Dave Walker

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Something exciting is happening at the upcoming Lambeth Conference and it won’t be the usual mano a mano over the place of homosexuals in the church.

Rather, the animation will come from Church Times cartoonist Dave Walker, noted by the New York Times for having attracted “something of a cult following” with his tongue-in-cheek visual commentaries of church issues (and self-aggrandizing personalities and characters).

For the first time since Anglican bishops worldwide began meeting every 10 years (beginning in 1867), this year’s conference, scheduled July 16 to Aug. 3 in Canterbury, England, will have a cartoonist-in-residence.

Mr. Walker, whose series on the publication of the Windsor Report, www.wibsite.com/features/windsorreport, was a huge hit across the Anglican Communion, said he is delighted by the prospect of having a visible presence at the conference.

“It is certainly a rather daunting prospect, but I’ll be okay. A planned new easel will be a help,” wrote Mr. Walker on his blog, www.cartoonchurch.com, in his typical wry manner.

Mr. Walker said his role would be to draw events at the conference as they develop; his drawings will be displayed by various means, including the Internet.

Mr. Walker, who produces the weekly Dave Walker Guide to the Church for Church Times, and whose first book of the same title was published by Canterbury Press in 2006, will also have a stall at the conference marketplace. “I have not decided exactly what the stall will have on it yet ... I may set aside a little colouring table for bishops and others to use between meetings.”