Joyful ‘toons Blog

I received a notice recently from my web host that my website, joyfultoons.com, was exceeding the monthly bandwidth transfer limit of 10,000 MB. Basically what this means is that there is more data being transfered from my website than I am allowed. I suppose this is a good problem to have, as it means my collection of cartoons is growing, and the number of visitors to the website is increasing. But it also meant that I needed to find a way to reduce the amount of data being transmitted. Since most of the data on my website is in the form of jpgs, I decided to start there. And as I had two versions of each cartoon, one using the New International Version of the Bible verse, and one using the King James Version, it seemed the obvious solution to eliminate one of the versions.

A little background on why I had two versions of each cartoon: when I first launched the website back in January 2007, I used many different English Bible translations for the Bible verses. I used the Amplified, the New Living Translation, the English Standard, the New Century, etc.; but mostly I used the New International and the King James versions. Then I started to receive requests from some readers wanting to know if they could substitute the KJV for the other versions. Sometimes it was just a personal preference on their part, but often someone would tell me that their particular church did not allow the use of other versions of the Bible. This was a revelation to me. I had not been aware that there were churches that discouraged, or even forbade the use of modern English Bible translations.

Anyway, I was undecided as to how to respond to these requests to substitute the KJV for whatever version I had used. I was reticent to allow anyone permission to alter my cartoons, but I wanted these people to be able to use my cartoons in their church. About that time, I was approached by a book producer who was interested in trying to publish a book of the cartoons. For the purposes of the proposed book, she and I decided that all of the cartoons should use only one version of the Bible, and that it should be the NIV. So, I went through all of my cartoons and changed all of the Bible verses to the NIV, and I thought as long as I was doing that, I would also make separate KJV versions of each cartoon. I changed all of the cartoons on the website to the NIV, and then I made a link that brought up a separate browser window containing a KJV version of each cartoon. Even though we never found a publisher for the book (I’m still hopeful we may find one someday), I was glad that it led to a solution for the KJV only readers.

Even though the KJV cartoons are no longer displayed on the website, they are all still available to anyone who needs or wants them. Just send me an email and let me know which cartoon you would like to have, and I will email it to you. I can even send you the entire lot of KJV cartoons in a compressed file if you wish. I will be including both the NIV and KJV versions of each new cartoon that I send out in my weekly emails. I’m hopeful that I will be able to restore the KJV cartoons back to the website someday.

My cartoon “God’s Gift”, which was posted to my website back in December of 2009, was upsetting to some. I received several emails from people who did not like that I had used Santa Claus in the cartoon. One person even wrote that the cartoon was sinful.

I have to admit, I was not surprised. I expected that I might get that reaction. Santa Claus is a very distressing character to many Christians. I remember an incident years ago, in my hometown of Jacksonville, where a pastor hung Santa Claus in effigy outside his church. It caused a bit of a stir back then.

I can certainly understand why Santa is so upsetting to some Christians. The true meaning of Christmas is, of course, the birth of Jesus the Christ, the Son of God. What gets Christians angry about Santa Claus is that he has pretty much replaced Jesus as the meaning of the season in a lot of people’s minds. It’s ironic, since the Santa Claus myth is based on a real person, St. Nicholas, who was a Christian priest back in the fourth century.

In spite of all that, I have to say that I don’t really consider Santa Claus to be very threatening. In my mind, he’s just a fictional character, one that has been overused in television commercials, television shows, and movies. I know some people are horrified when parents pretend to their children that Santa is coming to their house on Christmas Eve. I see it as an elaborate prank that parents get to play on their children. My parents played the Santa gag on me. I remember my Dad taking me outside on a chilly morning to show me the reindeer hoofprints in the yard. Even though I was very young and gullible, I somehow wasn’t buying it. But, I was certainly willing to accept Santa’s gifts on Christmas morning.

The idea for the cartoon came to me while I was reading Romans chapter 5. There the Apostle Paul uses the word “gift” several times in referring to God’s grace to us in sacrificing His son Jesus on the cross, to redeem us from our sins. That word “gift” made me think of that famous gift-giving character, Santa Claus. I thought I could use him to picture the gift of grace that God gave us through His son Jesus. Rather than using Santa to obscure the meaning of Christmas, as so much of our modern American society does, I thought I could use Santa to point to the true “reason for the season”.

I apologize to all who were offended at my cartoon. It was certainly not my intention to upset anyone. Incidentally, not all of the email reaction to this cartoon was negative. I actually received more positive than negative comments. One person even told me that it was my best cartoon.