New BC Hoodie; branding whilst I walk!

Today (Sat 23/March/2013) I received my latest piece of Bible Cartoons (BC) branding, a black hoodie with the BC logo embroidered on the front. It looks great, & feels comfortable to wear too! See photo below.
The company I bought the hoodie from doesn’t cater for embroidered logo’s on the back, so I’ve tasked another company with producing a much larger BC logo, which I’ll sew on myself. It’s all about promoting BC & trying to generate interest & recognition for BC, even when I’m walking about, shopping, chatting, etc!

Esther cartoons

I have just uploaded 4 Bible Cartoons which I completed yesterday, telling part of the story of Esther. They are for a Bible-based sports ministry in America, called UW Sports Ministry, here’s their website address if you want to see their mission & work: http://www.unchartedwaters.org/

The 4 cartoons are part of a 17 cartoon contract. I will be producing cartoons from the books of 1 Samuel (David & Goliath), Acts (Paul & Barnabas, & Philip & the Ethiopian eunuch), Joshua, & Esther. UW Sports will be using the cartoons on flash cards, to teach their visiting children these bible stories. Of course I have arranged to retain copyright of the images & have negotiated to have these cartoons available on the BC website.

I am particularly pleased with the 4 Esther cartoons, see below:

Esther 00 - Esther in field
Although not mentioned in the Bible, the American company wanted this scene.

Esther 02 - Esther becomes queen - Scene 05 - Crowned queen
I enjoyed drawing the opulent clothing in this one.

Esther 04 - Mordecai requests Esther’s help - Scene 03 - Hathach

Esther 05 - Esther’s banquet - Scene 01 - Xerxes receives Esther

I am particularly pleased with the lighting effects in this one: the torch light & shadow of the guard on the right.

Bible Cartoons Motto for 2013

It was “Motto Sunday” yesterday (06/Jan/2013) at the church I attend, Brixworth Christian Fellowship (BCF.) Our pastor Phil W began to unpack the new moto for this year, which is:

Joshua 18:3 (ANIV), ‘So Joshua said to the Israelites: "How long will you wait before you begin to take possession of the land that the Lord, the God of your fathers, has given you?”’

As I drove to church yesterday, I was thinking & praying about the previous year’s motto & wondered what motto the Lord would like me to have for Bible Cartoons... instantly some song lyrics came to me, which I believe fit very nicely both with where my wife & I personally want to “be” this year & also where I believe God wants Bible Cartoons to “be” too. The song lyrics that came clearly to me were: “More love, more power, More of You [Jesus/God] in my life.” [1]

I’ve been thinking about my Christian life all over Christmas & New Year, & very much felt that I want to go deeper into my relationship with Jesus. I have quite a lot of frustration within myself as a result of not seeing or experiencing the power of God (miracles, signs & wonders, healing, etc) either in my life or in the life of the church I attend. I listen to sermons from pastors & church leaders who are clearly moving in spiritual matters & with the power of God in ways that I do not, which is a bit frustrating to me!

Don’t get me wrong, there is plenty to be grateful for at BCF: there is good, clear, sound Biblical preaching & teaching; good fellowship; good leadership; a strong outward, evangelistic, community-helping focus, a desire to grow in Jesus & Christianity, genuine love for each other, etc. I would say that most of the elements of a great village-sized church are all in place. I’m definitely not trying to “church-bash” here! However, I have long been frustrated by both a personal lack of experience of God’s power & a church-based lack of the same. At least, that’s how I perceive it. I would concede that maybe God is moving too subtly for me to see His power at work?! It is quite possible that I am wrong... that happens quite a lot!

Anyway, “More love, more power, More of You in my life”, is precisely what I/we want to have seen & experienced when we look back on 2013 from next New Year’s eve!

To ‘unpack’ that a little more: I am talking about experiencing more of God’s love & compassion expressed through us, towards other people; More of God’s power in evidence, expressed towards other people, & the underlying focus for us to be More of You (Jesus/God) in our lives. This last part is very, very important, as a strong focus on Jesus, coupled with a desire to serve other people, is what Christianity is all about... it’s not about me, it’s about other people.

I shouldn’t have been surprised when our pastor revealed the church’s motto, & he spoke of deepening our relationships with Jesus, both as individuals & as a church congregation. When I spoke to him afterwards we touched on God’s power & I realised that he & I were thinking along the same lines: that we need to focus on deepening our personal & corporate relationship with Jesus. As a result of doing that; & with a clear, constant underlying desire to love Jesus, God’s power can flow through us, & out into our community.

One of the ‘problems’ of seeking God’s power appears to be the ‘danger’ of becoming power-hungry for its own sake. We might seek God for Himself initially, but when He gives us his power to perform miracles, healings, etc, there is a ‘danger’ to ourselves that we can subtly change our focus, away from the source of the power (Jesus), & that we will focus too much on the power, for its own sake. That then becomes the sin of pride, (which Satan suffered from), which, if unchecked, can ruin our relationship with God & make us rather power-hungry & ego-centric! There are plenty of sad examples of this happening, where good men & women of God have ‘gone off the rails’ once they have ‘tasted’ the power of the Lord. As the old saying goes: power corrupts! The antidote to this ‘going off the rails’ would seem to be a constant re-evaluation of our selves, in the light of the Bible & Jesus’ teachings, so that we do not fool ourselves (or allow Satan to blind us) into becoming power-hungry for its own sake.

The power of God appears to be not for us, but to aid us in our service towards other people, both in church & in the wider community. Certainly that is how I read the book of Acts, where Jesus’ disciples used the power He provided to perform miracles, to serve the people they encountered in their communities.

It seems that we need a strong, continuing, growing, deepening focus on the person of Jesus Himself, & as a result of that, we would be able to cope & manage the gifts of the spirit; the power of God, in a safe, community-serving way, rather than in a self-serving way.

I like the sound of all of this... Bring it on Lord!




[1] Here are the full song lyrics:
More love, more power
More of You in my life
More love, more power
More of You in my life.

I will worship You with all of my heart
And I will worship You with all of my mind
And I will worship You with all of my strength
For you are my Lord
You are my Lord.

More faith, more passion
More of You in my life
More faith, more passion
More of You in my life

I will worship You with all of my heart
And I will worship You with all of my mind
And I will worship You with all of my strength
For you are my Lord
You are my Lord.

More love, more power
More of You in my life
More love, more power
More of You in my life.

I will worship You with all of my heart
And I will worship You with all of my mind
And I will worship You with all of my strength
For you are my Lord
You are my Lord.

2012 Review

Lots of interesting things have happened in the world of Bible Cartoons last year, here’s my review...

1) Important Bible passages for me & BC this year:
Be Passionate About - '...I have...determined to do his will...' Isaiah 50:7
Purpose - 'My life is worth nothing...unless I use it for finishing the work assigned me by the Lord.' Acts 20:24
Lasting Success - 'He who abides in Me...bears much fruit.' John 15:5
You Need a 'Word'  -  'Your ears shall hear a word.' Isaiah 30:21
Stay focussed - ‘…Let us strip off every weight that slows us down.’ Hebrews 12:1
God can turn your failure into success - ‘…Because you say so, I will...’ Luke 5:5 NIV

2) Vision pictures I’ve received from the Lord God this year:
05/January - Had a vision-dream about a whirlpool. I produced a coloured digital painting of the scene I saw, which you can see in the BC blog.
03/June - God was sitting next to me on one of those horse-drawn wooden wagons that are featured in cowboy films! It was a dream about obedience & choosing to follow where God leads me.

3) Interesting facts & Statistics for 2012
8th January we received our 100th customer, & on 31/December/2012 we received our 200th customer!
16th January - Got our first customer from Germany.
15th February - “Jonah, no ordinary fish tale” book loaded onto Amazon! I drew the cover artwork... never had a book on amazon before! ( http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/B0076ZSO6Y )
13th April - Got our first ever Danish customer.
8th May -Got our first customer from Singapore.
10th May - Started emailing USA churches, in states where we have not had any customers yet.
7th June - Got our first ever Indonesian customer.
27th June - Started drawing the Olympics sketches.
20th September - Supplied my Bible Cartoons Jonah video to a lady in Eastern states of Australia, who used it on a mission trip.
26th October - Got our first ever customer from Norway.
7th November - Cartooning Development: First time I created a cartoon (Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 09 - Gifts) with more than one version. Colour version, Starlight version, Blue version.
19th December - We got our first ever customer from the Czech Republic.
31st December - Got our 200th customer - Praise the Lord!
The BC website received over 29,000 visits from January to December in 2012.
There were over 24,000 Unique visitors & over 143,000 Page views - wow!

4) BC website improvements made this year:
I’ve done a lot of work on the BC website this year.

23rd January - Added Customer Comments & Testimonials page to BC website. Added all the comments from facebook, email & flickr! from 2009 to present.

6th March - Tried to install an upgraded version of Content Management System, but I messed it up...  the BC website was off-line for 3 days!

27th April - Major overhaul of the page on which visitors view the cartoons. New Gallery page template went live, with the Previous & Next arrow navigation.

11th May - Created new, slim buttons for the menu bar, to save some valuable space at the top of every page on the BC website.
21st May - Added a map showing the approximate location of our lovely customers. I make sure that we do not give the exact location away - as we value our customers privacy A LOT!

2nd July - My friend Dan fixed the Search function on BC website - hurray! It had been non-operational for several months.

25th Septemeber - Registered & bought: biblecartoons.net, biblecartoons.org, biblecartoons.biz, biblecartoons.info & biblecartoons.mobi

20th November - Added a slideshow to the BC website homepage.

10th December - Changed the landing page that has been used ever since the BC website went live. The old version showed 4 randomly selected cartoons. Now the landing page is identical to the homepage.

5) BC Merchandise designed & sold this year:
Easter Activity Book
Exodus Activity Book
7 different designs in the “...And you think you’re having a Bad Day!” series of mugs. Also created a one off “True Light” Christmas mug.
Created 3 new Christmas card designs.

6) Viewing figures
Most viewed Old Testament cartoon = Nehemiah 03 - Rebuilding Jerusalem's walls (3779 viewings to 31/12/2012)
32 cartoons of the 98 OT cartoons currently drawn have been viewed over 1000 times.
of those, 11 cartoons of the 98 OT cartoons currently drawn have been viewed over 2000 times.
of those, 6 cartoons of the 98 OT cartoons currently drawn have been viewed over 3000 times.

Most viewed New Testament cartoon & most viewed Bible Cartoon ever! = Luke 15 - The Prodigal son - Scene 03 - With the pigs (6879 viewings to 31/12/2012)
56 cartoons of the 148 NT cartoons currently drawn have been viewed over 1000 times.
of those, 18 cartoons of the 148 NT cartoons currently drawn have been viewed over 2000 times.
of those, 6 cartoons of the 148 NT cartoons currently drawn have been viewed over 3000 times.
of those, 4 cartoons of the 148 NT cartoons currently drawn have been viewed over 4000 times.
of those, 3 cartoons of the 148 NT cartoons currently drawn have been viewed over 5000 times.
of those, 1 cartoon of the 148 NT cartoons currently drawn have been viewed over 6000 times.

7) Gospel Illustrations drawn this year:
I have only managed to draw 1 Gospel Illustration this year = Communion - Bread & Wine, drawn on 23/May/2012

8) Cartoons drawn this year:
I set out to draw 50 new Bible Cartoons in 2012. I actually managed to draw 59, finishing the last one with a dramatic screech of tyres & plume of smoke... a mere 7 hours before the end of 2012!
Here’s my breakdown of what cartoons I drew in each of the 4 quarters I divide my year up into:

First Quarter
16/01/2012   Exodus 14 - Parting of the Red Sea - Scene 07 - Move on
18/01/2012   Exodus 14 - Parting of the Red Sea - Scene 08 - Cloud
20/01/2012   Exodus 14 - Parting of the Red Sea - Scene 09 - Sea parts
24/01/2012   Exodus 14 - Parting of the Red Sea - Scene 11 - Confusion
26/01/2012   Exodus 14 - Parting of the Red Sea - Scene 12 - Sea returns
31/01/2012   Exodus 14 - Parting of the Red Sea - Scene 13 - Drowned
03/02/2012   Exodus 14 - Parting of the Red Sea - Scene 14 - Trust
10/02/2012   Matthew 03 - Jesus' baptism - Scene 07 - Dove
29/02/2012   Matthew 04 - Temptation of Jesus - Scene 04 - Temple
02/03/2012   Matthew 04 - Temptation of Jesus - Scene 05 - Mountain
05/03/2012   Matthew 04 - Temptation of Jesus - Scene 06 - Angels
05/03/2012   Mark 15 - The Crucifixion - Scene 02 - Simon of Cyrene
08/03/2012   Matthew 04 - Temptation of Jesus - Scene 01 -Wilderness
09/03/2012   Matthew 04 - Temptation of Jesus - Scene 02 - Fasting
13/03/2012   Matthew 01 - The Nativity - Scene 04 - Jesus’ birth
13/03/2012   Matthew 01 - The Nativity - Scene 0a - Just a stable?
20/03/2012   Mark 15 - Trial of Jesus - Scene 06 - Barabbas released
21/02/2012   Matthew 04 - Temptation of Jesus - Scene 03 - Stones
26/03/2012   Mark 15 - Trial of Jesus - Scene 07 - Jesus flogged
27/03/2012   Mark 15 - Trial of Jesus - Scene 08 - Thorns & abuse
30/03/2012   Mark 15 - The Crucifixion - Scene 05 - Sign board

Second Quarter
09/05/2012   Mark 15 - The Crucifixion - Scene 04 - Soldiers gambling
14/05/2012   Leviticus 16 - The Scapegoat
17/05/2012   Ruth 01 - In Moab - Scene 05 - Ruth determined
29/05/2012   Deuteronomy 1 - Scene 05 - Spies in Eshcol (dappled lighting)
29/05/2012   Deuteronomy 1 - Scene 05 - Spies in Eshcol (simple lighting)
11/06/2012   2 Samuel 6 - The Ark brought to Jerusalem - Scene 05 - David dances
15/06/2012   2 Kings 2 - Elijah taken into heaven - Scene 06 - Chariot of fire
22/06/2012   Matthew 07 - Wise & foolish builders - Scene 01 - Digging foundations
22/06/2012   Matthew 07 - Wise & foolish builders - Scene 02 - Building
22/06/2012   Matthew 07 - Wise & foolish builders - Scene 03 - Foolish Builder finished
23/06/2012   Matthew 07 - Wise & foolish builders - Scene 04 - Storm approaching
26/06/2012   Matthew 07 - Wise & foolish builders - Scene 05 - Swept away
26/06/2012   Matthew 07 - Wise & foolish builders - Scene 06 - Standing on the rock

Third Quarter
05/07/2012   Hebrews 12 - Throw off sin entanglements in the race
13/07/2012   1 Chronicles 10 - King Saul takes his life - Scene 01 - Fierce fighting
18/07/2012   2 Chronicles 9 - Queen of Sheba - Scene 01 - Great caravan
27/07/2012   Ezra 3 - Rebuilding the Temple - Scene 04 - Foundation and tears
30/07/2012   Psalm 119 - Torch Bearer [Olympics]
02/08/2012   Romans 02 - God’s Righteous Judgement - Scene 01 - Passing judgement
10/09/2012   Philippians 2 - Imitating Christ’s Humility
17/09/2012   Matthew 19 - The rich young man - Scene 03 - Camel
20/09/2012   Matthew 18 - Lost sheep parable - Scene 01 - Sheep pen
24/09/2012   Matthew 18 - Lost sheep parable - Scene 02 - Searching
24/09/2012   Matthew 18 - Lost sheep parable - Scene 03 - Found
29/09/2012   Matthew 18 - Lost sheep parable - Scene 04 - Cherished
29/09/2012   Matthew 18 - Lost sheep parable - Scene 05 - Return home

Fourth Quarter
19/10/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 06 - King Herod’s meeting
24/10/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 08 - The star
07/11/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 09 - Gifts (Colour  versions)
07/11/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 09 - Gifts (Starlight versions)
07/11/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 09 - Gifts (Blue  versions)
15/11/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 10 - Wise men return home
19/11/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 11 - Joseph's Dream
28/11/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 12 - Flight to Egypt (Colour version)
28/11/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 12 - Flight to Egypt (Night version)
10/12/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 13 - Infants murdered
05/12/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 14 - Return to Israel (Colour version)
05/12/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 14 - Return to Israel (Gold version)
13/12/2012   Matthew 02 - The Nativity - Scene 15 - Nazareth in Galilee
17/12/2012   1 Samuel 17 - David & Goliath - Scene 05 - David and the lion
18/12/2012   1 Samuel 17 - David & Goliath - Scene 06 - David practising
19/12/2012   1 Samuel 17 - David & Goliath - Scene 03 - Goliath boasts [in the valley of Elah]

Conclusion
So there you have it, my review of 2012. It has been an interesting, trying, frustrating, amazing, humbling, brilliant year of my life. I still really love to be involved with the Bible Cartoons Project. I can’t think of anything else I’d rather be doing with my life. I love the creativity & the fact that I am serving both the Lord & people all over the world is excellent. I love hearing from customers who have used my cartoons for in their churches & ministries. That really helps me to realise that my work makes a different & positive contribution to so many people.