Telecamp

It's coming. I'm sure of it.

Girls Camp Drama

It's that time of year again...starry nights, songs, cooking over a fire, hiking trails and arguing over the best tent spots.

Inner Beauty

Girls camp is awesome! After a week in the wild, though, it does get a little messy.

Girls' Camp Hair

Summer's here which means it's time for a bunch of Girls' Camp, Scout Camp, and Pioneer Trek jokes on this site.

Fourth Year Hike

Today's gag will likely require some background for anyone who has not experienced Girls' Camp. Every year the Young Women are at camp, they are expected to develop a new skill. For example, one year the girls are required to start a fire. During their fourth year at Girls' Camp, the Young Women are required to go on a somewhat-strenuous hike. It's called the 4th year hike. Hence the joke.

Being a veteran of numerous Girls' Camps (thanks to a wife who served in Young Women for years), I was well aware of the 4th year hike and found it rife with possibilities. Today's comic is in the August New Era and it tickles me to no end that the magazine published a joke of mine that likely will befuddle half of their readership. I guess in that regard, this might be the closest I ever come to drafting a New Yorker single-panel gag.

Girls Camp

Today's gag comes from faithful reader Melissa W.For eight out of the last nine years, I found myself at girls camp (usually because I was following my wife). This year, I won't be there and this makes me very sad. I'll miss the quality of activities and the camping toughness of the girls plus the food's much better than what you get with the boy scouts. Ultimately, though, what I'll miss most about girls camp is the treasure trove of ideas girls camp has produced over the years.

(Fellow Mormon cartoonist, Kevin Beckstrom just completed a series on girls camp that's worth your time.)

Getting Away from It All

Today's comic is featured in the June issue of the New Era.

The Rare (at Least for Me) Church Magazine Trifecta

About a year ago, my art was featured in both the New Era and the Friend in the same month. That was cool. But being an ambitious cartoonist, I immediately set my sights on getting published in three Church magazines in the same month.

I figured to do it, I would have to paint some landscape in watercolor if I wanted a shot at the Ensign and then somehow convince the editors to publish it on the inside cover. But seeing as how I'm really not much of an artist (there's a big difference between cartooning and fine art), I soon abandoned my goal (it was either that or sharing some mission story for "Latter-day Voices," only I don't have any faith-promoting enough to warrant publication).

So, I abandoned my goal and moved on to other things.

But, I forgot to consider the Liahona, and to my great surprise, I was featured in that magazine this month. This, coupled with my New Era and Friend work, got me that elusive Church magazine trifecta!

First, here's the New Era gag featured in September's magazine:

And here's the activity page found in both September's Friend and Liahona (it's in some language that uses the cyrillic alphabet here--maybe Russian?):

I think making into the Liahona is one of the coolest things I've done with my stuff yet. I can now tell people that my work has been published in over a dozen languages (to see those languages, click here, select the language you want to see, and go to page 12 of the kid section).

I can now check off a major cartooning goal. (Now if I could just get a pinewood derby gag published in the New Era...)

Girls Camp Horror Stories

This week is Girls Camp in my ward. So I thought I'd honor the occasion.

Girls Camp is one of those phrases in the Church that could really use some clarification. Is the correct spelling Girls' Camp or Girls Camp? It surely isn't Girl's Camp because it belongs to more than one girl. It's one of those phrases, like Elders Quorum, where I struggle wondering where or if it needs an apostrophe. The Church really should have a style guide for stuff like this.

(By the way, I usually opt for no apostrophe because that's one less character and I'm lazy like that.)