“Grant me, O Lord, a sense of good humor. Allow me the grace to be able to take a joke to
discover in life a bit of joy, and to be able to share it with others.” -St. Thomas More
It’s not uncommon for us to hear from parishes that they love using the comics and cartoons available in
WeCreate in their bulletins, so we though it high time we introduced our new comic creator, Joshua Masterson. We chat with him this week about his faith, inspiration, and how he became a comic artist. The pieces he draws for our
Faithful Funnies series feature jokes coupled with facts about Catholicism, designed to appeal to a cross-generational audience.
Q. Why did you start drawing cartoons? Do you do any other art?
I have been drawing cartoons since I was very little. My dad is also pretty good with doodling cartoons, and he taught me the basics when I was young. Aside from cartooning, I’m occasionally commissioned to do digital art as well as fine art pieces. I make animations for a YouTube channel called
Catholic Lofi and, aside from my comic work with the LPi Faithful Funnies series, I have my own Catholic comic series on Instagram called “The Catholic Cartoon,” also coming soon to
YouTube! I started The Catholic Cartoon in April of 2022 because I wanted to evangelize and share the faith that I love so much through cartoons and humor. It has grown a following really fast — I publish them mostly on Instagram and I try to publish a new cartoon every day.
Q. Where do you draw your inspiration from for the Faithful Funnies pieces?
Once I’m given the jokes and the facts we want to incorporate into the comics for this series, I just let my imagination take the lead. Usually, I get an immediate image in my head as soon as I read one of the jokes and go from there. I also draw visual inspiration from comics like Family Circus and another, lesser-known comic series that was made by Charles Schultz called It’s Only a Game that features single-panel comics about sports.
Q. Do you have a favorite piece you’ve made?
The Faithful Funny piece about the “movable feast” is one of my favorites. The visuals made me laugh as I was making it and the whole scene, in general, is chaotic and exciting. I really enjoy drawing all of the Faithful Funnies but that one stood out.
Q. What has been an unexpected blessing that has come from your work on these pieces?
The whole thing, in general, has been a huge blessing! To be able to do what I really love doing as a job is really awesome. Not everyone gets to do that and, when I was young, I would have never dreamed that the day would come when I would be making my living off of art and making cartoons. It is such a blessing to be able to make art and share it with such a large audience. I’m really grateful to be able to partner with LPi on this project — all praise be to God!
Q. Why do you think humor is important?
I love humor. I get my daily ab workout from laughing with my friends. I think that laughter, in general, has a way of bringing people together. If you are in a big group of people and everyone gets laughing together, it’s a great way to break the ice and connect people quickly. I love bringing a smile to someone’s face because a little bit of humor can give people a nice distraction from things that might be negative in their lives at the moment.
Q. What is a special Catholic tradition that you love?
I have a lot of things that I love about my faith but if I had to narrow it down just a couple, I’d say the first thing that comes to mind is Eucharistic Adoration. The fact that my own parish offers Eucharistic Adoration every Thursday is such a beautiful thing in my opinion. Being in the presence and spending time with Jesus is a way I love to build my faith and friendship with him.
Another big part of my faith-life is altar serving. I’ve been an altar server since I was 6 or 7 and I still do it to this day. I love it, there’s just something about it. I feel like I’m good at it and serving in that way helps bring me closer into the liturgy and more connected to the Mass, which I think is amazing.
Q. What are some ways you live out your faith?
Speaking of altar serving, I also help train the younger folks in my parish to become altar servers. It’s been a super honor to do that. I go to daily Mass, and I love to just help out at the parish. I also love being part of the community in my own home. We pray together as a family and that’s big and important in my life.
Q. What do you hope to pass along to our customers?
I hope people really do get a good laugh out of these pieces. I also hope they can be a way for families to be able to connect across generations while they learn and laugh together. I want to draw them closer to Christ and be able to provide a small distraction from all the craziness in the world and show them that truth and beauty can still be found — even in unlikely places like a comic strip.
Q. What’s next for you in the cartoon world?
I’m publishing a book on December 4th called
The Catholic Cartoon Collection #1 through Voyage Comics! It is a collection of all the best comic I’ve created for The Catholic Cartoon over the past year and I’m so excited to share it with the world!
Thank you, Joshua, for sharing your talent and insight with us! To see more of Josh’s work, check out his
Instagram page.
The Faithful Funnies section of WeCreate continues to be one of our most popular sections! If you don’t already have access
to WeCreate, our library of ready-to-use Catholic content for your parish communications, you can find it here.
