How Jeff ended up in The Back Pew drawing cartoons
Humble Beginnings...
were found in the rural community of Cable, Wisconsin, with a population hovering around 280. I was born the son of loving parents, Walter and Nellie Larson, way back in 1957, shortly after the glaciers receded from Northern Wisconsin and the last Cheesehead Woolly Mammoth went extinct.
The Larson Family attended a small white country church in Cable, where, at the age of six, Jef accepted Jesus into hisHeart—ironically, sitting in the literal church ‘Back Pew’ during Summer Bible School in 1963.
As a child, Jeff loved cartoons (who knew) and would spend hours at the kitchen table or on the floor in front of the television, drawing popular cartoons (His favorite being Popeye the Sailor Man) or cartoons of his own creation. Just think how far he has come.
After leaving Wisconsin, Jeff changed his profession from logging with a low-tech but powerful chainsaw to careers ranging from computers to sports officiating, all while still drawing cartoons.
In the late 1990s, many years removed from a literal ‘come-to-Jesus’ moment in that literal Back Pew of 1963 lore, Jeff focused his cartoon skill set by 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.
This was the very real beginning of ‘The Back Pew’
The church and family lived in this quiet rural setting, which was a priceless heritage for Jeff. There were NO traffic lights. Rush hour traffic existed between 7:59 AM and 8:01 AM and returned from 3:59 PM through about 4:01 PM. Traffic jams were only mythical folklore shared about trips to the big city, told to scare locals from leaving town.
After High School, since Jeff neither liked hunting nor fishing, it was time to move to the big city by crossing the border into Minnesota, which does not have a ‘big beautiful wall’. There, Jeff lived amongst Minnesotans and gophers since around 1980. During this time, Jeff got married, had some kids, owned a pet or two, and now has six grandkids! Life is good!
"The Back Pew title actually has a double significance,
As mentioned earlier, the literal Back Pew is where Jeff was seated when he accepted Jesus into his heart back in 1963, … AND the Back Pew was the regular Sunday seat for Jeff and his friends as a youth.
The moral of Jeff’s bio?
To serve God as you are uniquely wired. For Jeff, this means serving God by coloring between the lines and sharing his cartoon creations as needed as a resource for others. Seeking that sweet spot between God's Glory and Man's Folly…. with a cartoon.
And to know Jeff, know his adult life is marked by BACK PAIN, culminating in two surgeries, one in August 2021 and the other in April 2022, to repair impingements causing nerve damage/pain and affecting muscle function. And just for ‘fun’ after the surgery in April 2022, Jeff acquired a staff infection in the surgery incision, requiring a third surgery to clean things out, followed by a one-week hospital stay to get the infection under control, then another 6 weeks with a pick (or PICC) line feeding me antibiotics 24/7. In August 2022, Jeff turned 65, and all the surgeries and all the doctors’ care, king’s horses, and the king’s men, will be necessary to put Jeff back together again. Jeff will remain a work in progress, and not getting any younger.
This is more information than you were looking for, but Jeff shares cartoons as proof, just like other people have photo albums.