Situation Murder - comedy to die for

Here's a treat from the bottom drawer that I'd totally forgotten about - Situation Murder.



In 2004, after The Sitcom Trials had done its last Edinburgh Fringe run and was noticeably failing to get a second series, I devised a different show, a series of murder mystery comedies where the audience would interrogate the cast and try and solve a crime. It has two regular characters hosting the story every episode, and a new cast of characters every time.

Now collected up in a book, available on Amazon Kindle (or iPod, iPad etc), are 5 full scripts, complete with the briefing notes given to all the cast members so the reader could, if they wished, stage these murder mysteries for fun or profit.

Of course what I'd really "invented" was the 1970s ITV series Whodunnit, which had itself been reimagined in the 80s as Cleudo. All I'd done was make it funny. And rereading these scripts they really are jolly good fun.

• A celebrity chef on a reality TV show is murdered by a fellow celebrity – but who?
• A death metal rocker is found hung on the back of the dressing room door – by whom?
• Three strangers meet in the airport car park, which one has blood on their hands?
• A body in the car park of a truck stop, but whose?
• The audience of a comedy show join in a seance to solve a murder, but why?

If you're in the slightest bit intrigued, dear reader, you can download a free sample. And by all means upload a review, or how about buying the book. By golly it's worth it.

Oh, and if I've not mentioned it, The Sitcom Trials itself returns to Bristol in March and, if you want, you can enter a script. Details over on the Sitcom Trials website.

Recommended Reading List for Comic Art Masterclasses

Thanks to Amazon, which is my now distracto-hobby, taking over from Twitter and Youtube this last week, I've put together a Recommended Book List for pupils in my Comic Art Masterclasses (click to see it):

It's done through Amazon so it links directly to the books you can buy. I've tried to keep it school-kid friendly, though I've had to include some things for older readers, which I shall try and label accordingly (uh-oh, minefield ahoy). If anyone can think of books that I've overlooked, and there will be lots, give me a shout and I'll see what I can do.

Yours, spreading the good word of comics far and wide



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I'm a Bestseller - official

Unbelievable as it sounds, one of my books is a bestseller. I had to take a screen grab. Look:



The Immortal Partie, A Mr Hawk Investigation, my murder mystery graphic novel illustrated by the brilliant John Erasmus (by the way does anyone have contact details for John? I can't find him, and in the fullness of time he might need paying some money) stands at number one in the Mystery Graphic Novel charts on Amazon. Which is fantastic.

I know it would be grossly unprofessional to let the cat out of the bag and reveal our actual sales figures. But we've sold 2 copies. I can only deduce that these rankings are established from the number of people who look at your book and download the free sample, or maybe on the level of activity in any given period. Either way I'm more than delighted with this apparent news, and you can be sure that at sometime in the future this screengrab will be used to defend my description of myself as Bestselling Author Kev F.

You'll find all of my books listed on my Amazon Author Page. Sorry, I mean my Amazon Bestselling Author Page.

Ode To A Haggis for Burns Supper, by the Socks

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre have had a wee stab at Rabbie Burns' Ode To A Haggis. If you're organising a Burns Supper, all you have to do is be marginally better than this...



This is from the Socks archive, so apologies for the poor video quality and the total lack of costumes. Amazingly, the Socks performed their first Edinburgh show and much of their second, naked. How did we get away with it?

Socks at Leicester Comedy Festival Feb 9-11
Socks at Adelaide Fringe Feb 17 - March 18

World's Biggest Comic now at British Library (in a cupboard)

In a jam-packed last couple of days during which I've accompanied the Scottish Falsetto Socks to Camden where they played the excellent comedy show Pun Run (10 top comics compered and organised by Bec Hill, actually getting laughter and applause for doing nothing but puns, it's the future of comedy); stayed in a hotel in Hampstead where we got upgraded from the worst view in London (they put us in a room with no windows. Literally. No. Windows) to the best (on the 5th floor, with a view across London from Alexandra Palace to the Telecom Tower. Top tip: complain about your room whenever they try and put you in a room with Literally. No. Windows.); and travelled to Colchester where I gave a talk about comics at the impressively marvellous Firstsite gallery (thanks for having me, you were all lovely); I've got home and remembered that I'd totally forgotten what we did on Friday en route to the gig. We took the World's Biggest Comic to the British Library.*



In a development which had slipped my mind over the New Year period, I've been invited to display the World's Biggest Comic at the British Library in February. It'll be the first opportunity for it to be seen in public since 2002, possibly a star-studded affair, a good networking event. I'll be in Australia. I might not even tell you when it's happening.



* Excuse poor punctuation, it's late I've been busy

My publishing empire

Having read an article in the paper exactly a week ago which gave me the misguided impression there was money to be made by publishing books on Amazon Kindle (on a second reading the article makes it quite clear that there's very little money to be made doing this, by the way), I have managed in the last week to publish 10 books. Sorry, got carried away.

I started by putting my comic Hot Rod Cow out there (just 77p, or download a sample for free), and it's been joined by Sinnerhound. Added to those comics, which have been in print for the last year already, I've published two comic-related items for the very first time:



The Tock is a bedtime adventure story for kids which I wrote on New Years Day 2009. I illustrated it over the next couple of days, only in pencil, then showed it to a few people, including publishers an agents whose biggest comment was that it was too long for a kids picture book. It wasn't until a year later that I got round to inking it and, on those folks' advice, edited it down to a smaller page count. But I didn't like it shortened, and it was clearly going to be prohibitively expensive if I published it at its full 64 page length. Well now, thanks to Amazon Kindle, the whole book is available at its full length, the black and white pages looking perfect on a Kindle or iPhone screen and I'd encourage anyone to read the free download I bet you'll want the whole thing.

The Immortal Partie - A Mr Hawk Investigation is a full colour comic strip that I wrote way back in 1994 and which the brilliant artist John Erasmus illustrated in wonderful painted colour. Because it's in full colour it's always been a challenge to publish, with any printed copy being a bit expensive for what was, originally, just a 10 page story. However, redesigning it for the Kindle screen, I found that every single panel of John's artwork, which we'd laid out in a rigid 9-panel-per-page grid, merited filling the screen, giving us a 90 page work of art which reads perfectly on Kindle, iPhone, iPad etc. I've read it on my iPod and it has quite simply never looked so good before. Again I'd urge you to read the free download. I guarantee this story - a murder mystery featuring severed hands popping up all over Leicestershire - will make you want to read it to the end.

Of course my comic strip works are just one side of my publishing empire. I've also published 6 volumes of sitcom scripts, from the archives of The Sitcom Trials. Enjoy...



Breaking News: The Lavender Millbank Mob is currently #66,564 in Amazon's sales ranking. Could do better.

Go Wild In The Country - another book on Amazon

Lord help me I've only gone and been and published another book on Amazon. It's Go Wild In The Country, a romantic comedy produced as part of The Sitcom Trials under the pseudonym Jane Simon. Check it out.



You can download a free sample to your iPod, IPhone, Kindle, iPad etc, and why don't you post up a nice review while you're at it? And if you want to see the version of this script that ended up on TV, you'll find it over on the Sitcom Trials blog.

I've started putting quite a few pieces of work out there on Amazon, check out the latest in the Sitcom Trials Bookshop.