie me) are talking to their people (ie them). I can’t say any more than that. In fact, it would have been best to say nothing than to post something that will only invite idle speculation and tittle tattle. Oh well, too late now.

Launch of ‘The Exciting World of Churchgoing’

My new book, The Exciting World of Churchgoing will be available at the Greenbelt Festival and quite possibly in the shops this week. Hooray!

It is the third book of my Church Times ‘Guide to the Church’ cartoons. There’s no launch party planned. Perhaps I should organise one. Bit late really as people won’t have time to hire all of the formal kit etc.

[Aside: You can (when it becomes available) get the book via your local Christian bookshop, or via Amazon, Church House Bookshop, Waterstones or the publishers, Canterbury Press.]

Nightly appearance at Last Orders

This is the most exciting but most terrifying thing in the world for me at the moment. I will be showing some cartoons and doing some very limited talking in ‘Last Orders‘ on each night, Friday, Saturday, Sunday and Monday. Last Orders starts at 11pm and is in the 2000 seater ‘Centaur’ venue, and other people on the bill include proper comedians like Milton Jones. Oh dear, what have I got myself into? On the plus side, whenever I have done these things before I have loved doing them and people have found them quite enjoyable and there has been some polite applause at the end.

No, I haven’t prepared it yet.

Cartoon Exhibition in the Church Times Tent

Some of my latest diagrams and some from the book will be on display in the Church Times tent. These will include ones like ‘The Periodic Table of Churchgoers’ which have thus far not been widely available beyond the newspaper.

The Church Times tent is in front of the grandstand. This year the tent has swapped places with the ‘Hub’ Literature venue as the Church Times was found to be on dodgy ground. By implication this means that the Literature is now on dodgy ground. This is a conundrum I haven’t yet got to the bottom of.

Map of Greenbelt in the ‘Church Times Guide to Greenbelt’

Every year I do a map of the festival site and moan about how difficult it is to draw for weeks on end to anyone who will listen. You can get hold of it in the free Church Times Guide to Greenbelt, available from the Church Times tent or from touts (ie me) who will be handing it out.

Loitering

When not doing other things I’ll generally be hanging around in the Church Times tent pretending to help. Do come and say hello, and perhaps we can meet up for a cup of tea or beer. Not too much beer though, as I must be alert during the evenings.

Other

I think I might be part of some comics thing. I don’t really know about that.

I’m pleased to be able to announce that a third book of my diagrams has just been published. It is called ‘The Exciting World of Churchgoing’.

The book contains 90 cartoons from my Church Times ‘Guide to the Church’ series, and costs £6.99. The publisher is Canterbury Press – their page about the book is here: Dave Walker – The Exciting World of Churchgoing. There are also webpages on Church House Bookshop, Waterstones and Amazon. You can of course be able to buy it from a local Christian bookshop. If you wanted to ask them to stock it that would of course be marvellous.

Click here to see all of my cartoon books and calendars.

I’m pleased to say that my 2010 ‘Guide to the Church’ calendar is now available. It contains 12 brand new cartoons that are not available anywhere else. It is subtitled ‘situations vacant’ and is a guide to some of the jobs that you can do in church, for example bell ringer, choir member, cleaner, PCC member, coffee rota volunteer etc etc.

Producing 12 extra cartoons nearly caused my expiration, as it does every year. I really am only remotely funny once a week, meaning that such an extra effort resulted in blood, sweat and tears. Well, no blood, thinking about it. And not much sweat except when I kept the fan heater on too long. But some tears. Secretly though I am rather pleased with the cartoons – having not looked at them for a number of months I quite enjoyed them when my box of calendars arrived at the end of last week.

You can buy the calendar, which costs £5.99, via your local Christian bookshop (You might or might not have to order it), at Church House bookshop in Westminster (or online – they post overseas) or direct from the publisher, Canterbury Press (who also post overseas). Waterstones are listing it, but say 2-3 weeks delivery and then there’s Amazon, though it is currently out of stock.

The ISBN which will be useful for ordering via your local bookshop is 9781853119576

Update: The calendar is available on Amazon.com for those in the US.

Just to let you know that I will be auctioning the five Lambeth cartoon canvasses as previously mentioned, but that it will now happen in the New Year. Apologies to those who might have wanted to buy one as a Christmas present – I’m afraid that it has been the usual story of my spending all of my energy trying to get my creative work done and not having any time left to organise the administrative aspects. Sorry for any disappointment caused.

Meanwhile on my eBay site there are five more ‘Dave Walker Guide to the Church’ books up for sale – the auctions end just before midday UK time today. (Auctions now ended)

This afternoon I made myself a cartoonchurch eBay account so that I can start to think about selling these canvasses. However, I decided to start off with something a bit smaller and more manageable, so I’m now selling some signed copies of my books. My brand new shiny eBay account is here: cartoonchurch (0).

Now, I don’t really intend to make a long term thing of selling my books on eBay, as (a) I’d like to support local bookshops and (b) I’m too lazy to keep going to the post office. However, I do have a reasonable amount of stock that I need to shift, so I may well add some more if it works and people buy them.

I’d wanted to sell the books with a ‘buy it now’, but apparently I need to have more of a feedback score than my current ’0′ before I’m allowed to be let loose on the ‘buy it now’ button. So the books are being sold as an auction, starting at 99p and hopefully ending up not too far from the £5.99 mark.

I might add more books, so please don’t bid huge amounts (not that you were planning to, I know) for a rare signed copy, because If I sell more they will become rather less rare. I will sign them saying anything you want (within reason) – so an ideal opportunity to pick up a unique(ish) Christmas present.

As an aside: I do have a personal eBay account, so the whole business is not entirely new to me. But my score on my personal account is (2) meaning that I am still really a novice. I’ll write about the not-terribly-but-a-little-bit-exciting story of my (2) purchases another day.

So… anyone like a book?

Update (Saturday midday): Have added another 5 ‘Dave Walker Guide to the Church’ books. These are a 3 day listing again, so will end midday on Tuesday if my calculations are correct.