the cartoon church
July 14, 2006 7:16 AM   Subscribe

the cartoon church - a site full of cartoons that gently mock some of the foibles of the church of england. Created by Dave Walker, a cartoonist for the Church Times
posted by talitha_kumi (19 comments total) 1 user marked this as a favorite
 
Cake or Death?
posted by Windopaene at 8:27 AM on July 14, 2006


I'm sorry; there's really no gentle way of saying this: I was expecting at least some of them to be funny.

(Although I might buy a T-shirt with the stroppy teenage bishop on it.)
posted by Faint of Butt at 8:30 AM on July 14, 2006


Sorry, Faint of Butt. I guess you have to be a member of the church to appreciate the humour. I thought they were funny. Different strokes, though I guess.
posted by talitha_kumi at 8:38 AM on July 14, 2006


I guess you have to be a member of the church to appreciate the humour.

Did you mean to say a church? No, you probably really meant to say "the church".
posted by Balisong at 8:43 AM on July 14, 2006


Made this filthy apostate Catholic smile, cute stuff!
posted by Alvy Ampersand at 8:44 AM on July 14, 2006


Yes, I imagine she did mean "the" church. As in this particular sect, the Church of England. Not as in "I'm a crazy person and you must obey The Church."

Sheesh.
posted by solotoro at 8:45 AM on July 14, 2006


As a sometime Episcopal, I liked some of these. Especially "The problem with the church."
posted by solotoro at 8:46 AM on July 14, 2006


I kind of liked them. Some of them remind me of David Shrigley, minus the violence and all the fucking swearing.
posted by Len at 8:56 AM on July 14, 2006


Well I think they're good - thanks -, especially this one
Yeah they're pretty Shrigley, pretty Callahan too.
posted by Flashman at 9:21 AM on July 14, 2006


Hee. No need to be a member of the church to laugh out loud to some of these. I especially liked How to make church brilliant, and some of them are indeed very Shrigley.

Shame the archive pages throw a database error, though you can see more on the sister site (which, in a very C of E way, provides helpful code to let you add his cartoons to your weblog, without making too much of a fuss about it, you understand).
posted by jack_mo at 9:41 AM on July 14, 2006


Good to see that the Anglican sense of humour is as bloodless, insipid and dessicated as their religion.
posted by Decani at 10:24 AM on July 14, 2006


Mind you, he got this one right.
posted by Decani at 10:25 AM on July 14, 2006


Amusing and inoffensive. And so are the cartoons.
posted by tommasz at 10:52 AM on July 14, 2006


I thought, upon visiting the main site, that I would not like this very much at all. Upon further reading, though, I think that I do like it. Just a bit. Maybe it takes a few pages to get the right narrator voice.
posted by redsparkler at 1:22 PM on July 14, 2006


I was expecting at least some of them to be funny.

No chance of that. The Church of England is serious business!
posted by Serial Killer Slumber Party at 7:58 PM on July 14, 2006


Balisong : "Did you mean to say a church? No, you probably really meant to say 'the church'."

Well, yeah, since that's pretty much standard usage. "The church" is an abbreviation of "the church of which we are speaking". Much like when a cop says "Get out of the car", he doesn't mean "get out of a car, any car, take your pick", but "get out of the car (in which you are sitting)".
posted by Bugbread at 9:19 PM on July 14, 2006


Serial Killer Slumber Party : "The Church of England is serious business!"


posted by Bugbread at 9:25 PM on July 14, 2006


For all the gentle self-mockery of these cartoons, there is something quite complacent about them. They seem designed to prove that 'we' (= liberal Anglicans) are better than 'them' (= conservative bigots) because 'we' are capable of laughing at ourselves. Interestingly, Dave Walker's cartoons for the Church Times often have a sharper edge, and give the impression of being produced by someone who secretly despises the entire Church of England.

This one is quite a good example of his sharper, more satirical style of humour. This one too. I have to be honest and say I don't find either of them particularly funny, or even particularly accurate, but at least they express a point of view, which many of the other cartoons don't. As to why I don't find them particularly funny .. well, I think the only way to be funny about the Church of England is to treat the whole thing as a surreal fantasy. These cartoons do their best to be surreal, but they don't go nearly far enough. In fact they are considerably less surreal than the real thing.
posted by verstegan at 7:25 AM on July 16, 2006


Aww....

Welcome to visitors from Metafilter who have been popping in to see the cartoons today. Apologies if the site is down for much of the day as a result. Don’t blame yourselves - the site is hosted on a machine constructed from dried grass and tissue paper and crashes if someone even looks at it in a stern sort of a way.

Dried grass! Tissue paper! See...he's enjoyable!
posted by redsparkler at 12:36 AM on July 22, 2006


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