Online for the first time, here's the Green Screen song, as you'll have seen if you've seen Socks In Space live at any time since July of last year. Now it's about to get its last few live outings, so here it is for posterity (well, until we make the big screen version, obviously).
The new Edinburgh show, ...And So Am I, is looming. Book now to avoid disappointment.
More brand new comics by kids, this time from Weston Super Mare and Richmond, another batch of stupendously high quality. As always I drew a caricature of every one of them, so that would be 180 caricatures rattled off here. (And remind me to tell you about last weekend in Leeds when I drew that many in a day as part of the JHS Event, representing Dennis The Menace ukeleles).
The celebrities they chose for the "treading on a worm" routine were Katie Price, David Attenborough, Matt Smith, The Queen, Joey Essex and Boris Johnson.
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing Bananaman in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something.
Bananaman in this week's Beano is a veritable menagerie of bear puns, written by me and drawn by Wayne Thompson who, for the first time since he was asked to drop his own distinctive character designs in favour of the 1980s John Geering style, looks like he's really enjoyed drawing this one. And the editorial team have had fun too, adding some nifty gags that I hadn't thought of myself (the Care Bears one is theirs, for example).
A couple of mine hit the cutting room floor, including the Yogi Bear gag you can see above, which on reflection was possibly a bit too obscure. Also missing is the visual gag when Bananaman crashes into a packing crate. He still hits the crate in the artwork, but in the published strip the crate is blank, whereas it originally bore the words "This side up use no hooks". I'm betting I'm the only person who remembers the obscure bear that's being referenced there. Anyone?
Also in this week's Beano is my Pansy Potter - Locked In The Lavatory, and some excelent strips, my favourite being Dennis The Menace by Nigels Auchterlounie and Parkinson which really does get some great gags and references in their (Walter is a transvestite wicked with, Gnasher pees on him, it's all good).
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing Bananaman in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something.
More brand new comics by kids here, and one by some grown ups. Five were produced by the pupils in schools in North Somerset, Swindon, and Hampshire, and one by Newly Qualified Teachers at a training day in Birmingham. And that might be the least I've ever written in a blog about a bunch of comics. They are great though, aren't they?
The celebrities they chose for the "treading on a worm" routine were Stan Lee, Christina Aguilera, David Walliams, Nigel Kennedy, Lionel Messi and Simon Cowell (who was suggested in half the classes).
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing Bananaman in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something.
Here's a first, my Comic Art Masterclass being signed for sign-language readers by Tracey at Medstead primary school in Hampshire. She admitted it was the fastest talking she'd ever had to interpret, and she managed it magnificently. It was great fun, for the kids and for me, to see how she handled some of the phrases that come up in the class. I don't think I'd realised how many mentions of bottoms and toilets there were, until I'd seen her signing such immortal phrases as "The Hulk on the toilet", "Bart Simpson scratching his bum" and "The Old Man Whose Trousers Fell Down" (when I realised she was translating everything, I chose particular titles from recent kids comics to read out, to hilarious effect).
This day in rural Medstead was part of a week of travels which saw me in Wincanton on Monday (there's the flipchart I produced, below), Worle Tuesday, Swindon Wednesday, then for Friday I zoomed to Medstead (2hrs 10mins) then to Maidstone (2hrs in Friday traffic) for the Socks to perform a cracking 90 minute show at the Hazlitt Theatre the same night. Following an overnight in Maidstone (I've got a four poster bed, yes be jealous), it's off to Bognor for the Socks to perform at the Comedy Festival in Butlins, then it's straight off to a hotel off the motorway near Northampton (2hrs 30) in order that I can get to Leeds for 9.30 Sunday morning to start caricaturing all day at a DC Thomson event (my second such event of the month).
That is one hell of a lot of miles and, given that I then have 5 days of schools lined up starting Monday, it would appear I've forgotten to have a weekend. Again. The things I do in the name of... whatever it is I do. (Is it comedy, is it education, is it paid self-flagellation, who can tell?). Onwards and upwards.
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing Bananaman in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something.
"I'm Bananaman!" "No, I'm Bananaman!" Yes, I've done the I'm Spartacus gag in this week's Bananaman story - Bananaman The Movie (and, as you can see, Calamity James is almost delivering the punchline. His original line "No I'm... in the wrong film" hit the cutting room floor but the picture survives.)
But who exactly is Bananaman? Is it really the 1980's styleJohn Geering version that Wayne's drawing for the third week running, having been asked to abandon his own dynamic style? Or is it Wayne's own Bananaman, with the big chin, the giant barrel chest and the tiny legs, of which I, at least, had become fond? The answer lies in the opening panel of this week's Roger The Dodger, also drawn by Wayne. Which design is it that we see on the football Roger's bouncing in the face of Robert Nixon's version of Roger's Dad? (And for the triple-whammy of Wayne ghosting late, great Beano artists, you can check out his Ken Reid tribute a little later in the same strip. And see also the box of Fragile Old Nutty Comics in Roger's attic, whose significance we can only guess at).
And in case you were wondering, no, Pansy Potter (who in this week's strip learns the correct use of a harp) wasn't that fat when she left my drawing board (above).
All sarky criticisms aside, it's another cracking Beano, with a smashing Jonathan Ross guest appearance in Dennis The Menace, super surreal Numskulls & Pie Face strips, and an excellently designed classic Gwyneth's Book Of Records. Buy the Beano, it's well worth it.
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing Bananaman in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something.
Here are the latest comics created by pupils in my Comic Art Masterclasses, in Horley, Oxted, Worle, and Wincanton. Four lots of year fives in this lot, for whom you can blame the grans, old men, twerking and trousers falling down. A funny lot, year fives.
The day at Wincanton was organised (and paid for) by The Beano themselves, which is the first time they've taken me into schools. I do hope they were impressed, it would be nice to do more.
The celebrities they chose for the "treading on a worm" routine were Declan Donnelly, Miley Cyrus, Nelson Mandela, Benedict Cumberbatch, David Walliams and Katy Perry (with Simon Cowell being suggested but not finally chosen in 4 out of 6 classes).
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing Bananaman in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something.
