How I ended up in The Back Pew

  • Humble Beginnings...

My story began in the tiny rural community of Cable, Wisconsin (population hovering around 280). I was born in 1957 to loving parents, Walter and Nellie Larson — shortly after the glaciers finally left Northern Wisconsin and the last Cheesehead Woolly Mammoth went extinct.

Our family attended a small white country church in Cable. At the age of six, during Summer Bible School in 1963, I accepted Jesus into my heart… while sitting in the literal back pew.

Christian Cartoons - Jesus in my heart age 6

  • The Back Pew is Born

In the late 1990s, many years removed from a literal ‘come-to-Jesus’ moment in that literal Back Pew of 1963 lore, I focused my cartoon skill set on creating single-panel faith cartoons cleverly named ‘The Back Pew’. Then, in January 2000, a website was born of the same name with the mission to share Clean Humor and God's truth for a world that needs both.

  • A High Calling?

The Back Pew is my unique calling to serve God by coloring between the lines while seeking that sweet spot between God's Glory and Man's Folly… with a cartoon.

The End (so far)

  •  Drawing From the Start

As a kid, I loved cartoons and spent hours at the kitchen table (or on the floor in front of the TV) drawing Popeye the Sailor Man and creating my own cartoons. Looking back, those early sketches were the first quiet steps toward what would one day become The Back Pew.

After High School, I left the quiet of rural Wisconsin for the big city, trading my chainsaw and career as a logger for a series of jobs — computers, sports officiating, and more — while still drawing cartoons the whole time. I crossed the border into Minnesota, assimilating amongst Minnesotans and gophers (while maintaining my Wisconsin sports loyalties).

  • Side note on Back Pew title

There is a double significance to the Back Pew title

  • As mentioned earlier, the literal Back Pew is where I was seated when he accepted Jesus into his heart back in 1963, and…

  • The Back Pew was my regular Sunday seat with my buddies as a youth, where we were out of the watchful eyes of our parents and/or church elders. We were well-behaved mostly, but it was good to have a buffer.

  • Life Snapshot

I am blessed with my wonderful wife Mary, three grown kids, six grandkids, and one dog named Cooper. And while I am not getting younger, life is good, and I look forward to the years to come.

For those of you thinking…

“Hey, this is all nice, but I came here looking for cartoons on BACK PAIN?”

Just

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  • Back Pain in the Back Pew

Unfortunately, like many others, I struggle with BACK PAIN, and so I MUST share cartoons as proof of this part of my life, just like most people have photo albums. This includes… Two surgeries, one in  August 2021 and the other in April 2022, and one surgery to clean up a staff infection after the April 2022 surgery.