More Doctor Who comic strip art

A Doctor Who comic strip sample page, now in shiny shiny ink.



And remember, I do actually do this for a living, as well as the rest of the nonsense. comicfestival.co.uk

Doctor Who comic art by Kev F

For your pleasure a couple of Doctor Who comic strip pages, in their pencil form, by me. The Matt Smith page I drew the other night to use in my Comic Art Masterclasses, replacing a Christopher Eccleston page that doesn't impress them that much any more. The David Tennant page I found in my folder, unfinished for a couple of years (probably cos I realised how distorted the Tennant face was and couldn't bear to look at it again).

The Tennant page might go up on eBay. Any offers?





Kev F Sutherland, available for commissions email me kevf@comicfestival.co.uk

Socks at the Brighton Fringe

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre will be playing for two nights at this year's Brighton Fringe, on May 1 and 2. Spread the word and don't miss out.

http://komediabrighton.ticketsolve.com/shows/23498177/events

The Socks have a long relationship with Brighton, have played there pretty much every year since they began performing. And one of the hit routines of our 2008 shows was born there, when we did an impromptu ad lib that just grew...



Book Brighton May 1 or 2 now

Edinburgh flat anyone?

It's not just my imagination, is it? This year it's harder than usual to find accommodation for the Edinburgh Fringe.

For the last few years I've happily trolled along to edfringe.com, and they've had a fantastic message board onto which locals would list their flats, and we hungry tourists would get in touch, agree to pay a ridiculous amount of money, and everybody would be happy. There'd be new flats added on their every day, as word spread to Edinburghians who had never previously dreamed that they could ask £600 a week for their one bedroomed dungeon under a pub toilet backing onto a crack alley and some idiot from England would pay it, and all flats would be snapped up in a day or so.

As the recession has bitten, has there's been less money sloshing about, this vital service became even more so as margins got tighter, and cutting out the middle man became all the more sensible.

Whereas once upon a time, in the days before the internet (yes children, such days did exist) I used to book our Edinburgh accommodation through an agency, with a brochure, using forms and phone calls, in a process than necessitated getting our flat pinned down by the end of February, or ideally a year in advance, now thanks to edfringe.com and its easily accessible message boards, I would be able to spend a few days in April putting my bid in for places, keep a few potential landlords on hold in my email tray, and by the end of the week we'd have everything sorted, usually with the best price and the best location in the bag.



Now the edfringe website proudly displays a banner saying "new website on the way" and the message boards are gone. In their place, a system seems to have been set up whereby landlords submit their properties to the edfringe organisers, and we performers are then sent a list. I assume more than one list will be coming.

I hope so. Cos from the first list that we've received, there have only been two flats that were appropriate for our needs, neither in anything like the locations we've had in the past, and they've no doubt already been snapped up as I've left it a few days to come back from touring to get onto the emailing. I can't help thinking this isn't going to work as well as last year.

But am I the only person finding this, and is everyone else managing fine? Do let us know.

And if you have a flat for rent, sleeping a couple, from August 3rd to 30th, ideally in the Old Town, email kevf@sitcomtrials.co.uk

Cheers

Kev F
Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre
(possibly sleeping in a box behind the Gilded Balloon this August)

Travel, don't talk to me about travel

Don't get me started on travelling. How many miles have I done so far this year, with a combination of Scottish Falsetto Socks touring shows and Comic Art Masterclasses? Actually, I don't know. Let's come back to that. First here are the Socks on the subject of travel:



Now, back to my travels. How far have I gone so far in 2010? If there's someone out there who'd like to add it up for me, I'd love to see that total. And if anyone could join the dots on a map, I bet it'd look like someone was trying to scribble out Britain with really violent biro marks.

Here's where I've travelled this year, in order. (Home is Clevedon in North Somerset, which appears inbetween many of the other destinations for obvious reasons).

Wootton Basset > home > Wootton Bassett > home
Bournemouth > home
Cambridge > home
Swindon > home
Weston Super Mare > home (I'm only listing work engagements btw, not days out)
Salisbury > home
Omagh NI > home
Weston > home
Swindon > home > Swindon > home
Weston > home
Leicester > home
Taunton > home
Melksham > home
Hilperton Wilts > home Hilperton > home
Birmingham > home
London > home
Preston > Bury > Aberystwyth > home
Weston > home
Taunton > home > Taunton > home
Farnham > home
Edinburgh > home
Ilford > Swindon > home
Ilford > home
Kilmarnock > home
Barton on Humber > Hull > home
Swindon > home
Salisbury > home
Burnley > Manchester > home
Milton Keynes > home
Weston > home
Poole > home
Halesworth Suffolk > Lowestoft > Harlech > home
Dudley > home
Weston > home
Edinburgh > Inverness > Gairloch > Inverness > Edinburgh > home
Willesden > Hanwell > Willesden > home
Maidenhead > home
Bath > home
Kings Heath > home
London > home
Culmstock Devon > home
Exeter > home
Chorley > Leicester > home

(and still to come this week:)
Swindon > home
South Oxhey > Chorleywood > home
Harrogate > home
Inverness > Castle Skibo > Inverness > home
Dartford Kent

I used to like sitting at my desk drawing comics. Brilliant writer & artist for hire here, as seen in the Beano...

Dr Who The Beast Below reviewed

As I type this I've just watched Beast Below for the second time and I'm now watching The End Of The World. One is coming of rather well in comparison.

BB is the first Moffat script I've ever found holes in (well, since Joking Apart). It was still good fun, but for the first time it wasn't quite magic. And I'm left with questions:

1) If the Doctor, in the opening seconds, is able to tell us all about the 29th Century, and the UK flying off into space, and he's flying over Starship UK - why can't he see there's a bloody great whale under it? How did this story fail to reach him, when he knows so much about the 51st century on Earth and later?

2) Nobody noticed that the whale doesn't eat the kids? Surely after 200 years someone might have twigged that?

Those niggles aside, what the story lacked in Moffaty brilliance (only one classic line "I'm the bloody Queen, I rule"), it more than made up for in Russell T Davies-isms. With elements of Gridlock and the End Of The World it shows up just how good RTD's writing was. Sure his plots always fell apart at the end, but along the way they'd draw you into a real human personal conflict or drama or - right now on my TV the Dr & Rose are arguing about how the Tardis translates alien languages and it tells us so much, reminds us of everyone's personalities and concerns, while never letting us know what's about to happen next - ooh, now Rose is on the phone to her Mum back home... and I digress.

I was worried Moffat's style might put plot above characters, and that his dialogue is never as real as RTD's, and now the double bill of Beast Below and The End Of The World is making that look all the more likely.

I'm also worried about the new series replicating bits of the old wholesale. We have the Dr and Amy/Rose in front of a big picture window looking at a future earth at the start of the epilogue. We have the Dr apologising for the phone bill (as he did again in 11th Hour). We have a bloody beast below the new earth with tentacles that look a bit like tulips (I'm not the only person who saw Gridlock am I?).

And another question:

3) How are all the other countries' spaceships piloted? If this is the last starwhale, and they all survive in the end, then how did they manage and why didn't the UK just use that method?

4) And why would a glass of water show the vibrations of engines? Why wouldn't it just show the air con vibrating? Or a nearby fridge?

Ok, enough moaning. It was fun, sorry for picking holes. I am still enjoying The End Of The World by the way, and can't wait for Victory Of The Daleks. Hmm, third episode of the series written by Mark Gatiss. No, no more similarities with season 1 to be found here, move on.

PPS: End Of The World is reaching its climax, the Dr has had his dramatic theme played, waled thru some silly turbines and saved everyone. We're about to have the "can you smell chips?" ending and a brilliant theme tune. Along the way we have had the best part of 50 new science fiction ideas and things that had never happened in Dr Who before. There's the challenge facing the new series. RTD just had to be better than Dr Who in the 80s. Moffat has to be better than RTD. Game on.

The Socks Zombie movie

The Socks make a Zombie movie. What, really? They really actually literally make what we would understand as a zombie movie? No, no, to be honest, that's not what they do at all. Why, this is already disappointing before it starts.