About The Cartoon Church
Church. Love it, or hate it, or a bit of both. Attend, not attend, or only really at Christmas, and even then it depends whether we’ve got time before getting started on dinner prep. Capitalise it, or otherwise. Belong, or actually, not these days, as things didn’t go that well when we did, unfortunately.
Welcome to The Cartoon Church, my second newsletter, this time about all things ecclesiastical. It’s my contribution to the ‘Faith and Spirituality’ category of Substack. A religion newsletter in the loosest sense.
About the name. Why The Cartoon Church? We paid consultants a fortune to come up with the name… but actually: My church-based cartoons will be a major part of the newsletter, and CartoonChurch.com is the name of the website that showcases my drawings, and there didn’t seem like a need to come up with an additional name.
A brief introduction, in case you haven’t heard of me (and why should you?). I’m Dave, a cartoonist based in Essex, just to the east of London. I draw cartoons for all sorts of people, but most notably for the purposes of this newsletter the Church Times, where my cartoons have appeared weekly (with one or two short breaks) since 2005 (or 2004, depending how we’re counting). I am the author of ten cartoon books.
Why another newsletter? So here’s the thing. I’ve been quite enjoying writing a Substack newsletter (Diagram Club) for the last few months. It’s been one of the things keeping me going during what hasn’t been an entirely straightforward time. But I’m aware that the Diagram Club readership isn’t (huge generalisation) specifically interested in my church cartoons, as most have discovered my work through other projects I’ve been doing. Also: I already have a mailing list for readers of my CartoonChurch.com website, and I’d quite like to give said un-named list a new and more regular lease of life.
Reasons for doing it:
For me: I’m hoping that writing The Cartoon Church will be good for me, and give me some much needed interaction in my not-particularly-social everyday life. (On a typical day I mainly only talk my wife, the cat, and the staff at my favourite cafe.) And I’m hoping it will give me inspiration for new work.
For you: I hope it will provide a morale boost when it arrives in your inbox. And, let’s face it, most of us could really do with something like that these days.
So what will this newsletter contain? Let’s make use of the unordered list feature:
You can expect a sprinkling of my church cartoons. Popular ones, and rarities from the archive.
Updates on what I’ve been doing, insofar as they might be interesting.
The opportunity for you to suggest topics for my new work.
Every now and then perhaps we’ll shine a light (to use a spiritual kind of a phrase) on something that needs a light to be shone on it (Sorry, drifted into metaphor).
Hopefully other regular features will develop as we go on.
How often will it appear? No one knoweth the day or the hour it will arrive in your inbox. Aiming for a couple of times a month - we’ll see.
Will there be a Paid version? No. But those who want to support my work or reuse my church cartoons can do so by buying a CartoonChurch membership on the website. And for those who can do that: it will really help, thank you.
So, two newsletters, eh? If you like my work you might also be interested in Diagram Club, my weekly newsletter on more diverse themes. There you’ll find annotated photos of things I’ve been doing in the week, my Household Problems diagrams, answers to readers’ letters, my studio playlist, colour of the week, a cycling cartoon or two, and other misc features.
Should I subscribe even if I have no knowledge about churches, or (if I’m honest), a huge amount of interest in religion? I always try to make my cartoons understandable to anyone, in as far as that’s possible. This isn’t going to be a heavy newsletter. I’d love it if you gave it a go.
Subscribe
If all of this sounds interesting, please subscribe to The Cartoon Church to get the emails in your inbox, full access to the newsletter, and publication archives.
Stay up-to-date
Ways you can read:
Every new post is sent directly to your email inbox.
You can also read here on the website: cartoonchurch.substack.com
Or, you can get the Substack app.
