Yesterday I launched a new website, cyclingcartoons.com, which, as the name might suggest, contains my cartoons about cycling. There isn’t a huge number to see there yet (four), but the plan is do more and, if things go well, make some of my living from it.

I hope you like it anyway, particularly if cycling is your thing. Any passing on to potentially interested parties would be much appreciated. Oh, I should add, there is a Twitter page too: @cyclingcartoons .

I’ll be needing ideas as time goes on: if you have any topics that you’d like me to cover, or things about cycling / bicycles you’d like explained, then do let me know.

Posted by Dave at 1:06 pm on October 3, 2012 and filed under Cartooning, Cycling.

2 Comments

A slightly tricky blog post coming up, expressed as well as I can.

The Dave Walker Guide to the Church first appeared in the Church Times on 22 April 2005. I’ve been doing it every week since then, apart from a very occasional week off and a month off this time last year. It has been a huge privilege to have had the chance to do this, and doing this weekly drawing has led to all kinds of other opportunities and shaped the last seven years of my life significantly.

I’ve had a lot of help with ideas from a lot of people, including the readers of this blog, which has been highly appreciated and has made a big difference. My wife deserves a particular mention for helping me every single week.

Unfortunately the drawing of this weekly cartoon has been taking its toll for some time. The blog isn’t the place to go into details, but let’s just say I haven’t been at my best recently.

So, I’ve decided to take a break from the Church Times. My work will not be appearing in the paper for a while. How long is ‘a while’? Well, at least around three months, but I’m not going to be too precise or make too many promises. The plan is for my cartoons to return to the paper, but I can’t say exactly when, how often, or in what format. It is, I think, quite unlikely to be The Dave Walker Guide to the Church in its current form.

I know this will be utterly irrelevant to many, but very disappointing to others. People often say to me ‘please don’t stop’, and I know I’m letting those people down. I’m sorry.

So, what am I going to be doing? The plan is to have some time when I can draw without a weekly church-cartoon deadline. I have a few cartooning projects in mind.

This website will not be affected, and if anything I should now have more time to upload more of my work. I am still undertaking my website duties for the Church Times in London on Wednesdays and Thursdays.

Thanks to everyone for their support and enthusiasm for my work. I’d like to thank Paul Handley at the Church Times for his encouragement, patience and giving me chances, second chances, etc. To those that have bought books, taken out licences, sent me ideas, said kind things, bought drinks, etc etc – thank you.

Posted by Dave at 9:52 am on September 7, 2012 and filed under Cartooning.

41 Comments

I’m pleased to say that my cartoons are available on the Kindle for the first time. The first book to be available in this form is My Pew. I’m assured that the other books will follow.

I haven’t got a Kindle myself so haven’t tested it, but am assured that the landscape aspect of my drawings will work marvellously. If anyone buys it on Kindle can you let me know how it looks? Thank you!

Posted by Dave at 9:38 am on July 19, 2012 and filed under Cartooning.

3 Comments

There’s only a few weeks until the book comes out, which is good, and I’m looking forward to it.

Sadly a couple of things won’t be happening as hoped. They are both topics that people ask me about a lot, so I’m posting here to explain.

1) 2013 calendar
There won’t be a calendar for 2013 I’m afraid. Unfortunately people aren’t buying them any more – well, not enough anyway. We are all now using advanced electronic devices rather than the old fashioned cartoon calendar. There is, in theory, the possibility of making my own, but I’m not sure that I have the resources to do so.

2) Greenbelt gig
I’d hoped to show some cartoons at the Greenbelt Festival this year, but my application wasn’t successful. It is just one of those things [edited]. But (all being well) I will be there, and there will be a new book, and a cartoon map (for Angels and in the Church Times Guide to Greenbelt), and a new t-shirt.

Posted by Dave at 10:12 pm on July 10, 2012 and filed under Cartooning.

16 Comments

I collect books by my favourite cartoonists. There are now, thanks to a rather generous sale by the publishers, rather more books by the French cartoonist Jean-Jacques Sempé on my shelves (picture above) than there were a week or two ago.

I like seeing work by other artists. Besides enjoying it for its own sake, it gives me new ideas and perspectives. But yesterday, whilst mid-cartoon and with a deadline looming, I wondered whether flicking though a book by a favourite cartoonist was a help or a hindrance. Seeing great work by others can give a sense of inadequacy and encourage unhelpful comparisons.

How about you? Does seeing brilliant work by other people in the same field inspire or inhibit?

Posted by Dave at 8:12 am on June 19, 2012 and filed under Art, Cartooning.

9 Comments

I avoided calling this post ‘Back to CartoonChurch Sunday’ by a small margin, but there wasn’t much in it. But anyway, I’d like to welcome people who have come back to CartoonChurch.com after a bit of an absence.

Let me explain. Over the last month there has been a considerable amount of work and general toil taking place, partly on this website, but most especially behind the scenes. Here is what has been going on and things that have changed:

30 new cartoons uploaded. I’ve been posting them here on the blog, on Twitter and on Facebook, but if you missed any the cartoons section has them all. There will be more to come, particularly as a new bookful of cartoons is on its way.

Improvements to the cartoon licensing process. This is really the big thing that has involved the most work, but to an onlooker it may not be very apparent. Let’s just say that things have been made a lot more efficient. People who would like to use the cartoons in their churches who sign up from now will have an actual licence they can print (gasps of amazement) and communication should be much improved. This is due to the new ace admin department – about which more in a moment.

100* minor tweaks to make the website more usable and attractive. There is more that could be done I’m sure, but the site does, I hope, look a bit better than it did a month ago. I suspect I’m the only one who will notice (for instance) the new shade of blue, new header image and removal of out-of-date information from circa 2005, but hopefully additional features such as the ability to select a random cartoon (try it) and a CartoonChurch favourites section will prove useful. *Made up figure.

A new occasional CartoonChurch newsletter. Part of getting the databases sorted out has involved laying the sturdy plinth necessary for the sending-out of a new CartoonChurch newsletter. It will be for those who’d like to hear about the latest cartoons and other developments by email. There may also be exclusive content. You can sign up here (note that not all newsletters will be personally delivered by a bishop).

I’ve written to former licence holders, mostly people who have previously used my work in their local church, to come back and take a look at the extra cartoons and the updated website, and to renew licences if they’d like to. Hence this post. If that is you: welcome! I hope you enjoy looking around, and please keep in touch.

A huge thank you needs to be said at this point to Renou Um, who I’ve been working with on the admin side of CartoonChurch things over the last month. Without Renou, and her new company, All May Have, (see also: Twitter / Facebook), the licensing / newsletter / database side of things wouldn’t have happened. A huge amount has been achieved very quickly, which is marvellous. Thanks too to everyone who has posted kind comments in all manner of places whilst I have been adding the new cartoons. It has been much appreciated.

Posted by Dave at 7:31 am on June 15, 2012 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Cartooning.

1 Comment

Some good news! I’m very pleased to be able to announce that my next book, to be called ‘Peculiar Goings On‘, will be published on 31 July by Canterbury Press.

It contains a selection of my cartoons from The Dave Walker Guide to the Church in the Church Times. Am I allowed to say that I like these cartoons better than the earlier ones? No, probably not. But anyway, subjects analysed in this volume include:

• Successful strategies for rich pickings at a bring and share lunch
• How to defend the church car park from non churchgoers
• The perils of over-zealous church cleaning
• The hierarchy of biscuits
• The periodic table of churchgoers
• People you might encounter at the vicarage
• …and that cartoon: Liturgical dance: how to nip it in the bud

Here is where you can find it:

• At the Greenbelt festival in August. I imagine there may be some kind of signing or somesuch.
• Local bookshops. If you need to quote an ISBN to order it the one you need is 9781848252363
• Church House bookshop
• Amazon UK
• Amazon.com

Other stockists are available of course. Oh, should mention that the cost is of the book is £6.99.

The books page contains links to all of the books of my cartoons if you don’t want to loiter waiting for this one.

Posted by Dave at 7:45 am on June 14, 2012 and filed under Books, CartoonChurch progress, Cartooning.

2 Comments

Today’s Church Times contains an unusual thing: one of my cartoons coloured in. I’ve posted part of it above, but without the captions – you’ll need to be a subscriber to see the whole thing. It is part of a ‘Back to Church Sunday’ special, the idea being that an 8 page supplement can be given to people who come back to church, with the hope that my various diagrams (4 in total) don’t put them off too much.

I normally resist the ever present demand to produce my work in colour, because I think the style works better in black and white. Also I am rubbish at using the computer. But once in a while it is OK. The actual colouring here, including coffee cup and stripy jumpers, was done by Abi from the Church Times production department.

A huge and significant thank you must be said to those who gave me the ideas for this via my cartoon lab post last week. I used a lot of the ideas, and without you it would have been impossible.

Posted by Dave at 9:08 am on June 8, 2012 and filed under Cartooning.

2 Comments

Good morning. A break from cartoons today as I could do with a tiny bit of help. Today’s topic for the cartoon lab (hosted on this blog today):

Going back to church

Any suggestions on this welcomed: What to expect, what to do when you get there, what to expect, pitfalls to avoid, any other angle you can think of. I need to do a new cartoon on this subject today: any suggestions welcomed and greatly appreciated.

Posted by Dave at 8:09 am on May 31, 2012 and filed under Cartooning, Ideas appeal.

32 Comments

Picture: The Cartoon Museum (Flickr)

Yesterday we trudged through the rain to the Cartoon Museum in London to see the current exhibition, H M Bateman: The man who went mad on paper (pdf link).

Bateman (1887 – 1970) was one of the first to draw cartoons as we know them today, ie an humorous drawing with a funny caption. Until then the drawings had tended to be largely straight, with all of the humour being in a (often lengthy) text underneath. I like the style of much of Bateman’s work – often an entire scene with plenty to see, or a sequence where a comic situation unfolds. He is best known for his ‘The man who…’ pictures, which depicted various social faux pas, usually hapless individual doing the wrong thing whilst onlookers react with horror.

You can see more of his work via the H M Bateman website (click ‘print gallery’). The exhibition is on until 22 July and costs £5.50. Well worth seeing even if (like me) you have books of his work – I hadn’t seen most of them before.

Above: Cartoonist and caricaturist Henry Mayo Bateman (1887 – 1970) works on one of his sketches at his home in Reigate, Surrey. (Public domain)

Posted by Dave at 4:55 pm on April 29, 2012 and filed under Cartooning.

Comments Off

Well, hello everyone.

*clears throat*

I haven’t been doing very well at cartooning recently. I’m not going to go into the details, but let’s just say I need a bit of help. So, I’ve set up a small experimental website for discussion of ideas. It may or may not work, but it’s worth a try. To find the ‘Cartoon lab’, go to http://cartoonlab.wordpress.com/.

The idea is that I will post ideas which need a bit of work to turn them into something I can use for a cartoon. Any replies / contributions will be much appreciated, and hopefully the process will be fun too.

I’m hoping the technical side of it all works. Let me know if you make a comment and it doesn’t show up. First comments will need to be moderated I think. If you are a WordPress.com user or know what you are doing you might find that a ‘Gravatar’ icon shows up in the same way it does on this site. But no one really knows for sure. I decided not to use this blog, by the way, so that only the people who specifically want to join in with these discussions would see it. I decided not to use Facebook or Twitter so that people who don’t use those sites can join in.

Thanks in advance for any contributions. I do of course still welcome cartoon ideas via the usual methods: email, stopping me in the street, etc.

Posted by Dave at 1:17 pm on April 27, 2012 and filed under CartoonChurch progress, Cartooning, Ideas appeal.

Comments Off

[Larger version]

Photograph: Last night I arranged the cartoons from the still-to-be-named ‘Book 4′ in the order in which they will appear. In the first book they appeared in file-name order because I didn’t get around to arranging them. ‘My Pew’ and ‘Exciting World’ have them more logically ordered, not that anyone but me would have noticed if they were peculiarly arranged.

The book, to be published in time for the Greenbelt Festival in August, still has no title. Anyone who comes up with a title that I go on to use will receive prizes. I mean actual literal ones.

Today I will be handing in a memory stick with all of the image files and the small pieces of paper numbered in the correct order (pencil, upper left corner). Conveniently the publishers, Canterbury Press, have their offices about twenty two steps from the desk I go to on Wednesdays and Thursdays to put bold and italic tags into web pages.

Posted by Dave at 8:54 am on March 1, 2012 and filed under Cartooning.

25 Comments