I’m pleased to be able to announce the Dave Walker / CartoonChurch app, enabling you to look at my cartoons on the iPhone and iPod Touch. If that link doesn’t work type ‘CartoonChurch’ or ‘Dave Walker’ into the search box on iTunes and you’ll find it. The app is free, and there are no advertisements. It was originally going to be called ‘CartoonChurch’, but that word is too long to fit under an iPhone icon so it shows up on the screen as ‘DaveWalker’. it is compatible with iPhone and iPod touch (2nd generation) and requires iPhone OS 3.0 or later if that means anything to you.

So, what is on this app? Essentially it is the latest updates from five of my various projects, namely:

1. The 10 latest posts from this blog
2. The 10 latest CartoonChurch.com cartoons
3. The 10 latest We Blog Cartoons cartoons
4. The 10 latest Dullest blog in the world entries
5. And, just to fill up the space, my latest Twitter posts (I’d say about 10). How interesting.

Good things about the app: I’m generally really pleased with the way the cartoons display. You can resize them, but if you tilt the screen 90 degrees into a landscape view you generally don’t have to. You can look at the sites in your browser, e-mail cartoons or post them to Twitter by clicking the icon in the top right hand corner. All marvellous innovations. When looking at an individual cartoon the up/down buttons make moving on to the next one really easy. Touch the screen to make the navigation bar at the top appear and disappear.
Not quite so good: There is an occasional bug when using the app in landscape mode and using the back button – it sometimes remains at the wrong width. If at any point you’re not getting the full width turning the app back into portrait mode and then back again into landscape always rectifies it. Clicking one of the other five categories sometimes does.

So, how did this app-making business come about? Well, I tend not to like to write about electronic purchases too often as it makes me sound rather materialistic (which I am, but no-one must know), but since Christmas we’ve been rather getting into the world of the iPod Touch. In the New Year a couple of well-known blogs (Seth Godin and Guy Kawasaki) were offering special codes for discounted apps on AppMakr, so I thought I’d give it a go.

The process has not been without considerable complications – if anyone else is interested in making an app via this route please ask me and I will share some of the pitfalls in another post. I also have a discount code (not as good as the one I used I’m afraid) to post, but I think I should write more before posting it so you know what you’re letting yourselves in for. [Update: Have noticed that the code I was sent yesterday expired at the end of January. have asked for another. Will write more about the process of making the app later this afternoon.]

In the meantime I hope those of you with the technology to do so enjoy the app. If you like it and felt like rating it favourably and/or writing a review that would of course help me. Apologies to those without iPhones or iPods – this is, I’m sure, a deeply irritating blog post.

Update: There is a FAQ page here: Dave Walker / CartoonChurch iPhone app

Below: Page in iTunes.

Posted by Dave at 1:57 pm on February 4, 2010 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Cartooning, Technical.

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I’m pleased to be able to announce that a new cartoon series, ‘The Dave Walker Guide to Youth Work’ will be appearing every month in Youthwork Magazine, starting with the January issue, available in December. I’m very excited about this, not last because it is only the second publication that my work is appearing in on a regular ‘every single issue’ kind of basis.

People who notice these sorts of things might notice that I’ve recently done a few cartoons for Youthwork the Conference and also some (about this time last year) for the National Charter for Youthworkers (example above). The series will be a bit like my ‘Guide to the Church’ ones, except about youth work, hence the name.

With this in mind I am desperately in need of cartoon ideas. I will therefore being going to Youthwork the Conference in the fair town of Eastbourne the weekend after next, (I’ll be there Saturday 21st / Sunday 22nd November), to loiter and hopefully talk to some youth workers to find out what they do these days. If you are going to the conference I will buy you a coffee or a small fruit juice if you will talk to me about such things. And indeed, it would be great to meet anyone else who is there, cartoon ideas or not. If you’re going do get in touch.

Just for information: I’m not stopping any of the things I currently do (except possibly being grumpy at cats who get in my way around the house and drivers who don’t indicate).

Posted by Dave at 4:27 pm on November 12, 2009 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Cartooning, Cartoons.

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A post outlining my hopes for this blog, going forward.

I have encountered some difficulties recently, so it has been quite quiet here. I’m sorry about that. I hope to do rather more posting here though as I do rather enjoy writing this blog. I also plan to put up a whole load of new downloadable cartoon material on the site for subscribers as there hasn’t been any for a while. I might also scan some diagrams from the ‘to scan’ pile.

Thanks for your patience anyway. Feel free to repost this cartoon elsewhere.

Posted by Dave at 12:06 pm on September 25, 2009 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Cartoons.

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Hello everyone. Happy Christmas! (I had planned to post this before now, but was prevented from doing so by a glitch – see diagram above, which has little to do with to do with the topic of this post, but it is one of my favourites from the year which I don’t think I’ve made public anywhere.)

Anyway, this is my end of year blog post, which I have a tradition of doing (I did one last year).

2008, brief review of

• It hasn’t really been a very good year on this blog, has it? Looking back at my list of blog posts show that things have declined somewhat.
• In February I started to write the Church Times blog, which has meant that I’ve had less time to devote to this one, but this site has, if truth be told, suffered rather more than I had intended.
• I will remember 2008 as the year of the Lambeth Conference. I was immensely privileged to be asked to be part of it doing my drawings in my medium-sized tent. I still have, if the truth be told, not really recovered.
• Canterbury Press very kindly published My Pew: Things I have seen from it in the summer. Other projects during the year included cartoons for the What am I doing here? book, the Autism and Asperger syndrome guidelines for churches and the Youthwork cartoon series which I hope will be fully revealed shortly.

2009, plans for

• I intend to spend most of January worrying about my tax return.
• The end of February is my deadline for the 2010 Dave Walker Guide to the Church Calendar, so if last year is anything to go by the month will be spent looking out of the window trying to think of ideas for it. (Aside: This years is still available).
• In April we’re going back to Spring Harvest… I know, who would have thought it? Purely as an in-depth reporter you understand, not because I’m turning Evangelical on a closet basis.
• 2009 might turn out to be the year of cartoon canvasses, new greetings cards and the sorting out of shambleses. We shall see. (I’m fully aware that ’shambleses’ isn’t valid English in most places by the way, but here in my computing office it is a well-understood and appropriate term).
• I’ve no other plans as yet. I think the Bible advises not to make too many. We live in uncertain times, so who knows what will happen, but if I have one resolution it is to try and enjoy myself a bit more doing what I am so fortunate to be doing rather than being so continually anxious about it all.

All best wishes to everyone reading – Happy New Year.

(Posted this time last year, but I doubt anyone will have really noticed.)

Posted by Dave at 6:54 pm on December 31, 2008 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, CartoonChurch.com newsletter, Sent via mobile telephone.

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Hello.

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)

Posted by Dave at 8:50 am on December 16, 2008 and filed under Books, CartoonChurch progress.

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Hello.

As you may or may not have noticed this blog has been silent for around 44 days. Giving an account of the causes would risk a drift into the realms of the tiresome, but in summary I’ve been a bit under the weather for one reason or another. I have been keeping my paid commitments going, but some other things have been allowed to drift somewhat.

Thank you for a number of kind messages expressing good sentiments of various sorts.

Anyway, I fully intend to start this blog going again. I’m not putting any pressure on myself to do it daily, but hopefully there will be new things a number of times a week. This blog may well go back to being the place where I post any old nonsense, which in the past has tended to produce the best results.

(New cartoon from my We Blog Cartoons site, where you’ll find some of my cartoons that can be freely re-used on blogs.)

Posted by Dave at 7:54 pm on November 23, 2008 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, CartoonChurch.com newsletter, Cartoons, New Weblogcartoons cartoons.

20 Comments

I’m aware that there are currently some problems on the cartoon pages of CartoonChurch.com and on the category pages of this blog.

I’m looking into them, but at the moment I am slightly mystified. I’m being told “Got error -1 from storage engine”, whatever that means.

At the time of writing the cartoons can still be accessed via this page. Otherwise there are a few cartoons here on my backup site if you need one urgently for a parish magazine.

Sorry for any inconvenience or complication that this may cause you.

Posted by Dave at 5:51 pm on October 7, 2008 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Technical.

2 Comments

Hello.

This is the return of the Cartoon Blog. Sorry once again for not writing anything here even though we got back from being away nearly a week ago. Dull explanation: I haven’t been 100% well all of the time, and my wife still had some time off so last week I was only really working on a part time basis meaning I had to prioritise certain tasks of which this blog was sadly not one.

Greenbelt was marvellous, as ever. The Church Times had a tent in which some of my work was displayed and it was great to see people enjoying it. It was good to meet so many people including a number of readers of this blog.

Neil took a couple of pictures of me grinning inanely. I posted a few photos from Greenbelt on the Church Times blog and have since posted one or two cartoons.

Continued apologies to those who are still waiting for me to reply to an e-mail. I haven’t really recovered from pre-Lambeth, let alone the time I was at Lambeth, on holiday, Greenbelt, post-Greenbelt etc etc. I will aim to get on top of everything this week, but… we shall see. Sooner or later I think I may just have to admit defeat and resign from the internet.

Nevertheless I am starting September with high hopes. I plan, amongst other things, to do a bit more drawing on this blog as there has been a lack of it, and also make some long-overdue content updates to CartoonChurch.com. Thanks for your patience.

Posted by Dave at 5:03 pm on September 1, 2008 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Mundane.

2 Comments

Well, the Lambeth Conference has been and gone. I had hoped to write more about it, but time has run out and I’m now taking a bit of a break from the blog for a couple of weeks.

Welcome, by the way, to readers of the Echo (local paper for south Essex): ‘Cartoonist raises bishops’ spirits‘. Do have a look around the site – hope you enjoy the church-related and non-church-related cartoons.

A few practical notes: Comments – You are of course very welcome to post them, but they won’t appear until I return. E-mails – Sorry, I am still way behind on these. I’m afraid I won’t be reading any until I return.

See you in a few weeks or at Greenbelt. Unless you live in a northern cathedral city, in which case there is a small chance that you might see me wandering the streets.

Posted by Dave at 10:32 am on August 6, 2008 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Mundane, Sundry posts.

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Problems on the site are continuing today – apologies once again. Please bookmark my temporary backup site http://cartoonchurch.wordpress.com – I will post there if this site is down.

Posted by Dave at 11:01 am on June 9, 2008 and filed under CartoonChurch progress.

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After 5 days CartoonChurch and the Cartoon Blog are back online, although some turbulence may continue. The problem was caused by a fire at the data centre where the site is hosted which meant that all of the electricity had to be turned off. For some reason it took a long time to turn it on and make the servers work again – my web host’s support page will, I am assured, explain things shortly.

As some of you discovered I ran a backup site with a few high resolution cartoons for subscribers whilst this site was down, but letting people know about it proved difficult. The backup site will remain online at http://cartoonchurch.wordpress.com/ in case there are any problems today or indeed at any time in the future.

Many apologies for the inconvenience and confusion that this all will have caused. I know that many e-mails sent to me bounced – I’m hoping none have been lost, but I don’t know that for sure. E-mail is trickling into my CartoonChurch address again now, but it might be safer to send e-mail to dave at wibsite.com owing to the delays.

I’ll post one of the posts (about SPCK/SSG) that I posted on the backup site here on the Cartoon Blog shortly. Please forgive the duplication.

Posted by Dave at 9:34 am on June 6, 2008 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, CartoonChurch.com newsletter, Religion.

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I’ve posted ten cartoons on CartoonChurch.com. They have all appeared somewhere else in the past, but they are newly available for subscribers and some of them have not been posted on the internet before. You can find links to all ten here, or I’ve posted individual links below:

The cartoons:

• The chain of command (From The Dave Walker Guide to the Church / originally published in the Church Times)
• Small children (From The Dave Walker Guide to the Church / originally published in the Church Times)
• The Vicar’s study (From The Dave Walker Guide to the Church / originally published in the Church Times)
• How to tell what is going on (From The Dave Walker Guide to the Church / originally published in the Church Times)
• The collection (From The Dave Walker Guide to the Church / originally published in the Church Times)
• How Christians can work together across the divide (Originally posted on this blog)
• The church is empty (Originally posted on the Church Times Blog)
• Asterisk (Originally posted on the Church Times Blog)
• How to be in two or three places (Originally posted on the Church Times Blog)
• Church meetings (posted on this blog, original version from the Baptist Union booklet Making a Splash)

Information about republishing these cartoons in church publications or elsewhere is in the usual place.

I’m aware that many of you are waiting to renew your church licence. Please do keep using the cartoons if that is the case – it is my fault not yours. Sorting out my renewals system is a major task which has needed doing for a very long time. I have to admit to struggling to keep up with doing both the creative side of things and the administration side of things, and this is the thing that has been left out. I am getting someone to help me set up an efficient way of doing the renewals and if all is well you should hear from me within the next month.

Posted by Dave at 5:31 pm on May 26, 2008 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, CartoonChurch.com newsletter, Cartoons, New CartoonChurch cartoons, Religion.

2 Comments