Well done!

According to my ancestors' journals, the crickets ate everything.
 

Pix or it didn't happen (it's the Reel thing)

Have you ever seen a picture of Brigham Young smiling? It's a little unsettling.
 

The timing stinks

Imagine fleeing from Nauvoo and getting stuck in a construction queue or being shunted off to a detour!

Maybe that's why they fled Nauvoo in the dead of winter!
 

When you're looking for an excuse

July isn't just for pioneer-themed gags. It's a time when LDS cartoonists also dust off the Church history cartoons that build up during the off years of Come, Follow Me curriculum. 

This one almost stayed in the sketchbook, but it makes me laugh. 
 

Sketchbook: FTOYWDKM — WWJD

If you haven't visited my friend Arie's webpage (aka the Ward Cartoonist), he's been on a one-man crusade. It bothers him how many people get up to the microphone in church and begin their remarks with, "For those of you who don't know me..." He says it's a tired cliché (as most clichés are). Just start by telling who you are — it doesn't matter whether they knew you before. 

I was messing around in my sketchbook and as I pondered that idea, this gem emerged. I mean, the point is is for us to know Him, right?

Let's be supportive and rid ourselves of this sacrament talk cliché. Thank you for your support.

Editor's note: My personal pet peeve is,"I would like to thank..." Why not just say thanks? But that's a discussion for another day!
 

Family connections

I don't know how it is where you are, but when our stake does a trek experience, they usually try to incorporate some sort of family history activity to go along with it. This would certainly make it more interesting!

 

What songs of the heart

The hardest part of this gag was figuring out which music pioneers to reference. Johann Sebastian Bach? Ella Fitzgerald? Chuck Berry? Mack Wilberg? Sugarhill Gang?

I should mention that we shouldn't get pioneers confused with the Sons of the Pioneers, a western singing group that helped launch the career of Roy Rogers, amongst others. 

Days of '48

Cartoonists often play the "What if...?" game, where you ask yourself what if (this thing) verbed (that thing)? For example, what if it snowed on fast Sunday? What if Brigham Young ordered flowers for Mothers' Day? What if things could get worse? You get the idea.

The other day I asked myself, what if seagulls did their version of a pioneer trek? What would they do? They probably wouldn't be pushing handcarts!

 

I've seen this before!

If it's July and it's after the Fourth, that means it's time to turn our hearts and our cartoons to honor our pioneer ancestry!

I know I've said this many times before, and I'll say it again: I hope a lot of these folks have a sense of humor!
 

Editor's note: The Oregon Trail game showed the hardships of traveling as a pioneer. The game often ended with the player dying of starvation or dysentery. 

Sketchbook: True to the faith

There are some who think that kids on the trek should experience everything. But sometimes it's a little challenging to come up with blizzards and mobs, so they settle for the little things.
 

Fireworks

From the Disney collection, if for no other reason than it has some pretty good fireworks that I made in Illustrator. 

If you're looking for something to add to your summer reading list, click on the link to the right. The book is available in paperback and Kindle!
 

The show

Elijah and the priests of Baal is one of the most awesome stories in the Old Testament. I love his trash talking, and when the time comes for his turn, he totally crushes it!*

For those who may argue that the real original fireworks show was Sodom and Gomorrah, I would point out that there wasn't anyone who actually watched that. Except for Lot's wife. And she wasn't a big fan. In fact, she was kind of salty about it.

*It may also be argued that this was the first example of a fireside. The jury is still out on that one.
 

Small voices

Sometimes Primary is the most spiritual when it's the loudest.
 

Caption contest results

What a lot of great entries in the caption contest! In fact, I'm going to directly steal an idea from the Ward Cartoonist and include all the entries in one mega cartoon!

To give credit where credit is due, these are the submitters:

• Drumming up support... Klinton
• A few minutes on this... Arie VDG
• Share our talents... Sonny
• This could really spice up the Primary... Sonny
• Music of the gospel... Sonny
• Sis. Reyes Quartet... Adam T 
• In-a-gadda-da-vida... Jim J
• Pioneer children... Mark B
• Checked the handbook... Adam T
• Drumming up interest... Kerry O
• Home MTC... Jim B
• Cymbalism... Jeff B
• I'm beat... Bob
• Honorable mention (but not included)... Ben B

Thank you for all the wonderful (and funny) submissions! DM me if you'd like a semi-valuable prize for your entry!

Sketchbook: Free kick

There's got to be some way to keep track of who's nice to the missionaries!
 

What?! A caption contest?!

Hey! It's been a few minutes since we've run a caption contest. After I drew this, I didn't think the caption I had was very good. But as long as I have the drawing, I might as well throw this out to the greater mind of you, brilliant reader!

Drop a caption suggestion in the comments, message or email me, tell me to my face — whatever works for you.

There's a prize for the winning suggestion, so enter early and often!
 

Extra fries, hold the onions

This guy's had to put up with a lot. I hope he gets better than minimum wage.
 

Hidden talents

Unfortunately, David didn't have a problem with that either!
 

To have and to have not

Sometimes we have experiences where you know a thing intellectually, but you don't really get it until you experience it first hand. For example, it's one thing to know that as a missionary you'll have someone by your side as a companion 24/7 for two years. But you don't really know what it's like until you experience it. Sometimes it just takes a while to process.
 

Sketchbook: Telemundo

We've been watching the World Cup games on Telemundo. For one thing, there are way fewer commercials. The announcers are way more enthusiastic. And I'm pretty sure I'm learning vocabulary they'd never teach on Duolingo!
 

One dad deserves another

What?! A dad joke for Father's Day?!

I'm sure he only ever got socks after that.

Does it seem like there's been a preponderance of pulpit jokes lately? There must be something in the air.
 

You've tried scrubbing it out

Considering some of the stuff they used to use for cleaning clothes, I might agree that dirty might be better!
 

A covert from the storm

I was a missionary in Korea when they played in the finals of the Asian Cup. As missionaries, we had no idea what was going on. We just thought it was super weird how no one was on the streets and no one would answer their doors. Sadly, they finished second. But the game had a grip on the nation.

Likewise, we were staying in a hotel in France a few years ago when there was another big European match. Our room was the floor just above the bar. It was an exciting game, apparently — and a sleepless night!

It's fun to be co-hosts to the World Cup this year. The love of the game is such a breath of fresh air from everything else that's been in the news lately!

*As missionaries, we did have to shelter in place one time for nearly a week. It was because of protest riots, though, not celebrations. Good times!
 

Missionary goals

Another set of my friends were just called to be mission leaders. They left yesterday for their MTC training, and then it's off to the field!

They'll be wonderful as president and mission mom! 

I wish them the best of luck. I hope their missionaries are better than those this mission president has to deal with!
 

Sketchbook: Home away from home

It's probably just coincidence, but when all five of our boys were in the Young Men's program at the same time, it seemed like our opportunity to clean the church came around a lot more often.
 

Trip in review: Rome

The Colosseum really is impressive. It can hold thousands of people. They could empty the building in minutes — and they didn't have to worry about traffic jams!
 

Trip in review: The Acropolis

I got in trouble when we went to the Acropolis. No, I didn't break anything. But they have a policy that you can't take pictures of objects.

First we had a school flag that we use for all of our group photos. We were told that was a no-no. I can understand the flag and banners thing. They don't want political messages or anything.

But then I had a little BYU Cosmo — no more than two inches high, if that — and I tried to take a ""where's Cosmo?" photo. 

They came down on me so hard that I didn't take another Cosmo picture the entire trip. I honestly wasn't trying to cause any trouble! So be forewarned next time you visit the Acropolis: no photos of things!

The offending Cosmo.

 

Trip in review: More Athens

Any time you eat in Greece, you're going to get way more food than you can ever eat. And they'll keep it coming. And it is all very, very good!
 

Trip in review: Athens

Longtime readers may know that after we take our high school students on field trips to Europe, I draw a series of cartoons to recap the trip.

This year we visited Greece and Italy with Mythology students. Our first day in Athens we were dropped off downtown. One of the first storefronts we encountered was a museum with an interesting theme. It was not our destination, nor did we stop. But it was a surprise!

I thought it best, however, to use the edited version for this website so we keep our PG rating. Thank you for your understanding.

 

Sketchbook: Returned missionary

When the transfers don't come and exchanges don't work, there's always a third option.

I was lucky in that I got along well with most of my companions. But there were a couple of times when transfers couldn't come soon enough!

On a short timeline

One of the first questions that I always ask!
 

First the blade and then the ear

I don't know. It's still gross.
 

Becoming clean

The real question is, do you believe in miracles?
 

In the service

It occurred to me that often we don't see the service that we do because so much of it happens naturally. There are so many who, like Ruth, are dutiful and take care of others' needs without a second thought.
 

Sketchbook: For those who don't know me

We've all been there, haven't we?
 

Good night

I have to admit that I struggled with this one. There are so many possible "three" things in the Church! Three Nephites, Three Witnesses and even Pres. Uchdorf's three sisters!

I finally decided on three missionaries. If you ever served in a trio, you know how uncomfortable that can be!
 

A city on a hill cannot be hid

We had some senior missionaries return to our ward recently. The sister was the medical person for the mission. She said that she not only had stories that were uncomfortable, she had some pretty gross photos as well!
 

Raise him up in the way he should go

That's exactly how it worked with me!

Maybe I shouldn’t use the past tense.
 

Let the trumpets blow

Last week in Come, Follow Me we learned about Joshua and the battle of Jericho. This week as we study Judges, we learn about Gideon and his surprise attack at night. Both stories involve the shofar, the trumpets made out of ram's horns. 

That got me to wondering, would I know how to make a trumpet out of a ram's horn? It sounds easy, but it's probably harder than it seems!
 

Sketchbook: Hair today

It's a little sad when a missionary starts to go bald while out on a mission. But we can still do jokes about it — as long as they don't get past the sketchbook stage!
 

Judge not. Or go ahead, do it anyway.

The summer movie season officially begins Memorial Day weekend in the United States. The Devil Wears Prada 2 was one of the first out of the gate. That got me to wondering what it would be like if Miranda Priestly met with the missionaries? 
 

Get thee up

Not that I'd ever fall asleep reading stories to my kids! And not that they'd find the most obnoxious way to wake me up!
 

Bringing down the house

As I was finishing this up, I had a flash of insight that this could have been more effective if it was elementary-aged kids. Instead of smooth jazz, they would have said, "I'll bet Joshua's army got to play something more exciting than Hot Cross Buns!"

Yet I still wonder whether the walls of Jericho would have come tumbling down to Kenny G or Chuck Mangione?
 

It's going down

This is one of my favorite Old Testament cartoons. 
 

Sketchbook: Hungry?

I like the idea of these missionary heads gobbling up everything in sight. But when I tried to move it beyond the sketchbook, it looked a little gruesome!
 

Abby

Maybe I spent too much time as a youth listening to the soundtracks of My Turn on Earth and Saturday's Warrior at full volume. But whatever the reason, my hearing isn't exactly what it used to be. So when the missionaries challenged us to share the gospel, as Pres. Uchtdorf says, "in normal and natural ways" somehow I heard it as "normal unnatural ways!"

I tried to save this idea for October, but I couldn't wait. Naturally.
 

Going deep

These kinds of hypothetical discussions are sometimes fun to have. Personally I think the missionaries would think they struck gold if they knocked into Bluey's family. Hello Kitty might be a little too aloof to be interested beyond a few discussions, IMHO.

But what I'd really like to see? Muffin in the nursery
 

Emergency repair kit

This should come with a warning that missionary moms should not read this one. However, I can't tell you the number of times as a missionary that I made emergency repairs using tape of one kind or another. Staples can work in a pinch, but they can also be hazardous in their own right.
 

C'est parfait

I think this is going to be my new motto.