Bloggasm

Dave Walker draws cartoons for the UK church paper ‘The Church Times’ and runs Cartoon Church, a site supplying cartoon-based resources for churches to use. He is the writer of ‘the Cartoon Blog‘ and ‘The Dullest Blog in the World’. He lives in Essex, UK.

Simon Owens: You seemed to have created an extremely niche blog by drawing cartoons for churches. Before creating the blog, did you find that there was a large demand for such a thing?

Dave Walker: I’ve been drawing cartoons for quite a few years now and people seem to quite like them. I’ve also had quite a bit of experience working in churches and know that they are always on the lookout for creative resources. Christians (myself included) do quite a few absurd things and so there’s quite a lot of scope for humour.

SO: When combining humor with religion, it becomes very easy to offend even when you don’t intend to. Have you ever accidently run into any problems with this?

DW: It can indeed be easy to offend without meaning to. I have rarely encountered people who were seriously offended by anything I’ve drawn, though there have been one or two times when people have told me I’ve gone slightly too far. People not getting that something is a joke is a more common problem. And occasionally I have drawn something which I’ve later regretted.

SO: Do you feel there would be a demand for this kind of blog for other religions?

DW: That’s a good question. I haven’t met many cartoonists of other faiths I have to say. But yes, why not? I think it would be important for someone running such a blog to have extensive inside knowledge of the religion in question so they’d know where to draw the line. So to speak.

SO: What are the five blogs everyone should be reading (besides your own)?

DW: suspect no-one else would enjoy all of my five choices, but hopefully there is a bit of variety here:
Diamond Geezer - London Blog
JonnyB’s secret diary - humour from rural Norfolk
Hugh Macleod: cartoons on the back of business cards
Problogger - making money from blogging
Drawn - art blog