End of year speech

This is my final post of 2007 unless something unexpected happens. I have no plans for this to be the case. I am about to take a bit of a break. All being well I will post again on this blog on the 1st of January 2008. During the intervening time comments may be moderated, and it might take me a while to get around to doing the moderating owing to pre-planned slackness.

2007 has been a good year I think, generally for me and here on the blog. I think this year has been the first when I’ve really been able to see how this cartooning lark could possibly work in the longer run. Glancing through my list of posts I also note that in 2007:

• I did a ‘cartoon talks’ (without a telescopic pointy-thing) in places like Wokingham and at the Portsmouth Diocesan Conference. I’m still hoping to do more of these. I’ve spoken to one or two of you about some of these – we’ll have to finalise some dates in the New Year.
• The Primates had a meeting and I did a drawing. I have perhaps gone a bit quiet on the Anglican goings-on front in recent months, but expect a few more Anglican drawings in 2008.
• The SPCK bookshop saga continued to develop and this blog unexpectedly became a place for interested parties to find information.
• We got cats.
• My first properly produced calendar was produced, meaning that my annual last minute dash to find a photocopier during the week before Christmas was avoided. Thanks to everyone who has supported my work by buying it.
• Vegetable racks became a surprise topic of interest.
• Mrs W and I went to the Christian Blog and Web Awards
• I posted this cartoon (shown below) on the 17th of January. It was, I think, the most ‘re-posted on blogs’ cartoon of the year on my We Blog Cartoons site.

2008 is set to be an exciting year. There are set to be some changes afoot career-wise about which I hope to say more in the New Year. Don’t worry though, I’m not stopping my Church Times cartoons and this site will still be here.

One of my initial challenges during January and February will be to draw the cartoons for a 2009 calendar and to finish the cartoons for a second book. This is quite daunting as I generally struggle for one funny idea a week, whereas I will need to have 5 or 6 a week during this time. This being the case it is likely that I will (if everyone is in agreement of course) be devoting many, if not most, of my posts on this blog to discussion of various church-related topics that will hopefully provide me with my ideas. It might, of course, be unethical to pinch all ones ideas from the internet public, in which case I will go back to sitting up all night staring miserably at a wall. When I’ve done this before it has been quite fun, so hopefully it won’t be too bad an experience for everyone involved.

Finally, a very Happy Christmas to everyone who reads this site, comments on this site, or both. Thanks for all your involvement. See you in 2008.