Dave Walker - Cartoonist Extraordinaire

Something to lighten  a grey, wet January : Dave Walker's cartoons via the Church Times have brightened up my Friday afternoons for years now and his various cartoon blogs for even longer. Gentle, self-deprecating humour with a bite I call it. He has a knack of capturing those little details of life and behaviour, especially life in that marvellously unwieldy and idiosyncratic institution we call the Church and making us look at them (and us)  again...hopefully with wiser eyes - or maybe not....

If for reasons unknown you've been living on another planet for the last ten years (or simply don't read the Church Times!), meet the man behind the pen here in Being a Cartoonist a video by Michal Dzierza. Enjoy.

Beer, Curry and Tractors

Before I pop off for the day, thought you'd enjoy popping over to Dave Walker's blog to find out why he doesn't go to his local church  mens' group.  Can't say I'd want to learn about chopping up logs, either, Dave, but as to handbag essentials, I'll have you know that the interior of your average women's handbag is a dangerous place; who knows what horrors lurk within! In mine, anyway.  Incidentally, our church ladies  went out for a curry recently, and a great evening we had too. I suspect we may have some secret Cartoonblog readers amongst our number...

To be a pilgrim: All Who would valiant be - Hobgoblin-free zone

                                            Feeble apology for a hobgoblin - Christmas 2010


Great full-colour cartoon by Dave Walker in this week's  Church Times supplement on Back to Church Sunday: What to expect incorporating some suggestions from his readers  adoring fans, including Yours Truly. Thanks Dave,  for including mine on inclusive language in familiar hymns.  If you're not expecting it (inclusive language, not Dave W), as was I this morning, it can cause not a little dissonance twixt eye, voice and brain, resulting in a strangled squawk not unlike that of poor John Bunyan's hobgoblin. I already knew that he'd been banished, along with the foul fiend; earlier than I'd thought -according to this info on the hymn based on a poem from Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress, the modifications made by Percy Dearmer were made way back in 1906. Well, I certainly don't date back that far, yet I distinctly remember singing the original Who Would True Valour See throughout my schooldays. Maybe we used in in solidarity with the local boys' grammar school - according to one source, they had Bunyan's version as a school song. Ours was, and as far as I know still is One Church, One Faith, One Lord, (in itself a topic for a blog post), but I digress.

Going back to church today - whatever version we were singing, it read even more inclusive and san (nearly said 'sin') itised than Perce's masterpiece! All Who Would Valiant Be...? Never mind. One good thing to be said for modernising, at least it forces you to really concentrate on what you're singing about; easy to let the tried and familiar blind you to the underlying meaning. And to be honest, when I think about  the potential horrors in some of the more contemporary output, (Shipoffools.com's Crappy Choruses and Horrible Hymns thread saw me through many a dark night), I'll forgive Newchurch any amount of inclusive language use.

It's just - if you've been brought up on robust Anglican hymnody and even more robust poetry: I remember learning Gerard Manley Hopkin's glorious  Pied Beauty, his  God's Grandeur, and Coleridge's Rime  of the Ancient Mariner, at school between the ages of seven and ten (so there, Mr Gove!), anything less can seem like dreaming in sepia tones when you've been accustomed to all the colours of the rainbow.