How to describe the humour of Dave Walker? It's as dry as a communion wafer stuck to the roof of your mouth. This is his third book of cartoons where church meets banana skin, and there's no sign that he's finished exhausting the comic potential of life in the pews.
Dave's visual style is deceptively simple - with childlike drawings of bishops, people in pews and church architecture - and reminds me of Tim Hunkin's Rudiments of Wisdom cartoons from the Observer in the 1980s. But what takes these above Hunkin is the humour, which is delivered through flatly factual text.
For example, a cartoon in this book on the responsibilities of the church sound desk operator: "Moving the slider up a bit. Moving the slider down a bit. Every now and then pressing the 'sudden unexpected feedback' button." The deadpanning and the simple drawings conceal an artful and inventive brain at work. Working consistently in this style takes time and planning, as well as the ever-necessary banging your head repeatedly on the drawing board.
Religious cartoonists who are genuinely funny should be treasured, because there aren't many of them. There's only one, so far as I know, whose speciality is delicious English understatement... and that's reason enough to buy this book.