In the 2015 Beano Annual I've written a handful of Biffo The Bear stories, a couple of which I'm rather proud of (and one about spraypainting a mural which has ended up making so sense whatsoever, sorry about that). So it wasn't surprising that I was asked to write some more stories for the 2016 annual. What was surprising was that some of them didn't hit the mark, and ended up filed under Not For Public Consumption. So, here's a glimpse of what you won't be seeing next Christmas, a single-pager starring Biffo & Buster: Hoover.
I have a few more stories that didn't make the cut. Play nice and, you never know, you might get an exclusive glimpse of them sometime. Stay tuned.
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing Pansy Potter 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.
Kev F Sutherland tells us about drawing The Bash Street Kids for the Beano
If you asked anyone in the UK to draw a character from the Beano,
they’d most probably be able to get on with the task off by heart. The
characters in the age-old weekly comic are etched onto our brains from a
young age, and every kid’s got their favourite strip. For me, it was The Bash Street Kids,
a cartoon created by Leo Baxendale in 1954 about a pesky gang of kids
driving their teacher nuts. Lessons, rules, bullies – the Beano
knew how to make its readers happy by bringing them seemingly infinite
story-lines about something most British children see as the world’s
worst chore – school.
To celebrate our month-long Back to School feature, we chatted to Kev
F Sutherland, a comic artist and comedian who now contributes to the Beano by drawing The Bash Street Kids among other cartoons. Here he is…
What do you think is the key to a successful, enjoyable comic strip?
It’s all about good storytelling. If a writer and artist have an
interesting story to tell, and an original way of telling it, then it
should look at its best in the perfect medium. Some stories are best
suited to “word only” literature – or comics without pictures as I call
them. Some stories are best on the big screen, some on the telly, some
in a game. And comics tell their stories best, especially those that
really exploit what you can do with the visuals. I recommend Will
Eisner’s The Spirit, a strip from the 1940s, as a perfect
example of how imaginatively a comic strip page can be used. If you’re
doing something in one medium that couldn’t really be adapted to another
medium, you’re doing something good (see Watchmen).
Did you read the Beano as a kid?
Actually I didn’t. I got into Marvel comics really early on at about
five years old. They used to do weekly black and white reprints of the
Marvel superhero strips and all at pocket money prices. I used to be
able to get ten comics and still have change from my one pound pocket
money. So Spider-Man, the Fantastic Four and a brilliant comic called Howard the Duck took priority in my comic-reading childhood.
What other comics did you read?
I also got into Asterix books very early on when they were
given away free with Total petrol (not interesting but true). Those
still stand the test of time, being the highest quality comedy writing
you’ll probably ever see in a comic, and so well-drawn.
What do you love most about the Bash Street Kids?
Leo Baxendale’s original Bash Street Kids were a great
example of something you couldn’t do in any other medium. He filled his
pages, and every panel, with detail that you could only take in if you
read and re-read the strips. You can’t do that in film or animation, let
your eyes go back and recap on what you missed, without disturbing the
flow of the story. He used to do massive full-page crowd scenes with a
hundred things happening at once, like a Durer engraving or a Brueghel
painting, but funnier.
Their characters have always merited exploring and I’m most entertained by the stories that do that. A writer-artist who did Bash St Kids Adventures
before me, Mike Pearse, was the first in decades to really start
filling in the characters’ personalities. Spotty became angry and
sarcastic, something I’ve enjoyed developing, while Plug has always been
idealistic and love-lorn, and Toots is the brains of the operation. I’m
a big fan of Cuthbert Cringeworthy, who I enjoyed turning into a mad
professor of sorts.
Do you feel you channel your own school life into these comics?
My own school life was far too boring to put into a story. If you
want to read 20 pages of a kid sitting as his desk writing and drawing
comics all day instead of going out and kicking a football, then that’s
the strip you’d be looking at.
It must be tricky to draw characters that have been invented by
someone else, when you first started was it tricky to correctly put
across the characters’ personalities?
In long-running comics, like the Beano and Marvel, a
good editor strikes a balance between giving the writer and artist
creative space to make the character their own. This recently happened
when Jamie Smart was allowed to make Roger The Dodger into a
totally wildly original style of strip – and making the strip look more
like the audience has become familiar with – as happened when Jamie was
dropped from Roger The Dodger, ‘cos kids don’t like “wildly original.”
I’ve always tried to be true to the spirit of the characters while
taking them in my own action-oriented direction and making sure they
look familiar to the kids. I think it’s worked.
How do you go about creating a strip – where do you start and how do you finish?
I write my scripts, usually, as a biro scribble, which is what I send
to the editor. So he receives an A4 biro page that looks approximately
like the finished piece. So much humour lies in the visuals that I
prefer to show rather then describe the action. Often I do parodies or
pastiches as a starting point. Recently I had Bananaman meeting versions
of various familiar superheroes in order to satirise oddities about
them. Likenesses were changed just enough to be copyright-free. If
anyone read Miracle Banana vs Captain Banana and his team of Super
Lawyers earlier this year, that was me.
Do you feel that the Bash Street Kids are keeping up with the world?
The great thing about cartoonily-drawn characters are that they don’t
date nearly as badly as real people. They wear school uniforms, caps
and mortar boards that haven’t been seen since the 1950s, but it’s still
okay. And nothing compared to how ridiculous Asterix the Gaul looks.
Have you ever tried going to a fancy dress party as Asterix? Try it.
You’ll soon realise how stupid a blonde moustache, blonde pigtails, a
skirt and a helmet with wings on really looks on a bloke.
How do you feel the Beano has changed over the years?
At its best, the Beano has showcased some of the finest
comic creating talent of its age. This decade there’s been Jamie Smart,
Laura Howell, Nigel Auchterloonie, Hunt Emerson, oh and me. For a goodly
while there’s been Nigel Parkinson and Mike Pearse. And you can go back
75 years now and find the work of legends like Ken Reid, Leo Baxendale,
Dudley Watkins and so many more. And even better, nowadays the reprint
books tell you their actual names, rather than keep them all anonymous.
Do you feel it’s important for children to continue to interact with comics?
In France they call comics, or bandes-dessinnees, “the ninth
art.” You can do things in a comic strip that you can’t do in any other
art form, which is why die-hards like myself champion it. Of course
another thing that becomes very obvious when you teach comic art to kids
(as I do in my regular Comic Art Masterclasses in schools – why not
invite me into your school, kids?) is that kids find it so easy to do.
It’s like making a movie, except you don’t need 200 million dollars and a
thousand people to help you. If you have pencil, paper and pen, you
have exactly the same materials as the professionals. It’s brilliant
fun.
Do you have a particular favourite Bash Street Kids character or story?
I enjoyed writing and drawing An Ickle Wicky Werewolf On Bash Street, The Bash Street Zombies and Invasion Of The Beano-Snatchers in the weekly comics, and in the annuals you’ll find Pluggy Love, Teacher & The Head’s Parents Evening, and Roger The Dodger’s Reservoir Dodge, all particular favourites of mine. The 2015 annual features my Bananaman story Vom Monster, which I think you’ll like.
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing Pansy Potter, Bananaman, Biffo The Bear et al 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.
Randomly, I find the Socks used as an illustration on a political blog called Wings Over Scotland. Here it is, quite why we seemed to fit the bill I don't know. But no publicity is no publicity.
Talking of which, did I mention one of the Socks' odder gigs this weekend? We auditioned for Britain's Got Talent. A 6 minute slot at the Hen & Chickens in front of an invited audience, who were very good laughers it has to be said. I only heard a couple of other comedians before and after the Socks slot, all of So You Think You're Funny quality, none of whom I'd seen before, and cannot guess how well we did. I can say that every single person I've spoken to about the idea has said Don't Do It. I didn't get any photos of the event, but did manage to snap the contract.
Also this week I spoke at Expo 14 at Leeds University, on the subject of employability. I was on two panels, one about creative writing and one about theatre and performance. I managed to drop in a recommendation for all the creative writers to watch Colin's Sandwich, which was the most help I could offer there. What better to sum up the day than two photos which bring new meaning to the phrase "you had to be there".
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
I've been so busy in recent weeks I've not written anything in my blog, apart from reporting the various bits of work that I've done that have kept me too busy to write a blog. Maybe my tweets hold some clues.
Oct 11 Me at work. Today.
Oct 21 Caught out by Yorkshire accent. Was introduced to teacher and spent all morning calling her Miss Kerr. She's Miss Coe.
Oct 13 Booked a @Ryanair flight for £47 on Friday. Something went wrong with booking, had to do it again. This time only cost £39! Nice one Ryanair
Oct 12 My colleague Bananaman artist @wayne_t2 who I just met for the first time!
And fellow @BeanoComic scribe @cavanscott who's teaching comics at the MShed in Bristol now!
Oct 19 "You mean the iodine deficiency?" Tonight's #DowntonAbbey brought to you by an episode of The Archers from 1957.
I swear I just heard the words [citation needed] in a bit of dialogue. #Downton
Oct 8 So where have I been teaching today..?
Anybody heard of tyre slashing in Clevedon? I have a mysterious flat
this morning (which has buggered up my 6am drive to Hertford for work)
This would be me talking comics on Down The Tubes then: http://downthetubes.net/?p=17185 Do tell me if I said anything interesting.
Oct 10 Satirists think they're going to change things just cos they "hold a
mirror up to the world". Well, you know who else holds a mirror up to
the world? Clothes shops. What's that change? Nothing. And they even
have Changing Rooms. I don't remember Hitler coming out of Hugo Boss
going "I just saw myself in the mirror. What a c-"
Here we are in the Lakes, preparing for tomorrow's art classes. Which have, er, sold out. *humblebrag*
Oct 22 When Sting in a bowtie is the coollest thing in the show, you know you
just watched a very bad TOTP. Revival just set back by another year.
Even Chic look like aunts and uncles dressed for a wedding. This week's Top Of The Pops is one that fashion gave a wide berth #totp
Thanks to this week's Top of the Pops & Cats UK I've now learned
about the man who's written more UK Eurovision entries than any other.
22 attempts, 4 finalists. All preeeeettty awful. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Paul_Curtis_%28musician%29
Oct 24 Listened to Tony Blackburn's Pick Of The Pops today. Thought every 1972
track was excellent (except maybe the No1) and that almost all of 1987
was poor (with a few exceptions). Question is why? Is it because the
influential age I was in 1972, so this is what I learned music to be and
anything that didn't match that template was lesser? Or was I just the
right age at a musically outstanding time. Any theories? Here's the 1972
chart: http://www.officialcharts.com/archive-chart/_/1/1972-10-28/ and the 1987 chart: http://www.officialcharts.com/archive-chart/_/1/1987-10-24/
Highly unlikely you'll want to, but if you desire a book of our holiday snaps from Edinburgh, it's on sale here: http://blur.by/ZmhbPN
Oct 12 Riverside studios in London has closed. Dalek emerges from water, looks around, realises his job has been done... http://fb.me/2HJi72Y43
Sept 29 Forward Planning Award goes to a school in Halesowen which has just
booked my return visit for July 2015. How to avoid disappointment!
Sept 16 Today I have written a 4 page comic strip - based on a Bible story! (I
know), and scripted and had approved a comic strip birthday card for a
client, and designed characters for the ads for a magician. I've been a
proper artist-for-hire today, it's cracking. All going well, that's five
big full grown-up pages of comics to try and draw by the weekend, and
16 little character drawings. I still got it. (And last week I wrote
Dennis The Menace's Christmas episode. You're right, you should be
jealous )
Just found some Peter Capaldi Doctor Who sample drawings I did last year & never finished. Enjoy.
Hmm. No, I clearly have had no thought worth expressing for a whole month. As you were.
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing Pansy Potter, Bananaman, Biffo The Bear et al 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've just enjoyed the pleasure of going into the same school for a whole week, so we have the pupils of Thackley Primary School in Bradford to thank for the eight front covers that you see above.
Working with years 3 to 6 over four days, and with each of the 8 classes being joined by up to a dozen parents and grandparents for a special week where they got to observe things, I was working with rooms of up to 36 at a time, which means I've drawn a good 250 caricatures and they've produced twice as many pages of comic strips and character designs between them.
A wide range of comic titles ended up being chosen, with a couple of teachers getting their names on the covers, and a handful of inexplicable titles (Adentootic was, we think, supposed to be a reference to Adventure Time, but so elaborately mis-spelled the class liked it as it was written; a similar brain-to-pencil confusion also gave us But Simson Resi Dasey Uck Ever A Invincible Ha Ha Ha (I amended the spelling of invincible); and no-one knows what the Sape in Save Me From A Sape is).
The celebrities they chose for my demonstration strip (in the selection process for which Simon Cowell was suggested at leat half the time) were Keith Lemon (three times), Katy Perry, Joey Essex, Elvis Presley, Ariana Grande and Bob Marley.
And, yes, I left them some fine flipchart drawings...
NB: Doctor Who was more popular with year 3 and 4 than year 5 and 6, and when I offer to draw the Doctor, kids now universally ask for Peter Capaldi.
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing Pansy Potter, Bananaman, Biffo The Bear et al 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.
Brand new comics by kids in my comic art masterclasses in Standens Barn Primary in Northampton and Kendal Library at the Lakes International Comic Festival. The widest and most imaginative range of titles, I'm sure you'll agree.
Bort Hat Chubuw Iteus was the result of a syndrome that happens occasionally with Year 3 classes, whereby the poor young pupil has clearly intended to write down on their piece of paper a title, the spelling of which is beyond their abilities. In such instances the child in question can never remember what they meant to write, and the rest of the class (who usually don't know who wrote it) find the end result hilarious.
When asked to choose a celebrity for my demonstration strip these groups plumped for Simon Cowell (as per), Lionel Messi, Selena Gomez, Joey Essex, Katy Perry and Michael J Fox.
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing Pansy Potter, Bananaman, Biffo The Bear et al 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 I am all over the Westmorland Gazette (online version, if it makes the print version I should imagine that'll be Monday) with a lovely interview and photo from this morning's Comic Art Masterclass at Kendal Library. It's always good to get a return booking, and being invited back to the Lakes Comic Festival is even better as it's such a classy event.
Once more the town has joined in, with windows full of comic strip decoration, and events in even more places than last year. So much stuff, so little time to see it all, but we'll squeeze in what we can. Last night we managed a few hours in the bar with old friends - good to chat with Lew Stringer, David Leach, John Freeman, Mike Collins, and others - and today, after a solid day's classes, there could be more of the same. It is, after all, my birthday.
(I could hardly come all the way here without this, now could I?)
A window in Kendal, where the whole town joins in with the festival. These are the characters deigned by Jonathan Edwards for the festival. brought to life by Felt Mistress, just some of the impressive merchandise from the event.
Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing Pansy Potter, Bananaman, Biffo The Bear et al 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.
