Not the Mansion He was Expecting

Congratulations to Kate, she's the winner of a copy of The A-MAZE-ing Book of Mormon! Kate, please send me an email with your address and the name you'd like me to dedicate the book to and I'll get your prize in the mail right away!

Like Kate, the guy* in today's gag is a winner! Only his reward isn't all he thought it would be. This gag raises an interesting doctrinal question, just what does the Savior's promise of mansions in heaven constitute? Here in the 21st century we have quite a different opinion of what a mansion looks like than the people of 1st century Palestine. To them, anything bigger than a ten by ten single room must have seemed like a mansion.

In the end, I doubt it really matters. One of the vices we're trying to conqueror here on earth is our longing for material things. I suspect no matter how small our mansion in heaven--should we qualify for that reward--it will be sufficient for our needs.

*The guy in today's gag is totally this guy. When I came up with a gag set in heaven, I knew I wanted to honor Kevin Beckstrom's Good Heavens strip--just another one of his many side-projects.

It's for the Best

Here's another peek into Elder Van Dyke's family.

(And here's a peek into another strip this week courtesy of deseretnews.com.)

Five Years!

This blog is five years old! To celebrate, I’ve selected my five favorite gags from the 250 plus I’ve published over the years. I’m also giving away another copy of my A-MAZE-ing Book of Mormon, but you’ll have to read to the end of the post to find out how to enter the giveaway.

Number 5

I cheated a little on this one because I’ve never run it on the blog before. It’s from my first book Mormon Life which you can occasionally find deeply clearanced at Deseret Book.

I’m including this in the countdown, in part, because it’s new to the blog. One of the things I am most proud of with this blog is that I’ve managed to provide something new each and every week for five years now. When I started I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to come up with another month’s worth of gags, let alone five years’ worth (to tell the truth, I’m still not sure month to month if I can come up with new stuff).

Number 4

No top five list could be complete without this one. To understand its importance to this blog and this cartoonist, read up on it here,  here, and here.

Needless to say, I fully expect my obituary to mention the fact that I published a pinewood derby gag in the New Era.

Number 3

I love a gag that requires a little thought from my readers. I easily could have gone with another one in this spot, but I think I’m partial to this gag because it celebrates a couple of my favorite Mormon artists.

Number 2

At the time I published this gag, I declared this my favorite gag I’d ever done. I still really like it. I think there is something telling that the mother snowman shaved her carrot nose for the jell-o salad. (I’m a little offended, frankly, that some Mormon intellectual hasn’t written a 10,000-word essay on it.)

Number 1

It’s so elegant and simple. I wish all my stuff was as good as this one.

Now, it’s your turn. Share in the comment section your favorite comic of the week featured on this blog and you’ll be entered into a drawing for a free book. Contest ends the moment I post on Thursday, January 30, 2014.

Return Appointment

While I was tempted to do something like this several times on my mission, I'm proud to say that I never gave into those temptations.

(Read another strip here.)

David and Goliath (Church Ball Style)

Last year I swore off Church ball gags. And then I ran this Christmas gag. And then there's today's gag. Apparently, I'm really bad at follow through.*

Today's gag is featured in the January New Era.

*This probably explains why I never shot a good free throw.

All Better

Sometimes we're nursed back to health through some tender loving care, and sometimes we get better despite the care we get...

(Here's another strip, courtesy of deseretnews.com.)

Genie Wish

Apparently it's peanut butter week at mormoncartoonist.com.

For the longest time peanut butter represented the culinary sacrifice that missionaries serving outside of the United States had to live without. In today's flat earth, I doubt that's the problem it used to be--shoot, peanut butter was introduced in Slovenia almost 20 years ago!

So, if it's not peanut butter, what is the food that missionaries today have to go without?

More Sick in Bed

Today's strip finds Elder Van Dyke's companion still sick in bed. Ideally, Elder Van Dyke would be making a peanut butter sandwich for his companion, but at this point in the narrative, I still hadn't introduced peanut butter to Laputania.

(Check out another pre-peanut butter strip here.)

Golden Calf

Welcome to 2014, everybody. This year we're studying the Old Testament in Sunday School. So this week's comic is a little known fact that you can share in Gospel Doctrine to amaze your classmates.