Demented Donkey Fights The Environment - comics by kids

A busy weekend of Comic Art Masterclasses, taking me from Milton Keynes to Sutton Coldfield, to Liverpool, and back to Milton Keynes, included a couple of days where I was trying to get the kids to tailor their strips to the theme of the environment, climate change, and the like. Here were the covers created with the pupils of Longmeadow in Milton Keynes. Because these are going to be printed in a colour magazine in the summer, I was pleased with how they came out, drawn in the class on the day and coloured when I got home.

Despite the obvious ecological theme, these two were in fact from Dyson Perrins school in Malvern and had nothing to do with the MK eco project. That's a character from Pokemon, apparently. Like I'd know. And, yes I agree, radishes do not lend themselves to a good cover design.

The comic on the left was made with the smallest group of the week, just 5 teenagers at the YMCA centre in Sutton Coldfield. I'll be going back to work with larger groups in the coming weeks. Then we see the comic from Hazeley school in Milton Keynes, where I was so keen to draw a local landmark, then got hamstrung by the fact that no MK landmark is really all that photogenic. That's a place called The Point, now you ask.

In Birkinhead I worked with the Whizz-Kids again, a group of kids with a variety of abilities, some on wheels and some not. They produced some cracking work. And to the right you can see the flipchart I did for the YMCA class. This is what you get when I arrive an hour before the class starts.

The celebrities these groups chose for my demonstration strip were Ariana Grande, Donald Trump, Paul Walker, Ant McPartlin, Lionel Messi and David Attenborough. (With the group in Hazeley I dispensed with the demo strip and, guess what, it made no difference to the quality of their work.)

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here. 

Dandelion Experiment

Urgh, look away. Not for the squeamish. I have undergone, not for the first time, The Dandelion Experiment, by which I endeavour to rid myself of a wart, by application of Dandelion juice.

You can see from the grisly photos above that it is, to a degree, worked. But what a gruesome degree. The blistered and pussy stage you see in figure 5 was how my face looked for two days in schools. In all the process took about 7 days to clear.

fig 1 is before and fig 2 shows the application of dandelion juice, on Monday April 16th. By Tuesday it had darkened for fig 3, then by Wednesday it was starting to swell and blister. Fig 4 shows it as its worst, as it was around Thursday and Friday, and fig 5 shows it the following Monday, all cleared up. There is still a small wart there, but not quite as visible as it was to begin with. And the second smaller wart that was threatening to form above it has, I think receded.

I could apply a second treatment but, I fear, I have too few days when I can hide away from the public. (I applied it on a Monday, knowing I didn't have a school till Thursday and thinking it would be gone by then.)

So ends this month's medical experiment. I hope it adds to the greater weight of knowledge.


And, knowing nobody will be reading this...

PS - A cunning ruse of suspicious type includes clues

Lovely. Opportunities come my way frequently, but I don't always take them. Often I let them slip through my fingers. Knowing whether they're worth taking can be the problem. I, for example, have been invited to do Britain's Got Talent twice. Just imagine if I did it?

Ultimately I did one audition and failed it. Saying that, I then got asked about doing America's Got Talent. To be honest, it was only an exploratory phone call. Brutally honestly, they didn't want me. Retrospectively, I'm just guessing at that. Or, of course, they might have wanted me, but they needed me to prove that. Knowing that to be the case, I should have pressured them more. Except I didn't really want to do it. And it's not as if I'd have won.

Now another opportunity has come along, and I've said yes. Not that you'll know about it for months because it's top secret. Did you know that when you're involved with a project like this you have to sign something? A Non Disclosure Agreement. Forms sent by email that need printing and signing and scanning and resending. Right pains in the arse they are. Of course I signed them, and returned them, and then I learned what I was to be involved in. My oh my, this will be fun, I hope. The truth be told, though, you probably won't even see me on the screen. Highly likely all you'll see will be my hand and the back of my head, for a couple of seconds. Even then I most likely won't speak.

And, though I'll be using my comic drawing skills, you might not be impressed. Possibly you will be, I shall try to do my best. Pressure of time, though, will most likely work against that. Regretfully I'm not getting paid much.

Eventually I'll be able to talk about it, and it'll be a good anecdote to have. Not that that'll be happening till at least October, possibly November. Then the cat will be out of the bag, and you'll all go "was that it?" Is that your big secret, you'll say. Can no-one keep a secret these days? Evidently I can't.

Book Of Ruth all coloured

It's taken me a while, in between other work, but I've finally got The Book Of Esther's 12 pages coloured. Now I just need to colour Rahab and I've got a whole book good to go. I do hope it's going to go somewhere soon.

Award coverage on Beyond The Joke

More nice coverage, this time on Bruce Dessau's Beyond The Joke.

News: Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre Wins Joke Award

By Bruce Dessau on 15/4/2018

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre has won the inaugural Lovehoney Innuendo Best Joke Award at the Bath Comedy Festival.

They are pictured here with their award - or maybe it's Donald Trump and the Queen? No, it's the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre.

Here is the joke that won it for them:

"Do you know what? I love nursery rhymes?" "Cock Robin?" "No, it's just the way I'm standing."

They are previewing their latest show Superheroes, which they will be taking to the Edinburgh Fringe, in London on April 27 at the Canvas Cafe in Hanbury Street, E1 after Juliette Burton's Happy Hour. More info here.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th - ON SALE NOW! 

Previews:
April 27 - The Canvas, London E1
May 26 3.45pm & May 27 5pm Komedia Brighton

June 16 - Zion, Bristol

June 20 - Ludlow Fringe

July 11 - Neath
July 19 - Bedford Fringe
July 29 - Derby Bar One

 - with more preview dates to be announced

Cracking pair win innuendo prize - Chortle

Lovely coverage of our award win on Chortle.

Cracking pair win innuendo prize

Socks clean up

Two sock puppets have won an award for the best innuendo at the Bath comedy festival.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre – the creation of comic Kev Sutherland – won the accolade for the exchange: ‘Ooh, I do love a nursery rhyme’ ‘Cock Robin?’ ‘No, it’s just the way I’m standing’.

Their award was presented by Lovehoney, the online sex toy shop that sponsors the festival.

Here’s a video of the joke:

Published: 15 Apr 2018

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th - ON SALE NOW! 

Previews:
April 27 - The Canvas, London E1
May 26 3.45pm & May 27 5pm Komedia Brighton

June 16 - Zion, Bristol

June 20 - Ludlow Fringe

July 11 - Neath
July 19 - Bedford Fringe
July 29 - Derby Bar One

 - with more preview dates to be announced

Socks Win Best Joke Award!

Wow! Well here's a pleasant surprise. The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Thetre just won Bath Comedy Festival's inaugural Lovehoney Innuendo Best Joke Award. Here's us, with special guests Donald Trump and The Queen, and our award which is shaped like... well, it looks like the Christmas trees from The Louvre to us. (Thanks to Louisa Gummer for the photo)

Lovehoney have been the major sponsors of this year's Bath Comedy Festival, and the Socks' got some great laughs by managing to keep them going as a running gag during their Edinburgh Preview last week. Which is probably what impressed them enough to make our gag the winner. They wanted a gag with innuendo in and, let's be honest, it's not our greatest joke ever. But it gets a laugh and, much more importantly, it just won us a flipping prize! Shaped like a butt plug.



I say shaped like. I'm reliably informed that it is in fact an actual butt plug from Lovehoney's factory, painted gold. Blimey. All I can say is, if you've got the trots that bad, you're going to be better off with Immodium. (Which is just the sort of gag I wish I'd thought of on the podium when I picked up the trophy at the end of Saturday night's Gala show, rather than just delivering my winning gag very badly, as myself rather than as a Sock).

Donald Trump, in the photo above, is played by the brilliant Lewis Macleod, who I found myself working with for the first time since 1998 when he was part of the cast of my BBC Radio Theatre studio audience pilot Meanwhile, co-starring Ronnie Ancona and Geoff McGivern. There, names succesfully dropped. The Queen is played by one of the theatre company Rare Species, who seem to do sterling work all over the country.

So, what was this joke of ours? Brace yourselves...

"I love nursery rhymes"
"Cock Robin?"
"No, it's just the way I'm standing"

The winner, ladies and gentlemen, of the inaugural Bath Comedy Festival Lovehoney Innuendo Joke Award.

The runners up came from a pretty illustrious list of contenders: Nick Doody, Christian Talbot, Drew Taylor, David Luck, Konstantin Kisin, Iona Fortune and Drew Taylor. Here are my two favourite runners up...

Thanks again Bath Comedy Festival and Lovehoney, the award takes pride of place in our trophy cabinet alongside... the sides of our trophy cabinet. Next stop the Edinburgh Fringe's Best Joke Award (unless, of course, that's already been decided).

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are Superheroes at The Gilded Balloon at the Edinburgh Fringe from August 1st to 26th - ON SALE NOW! 

Previews:
April 27 - The Canvas, London E1
May 26 3.45pm & May 27 5pm Komedia Brighton

June 16 - Zion, Bristol

June 20 - Ludlow Fringe

July 11 - Neath
July 19 - Bedford Fringe
July 29 - Derby Bar One

 - with more preview dates to be announced

Devil Who Farted Rainbows - new comics by kids

We haven't had  Donald Trump title suggested by the kids in my Comic Art Masterclasses for a while, so this one from the library in Potters Bar was a treat to draw. It's the second week of the Easter hols, so these classes were once more extra-scholasticular (if it's not a word, it should be).

My second day of holiday classes in Walthamstow and Chingford was fun, made all the more entertaining by me having, first, to pick up a flipchart pad in the town centre before the first class. Then I had to zoom from a school in Walthamstow to a school in Chingford. Not a long journey but, as I realised when I punched it into satnav, one that was going to take me all of lunchtime. I had, you see, pre-programmed the postcodes for my destination into satnav in advance, to save time. So when it came to heading for Chingford, I simply hit the pre-installed postcode (which appears in "history" as a pre-visited address) and off I went. Don't worry I didn't get caught out by accidentally going back to the town centre where I'd been earlier to buy a flipchart, I skipped that.

It was only when I was a good few miles up the Chingford Road and starting to turn into the M25 that I realised I'd skipped an address too far. Instead of going to Chingford, I was going back to Potters Bar, where I'd been two days earlier. Long story short, I arrived 20 minutes late, but the class was excellent. Phew.

I'm doing a series of classes with CLAPA - the Cleft Lip and Palate Association - and couldn't avoid the obvious pun, on the flipchart above. Sue me.

The celebrities these five groups chose to appear in my demonstration strip were Kim Jong Un, Roald Dahl, Michael Jackson, Donald Trump and, most original suggestion for a while, Gilbert O'Sullivan (chosen because one of the kids' Dads is a friend of Gilbert, or Ray as they know him, and stay with him in his house in Jersey).

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. View the promo video here.