The all new, new look, new Wibsite

It has been a long time coming, but the Wibsite (community site of my friend Dave Walkers) has been redesigned and brought kicking and screaming into the 21st century.

http://wibsite.com/



Well done to Chris, the technical brain behind it, for such a good job. Do take a look around, many of my friends have blogs on there, and my old blog is still lurking there with intent to spring into life one day. (http://neil.wibsite.com/)

Dave Walker at Greenbelt

I can exclusively reveal that cartoonist Dave Walker uses a small IKEA pencil to draw his cartoons, I have proof.





He was recovering from a virus when this photo was taken, so any larger writing implement could have taken far too much out of him.

Former SPCK Bookshops and Blogging

It seems that the saga deepens, my friend Dave has been told by Mark Brewer (current owner of the SPCK bookshops chain, and my former employer) to take down all the posts relating to the former SPCK bookshops on his blog (http://cartoonchurch.com/blog/) or legal action will ensue. The SSG/SPCK blog that I referred to a few weeks ago has also been put into "Red Alert" mode by its caretaker owner. (http://spckssg.wordpress.com/).

This is a sorry state of affairs for all involved, and I feel for Dave who has done a great journalistic job keeping people up to date with the fate of the bookshops (both good and bad developments) to have this added pressure on him at an already busy time at the Lambeth conference (see http://www.churchtimes.co.uk/blog).

It also makes me fearful for the freedom of bloggers who are powerless against the bullying of large companies, or as in this case just someone with more money than them.

For further discussion and opinion see these links:-

The Wardman Wire http://www.mattwardman.com/blog/2008/07/23/my-name-is-dave-walker-people-posting-about-mark-brewers-cease-and-desist-notice/

MadPriest http://revjph.blogspot.com/2008/07/dave-walker-cartoonist-and-martyr.html

Ship of Fools discussion http://forum.ship-of-fools.com/cgi-bin/ultimatebb.cgi?ubb=get_topic;f=2;t=010601;p=5