From the time he was growing up in Peoria, Ill., Kevin Frank drew cartoons. He usually drew them on the ends of newspaper rolls that his grandmother brought home from the local newspaper, where she worked.

"To me they were just pictures and words together," Frank said by phone from his Ontario, Canada, home. "Someone pointed out to me that what I was doing were cartoons."

Now, after having worked on several family-oriented cartoon strips, and having done religious work for church-related magazines, Frank has created a new comic strip, "Heaven's Love Thrift Shop," which begins its Sundays-only run this Sunday, when it will also debut in the Deseret Morning News Arts section.

"I will try to avoid political hot-button issues," said Frank. "My goal is simple: I want to remind people there is a God, and God loves them, and then make them chuckle. But you can be sure I will avoid any heavy-handed 'preachiness.' "

The thrift shop in his strip is owned by a church, but Frank's approach is light. "Dag, a worker at the store, is an overzealous new convert who does extreme things. Cassidy, the manager, is in the middle, more balanced — and is the heart and soul of the strip. Cassidy reflects my wife. Wilson, the owner, is easygoing. And Cassidy helps to keep him balanced."

Then there is Shelby, a thrift-shop regular, who doesn't see herself as a person of faith; she's always looking for a bargain she can re-sell on eBay.

Frank said he did a similar strip in Chicago, so he knows the cartoonist's drill. "I carry a notebook, and immediately write down any great idea that occurs to me.

"It's fun to do the strip. I write a bit, draw a bit, then do some composition. Seems like being a movie director on a tiny scale. Very enjoyable."

Frank said his first professional cartooning gig was at age 14 in Peoria. "The local paper ran an ad for an editorial cartoonist, and my mother forced me to apply. She drove me into town, and I did get the job, but it might have had more to do with the fact that no one else applied. It just lasted for the summer."

He moved to Canada — which he said offers "pretty, snowy winters" — when he married a Canadian, with whom he has three children, ages 13, 10 and 5.

Some of the cartoonists Frank admires — and from whom he has occasionally borrowed an idea — include Charles Schultz ("Peanuts"), Bill Watterson ("Calvin and Hobbes"), Bill Mauldin ("Willie and Joe") — and Walt Kelly ("Pogo"). "We all borrow from each other, but we like to think our cartoon has a unique flavor of its own. For instance, I learned to draw hands from Tom Batiuk ('Funky Winkerbean')."

Frank said that with his "Heaven's Love Thrift Shop" strip, he is not on a proselyting mission, and he's convinced that "nobody goes to the Sunday funnies for deep theological insights." He said he is part of a "church community" but does not wish to identify it more specifically, because he wants his work to be as inclusive as possible.

He admits that, to a certain degree, his faith is evident in his work — and that is not lost on the syndicate that is trying to sell the strip to newspapers around the country. "King Features is watching it closely, I have to say. I will try to keep from crossing the line where I could become offensive. I'm walking a really narrow road.

"But this strip is focusing on a charity. How can you complain about that?"

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E-mail: dennis@desnews.com