Touching A Nerve: A Curly Collection of Churchy Cartoons By Jim

Jim lives and works in Auckland New Zealand. However those who know his life story know that he grew up in Australia as Brendan Boughen - the son of a preacher man - and has been drawing cartoons throughout his life very often with religious themes inspired by his upbringing in the Christian Church.Jim was published in his first newspaper by the age of 13 and in his first book by 14. Since then his cartoons have featured in magazines and web sites in Australia New Zealand the UK and the USA.In 2006 Jim published his first book called Gone Astray: A collection of (sac)religious cartoons by Jim which chronicled his first 10 years of cartooning on churchy topics. Since then his single-panel cartoons have featured monthly in Touchstone magazine (published by the Methodist Church of New Zealand) - and touched on wide range of topics relevant to church-going people as well as those outside church walls who may look in through the windows wondering what the heck is going on inside.This book collects for the first time 120 of these cartoons drawn for Touchstone and other media under the appropriate title Touching A Nerve: A Curly Collection of Churchy Cartoons by Jim.Its an irreverent often thought-provoking and laugh-inducing collection of cartoons that will touch readers nerves (and funny bones) on some big topics - life God religion politics social justice and spirituality in the modern world.From the introduction: The phrase going to church is an interesting one. It suggests that church - a place where one presumably encounters God and receives spiritual sustenance - is located somewhere physically separate from ourselves where we must go to have that encounter be it a fancy stone building or similar establishment made from wood bricks and mortar. What Ive grown to realise as Ive reached the stereotypical mid-life years is that cartoons are my church. In the process of creating them (writing drawing publishing) and setting them loose to interact with humanity - ideally resulting in laughter thought-provocation or impassioned letters - I encounter lifes meaning and hopefully bring a little of that meaning to others also. So every time I draw a cartoon Im going to church.These cartoons have certainly reflected on some tumultuous times for humanity from the past decade and these which seem to have only increased in recent years. In a time when much of the evangelical Christian church - in the US at least - has lost the final shreds of its credibility by supporting a political leader who embodies the opposite of everything their founder stood for the need for cartoons that reveal truth and make us laugh is as vital as its ever been - if not more so.So I hope you enjoy this new collection of Jims churchy cartoons and as you read them may you encounter a small piece of that same life energy that I found in creating them.