Much Ado About Cartoons with Commentary

via CartoonDailyNews

This is a Guest Story by Kendall Lyons, a youth minister, writer, and cartoonist. You can find him over at CartoonDailyNews or on Twitter @CartoonDaily1.

I love cartoons. I really love cartoons. Eventually I had to ask myself this most poignant question:

What can I do to share my talents and gifts with the world?

It was year 2011 on a midnight Friday night. I pulled out my debit card and purchased a domain name for the first time ever in my life.

I called it Cartoon Daily News!

I knew what I wanted to do, at least, I thought I did. After all, I was a new blogger who was still digitally wet behind the ears.

I wanted to create a news operation online that followed animation news and break stories on popular animated programming and independent artists of cartoons and illustrations. After a very weak level of monthly traffic, that idea slowly began to fade away and I was unhappy with the direction it was going. At that point, I began to delete content and total shutdown was imminent. The very short future of cartoon daily news began to look dim. I wanted to use that original idea, but, not for primary purposes.

Later, I talked with my Mom about it. Yes, I went to my Mother’s house and talked to her about it. She suggested I go back to blogging. She made the argument that I did have a lot of stories and thoughts about my childhood to share with the world. At first, I brushed it off. I thought to myself over and over again, “Who would care!?”

The next morning, I was rounding a corner on the freeway and it hit me, “She was right, give it a try.”

Later after work, I got to a wireless internet location and revamped cartoon daily news, turning it into a news and ministry operation geared towards sharing life stories of my childhood and biblical commentary with the use of cartoons and illustrations.

via CartoonDailyNews

The site name also serves a purpose, “Cartoon” for the obvious purpose of using cartoons and illustrations; “Daily” for the purpose of providing thought, commentary or art on a daily basis; “News” for the purpose of providing ‘the good news’ or Gospel to all who read as well as provide a place for interviews, commentary and analysis of other artists and their work.

The new and current format for cartoon daily news is also based on an independent study that I participated in back in college. My passion for animated programming, cartoons and illustrations of the like drove me to create a curriculum using current programs and personally created work to share the Gospel to all ages effectively.

I start by reviewing a series or reviewing an episode of a show, noting all of the potentially applicable issues from it and sharing thoughtful commentary from it. I have done the same thing with comic strips. Essentialy, the passion drove the vision and the vision was driven by the committment.

My personal committment to Christ ultimately let me see the vision and in turn gave me the passion to push forward this far to see cartoon daily news stand as a place for cartoon commentary for one year…and many more to come!