NASHVILLE, Tenn. (BP)–Baptist Press welcomes Dennis Daniel, creator of “Brother Blooper,” to its cartoon lineup on the Lighter Side.
Daniel, a longtime pastor, has drawn Brother Blooper — a cartoon about a plump pastor’s humorous existence — for nearly three decades. The cartoons have been featured in the Arizona Southern Baptist Convention journal, “Portraits,” for 28 years and have appeared in several books. Daniel also is a contributor to the Joyful Noiseletter, a humorous periodical about the Christian life.
“I am excited about partnering with Dennis Daniel and the opportunity to enrich his ministry and ours at Baptist Press,” said Will Hall, vice president for news services of the SBC Executive Committee and executive editor of Baptist Press. “Once I discovered his cartoon, I quickly became a fan. Brother Blooper is a good fit with our lineup of cartoon features that present humor from a Christian perspective.”
Daniel was born in Backgate, Ark., and because of his father’s poor health moved west with the family as a young boy. By his senior year in high school, his family lived in Arizona, and Daniel recalls surrendering to the ministry in 1958, just after he graduated from high school.
“I had no idea what I was in for,” he told Baptist Press. “My grandfather prayed that one of his sons would be a preacher, and none of them were, but I became one.”
Daniel attended Grand Canyon University in Phoenix, where he met his wife, Paula. After college, they moved to Fort Worth, Texas, and Daniel attended Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary.
He has pastored seven churches and recently retired from First Baptist Church in Fountain Hills, Ariz. His wife is still a fifth-grade schoolteacher, and the couple has two sons and two granddaughters.
Daniel’s hobbies include fly fishing, artwork and woodworking. He and his wife have a cabin in Colorado where they’ve vacationed in the summer, but now that he is retired Daniel hopes to spend more time there. During retirement he has already found time to build a bed and an armoire for his wife.
As a child, Daniel thought church was so dull, he said. He had always been a person who liked to laugh, and he may have developed cartoons out of necessity for himself.
He had always liked Peanuts and The Far Side, and Daniel said early on he copied a lot of the Peanuts cartoons. “I miss Charles Schultz and his innocent and beautiful, insightful humor.”
When Daniel was pastoring a church in Utah, he developed a cartoon called Church Chuckle. That evolved into Brother Blooper, with the physique of the main character patterned after his “father in the ministry.” Daniel coupled his ministerial experience with his sense of humor, and Brother Blooper became a hit.
“I named it Brother Blooper because we preachers have that hoof in the mouth disease,” Daniel said. “So much of the ministry is serious, and sometimes we can say things that don’t exactly come out the right way.”
Daniel believes that in life Christians must learn to “roll with the punches and look at the humor because he who laughs lasts.”
“I don’t try to be a comedian, but there’s always a place for the right kind of humor,” he said.
His goal with his cartoons is to add joy to lives, he said. “Jesus is the joy-giver. I’d like to give people a little relief and humor in their lives.”
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One of Daniel’s cartoons is posted in the BP Photo Library at https://www.bpnews.net. Title: TERRIFIC ILLUSTRATION. Others will be posted weekly at https://www.bpnews.net/bpcartoons.asp.
