About - The Christian Walk Cartoon

How did "The Christian Walk" begin?

In 2025, it became clear to me that AI images had largely replaced the need for the Free Christian Clipart I'd been creating. Ministries could now easily generate many of the Biblical images they needed themselves. While I saw this as a positive development for ministries around the world, it left me wondering how God might use my artistic abilities in a new way to help others in their Christian walk.

At the time, I had been dabbling in cartooning in my professional work, and the idea gradually emerged to create a cartoon strip about the ups and downs of everyday Christian life. After doing some research, I discovered there were surprisingly few cartoon strips with a positive Christian focus. So I prayed for God's guidance and began studying some of the great cartoon strips that had entertained and inspired readers for generations. For several months I immersed myself in classics such as Calvin and Hobbes, Footrot Flats, Family Circus, The Far Side, Peanuts, Dennis the Menace, and many others.

With my head spinning from all the possibilities, I eventually settled on a simple principle: write what you know. So I decided to create a cartoon inspired by my own Christian journey – its joys, frustrations, lessons, failures, and moments of grace. From that decision, The Christian Walk took its first steps.

Are the characters based on real people?

The short answer is yes... and no.  The Walker family are fictional characters, but they are heavily inspired by my own family experiences. When creating the cartoon, I decided to draw on what I know best—life as a Christian, a husband, and a dad.

These days, Sue and I are retired, our children are grown, and we've graduated to the wonderful role of grandparents. But when I write The Christian Walk, I often find myself revisiting a golden season of life when we were both in our mid-thirties. We had recently left the army and were doing our best to raise three adventurous children while figuring out what life looked like on the outside.

Like David Walker, I became a stay-at-home dad while trying to build a career as an artist. Like Sarah, Sue was successful in the IT industry and also as a Masters Athlete. Those years provided a rich source of memories, stories, mishaps, and parenting adventures that continue to find their way into the cartoon.

As for Jacob and Grace, our children have certainly provided plenty of inspiration over the years. However, if you think some of Jacob's more questionable decisions seem surprisingly realistic, I should confess that many of those ideas come from my own misspent youth. It turns out that childhood mistakes become much funnier once enough time has passed.

The guardian angels, on the other hand, are entirely fictional. At least, I think they are. I can only hope our real guardian angels have a healthy sense of humour and are willing to forgive the creative liberties I've taken on their behalf. If they are anything like Haviel, Miriel, Ziniel, and Nimiel, they have probably had a few good laughs while reading the cartoon themselves.

How is each cartoon created?

As an old-school artist, The Christian Walk is created using traditional drawing methods – pencils, erasers, paper, and ink. While many cartoons today are drawn entirely on a computer, I still prefer to start with a blank sheet of paper and draw everything by hand, only turning to the computer for the final colouring stage. I love the feel of a pencil in my hand and the challenge of creating artwork the old-fashioned way. There is something satisfying about watching a cartoon come to life from a few rough pencil lines into a finished piece of art.

Before the first cartoon was created, the characters went through many design changes as I searched for the style and look that best reflected their personalities.

It was important to get to know the characters before I started telling their stories, so I spent time developing their proportions, expressions, and body language to ensure they remained consistent from panel to panel.

Each cartoon panel begins with a very rough pencil sketch. Once I'm happy with the composition, dialogue, and visual storytelling, I gradually refine the artwork until the panel is ready for inking. Using a light table, I then trace the final drawing onto A4 card with ink pens.

Once the black-and-white artwork is complete, it is scanned into the computer and coloured digitally in Photoshop using a pen tablet. This gives me the best of both worlds - the warmth and character of traditional hand-drawn artwork combined with the flexibility of digital colouring.

In the end, every cartoon starts with a simple pencil sketch, a cup of coffee, and the hope that the joke is actually funny.

Why combine faith and humour?

I believe faith and humour belong together. The Christian life is full of joy, hope, lessons, and the occasional misadventure, so it feels natural to tell those stories with a smile.
For me, the key is respect. The joke is never God, the Christian faith, the Church, church leaders, or people of other beliefs. The humour comes from ordinary people—like the Walker family—trying to follow God while navigating everyday life.
My goal is simple: to create cartoons that make people laugh, encourage their faith, and remind them that God's grace is often found in the middle of life's chaos.

What message do you hope readers take away?

More than anything, I hope readers come away encouraged.
The Christian life isn't about being perfect—it's about trusting God, learning as we go, and discovering His grace in both the ordinary and extraordinary moments of life. The Walker family often gets things wrong, just like the rest of us, but God's faithfulness never changes.
If a reader finishes a cartoon feeling a little lighter, a little more hopeful, and reminded that they never walk alone, then The Christian Walk has done its job.