Deranged Suicidal Beavers - comics by kids in Amman

This week I have had the pleasure of teaching my Comic Art Masterclasses in Amman, Jordan, and it's been a marvellous week. Across three days at the American Community School I taught six masterclasses and gave three talks to the younger pupils, while being wonderfully looked after by the school and particularly by their excellent librarian Jessica Levitt, and her lovely family.

Having not known what to expect from Jordan, fearing the worst of a country which, I was aware after a bit of Googling, borders Syria, Egypt and Israel, it turns out to be very western and not in the slightest bit scary. As for the kids, they were a mix of nationalities, and all English (well American) speaking, and as you can see came up with the kind of ideas kids come up with all round the world.

The top pair of comics were produced by the 6th Graders while the two above were by kids from 7th Grade. 7th Grade is Year 8, unless you're in Scotland where it would be 2nd Year, or posh school where it would be the Lower Remove, or would it be the Upper Third, I honestly can't remember (I've done one posh school this year that still used that bizarre old system of upper and lower forms, but it didn't stick in the memory). As for what they'd all be in Ireland, you'd think I'd know by now. I also did lectures to the 3rd, 4th and 5th Grade, which you can work out for yourself I'm sure.

And having started the week thinking I was going to be in a strict Muslim country with harsh laws, I not only found myself at a party drinking beer which I'd not only bought at one of their many liquor stores, but which had been brewed in Jordan's own micro-brewery, but also sent the kids home with a comic called Fifty Shades Of 8th Grade, about which title their teachers batted not one eyelid.

Oh, and do you see what I've done with the sequence of covers? Amazingly, when I've worked in the same school over successive days, I've never linked the covers together like this before.

The celebs they chose to tread on a worm were, not unsurprisingly, free of Simon Cowell, who I'm delighted to report is almost unheard of in the American Community School in Amman and, I dare say, across the rest of Jordan. They chose instead Will Smith, Dwayne 'The Rock' Johnson, Miley Cyrus, Michael Jackson, Donald Trump and Morgan Freeman.



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. 

Comic Art Masterclass 2016 Calendar - on sale now

Available for the first time ever, here's a treat for anyone who's ever enjoyed Kev F's Comic Art Masterclass - a calendar with 104 of the best covers from the kids comics from the past year. And for less than a tenner? Literally no better Christmas present, I'd say.

In glorious colour, over the full 12 months plus the cover, there are comics from all points in the globe. Well, most points in the... okay a number of different points in the - do you want to know all the schools that are featured? Really? Okay, here goes. There are comics from...

Jan: Kinlet Bewdley, Mendip Green Worle, Phillipstown Gwent, Fagley Bradford, Beaufort Ebbw Vale, Milton Lilbourne private party.

Feb: Portland Place London, Malvern Parish, Castleview Slough, St Patricks Denny

Mar: Aldenham Herts, Alec Reed Academy London, New City Academy London, Rough Hay Wednesbury

Apr: Alton College, Ovingham Northumberland, Harpenden Library, Miers Court Rainham, Dyson Perrins Malvern, Nylands Swindon

May: Colmore Kings Heath, Healing Lincs, Dixon Kings Bradford, Bradford College, Dorchester Festival, Bradford Literature Festival

June: Thornhill Croydon, Blakehill Bradford, Sunderland Wonderland Festival

July: Backwell North Somerset, Bonner Bethnal Green, Ruskin Swindon, Newton Ferrers Devon, Testwood Totton Hants, Romsey Hants, Shire Oak Walsall

Aug: Cottesmore Crawley, Copthall Barnet, Sion-Manning London, Fortismere Muswell Hill, Harris City Crystal Palace, Auldearn Nairn

Sept: Rosebank Nairn, Wester Hailes Edinburgh, Morningside Library, Central Library Edinburgh, Darlington Library, Balerno Edinburgh, County Care Woking

Oct: College Du Leman Switzerland, Beau Soleil Switzerland, St Anne's Bewdley, Bewdley Primary, Snape Maltings, Manchester Literature Festival

Nov: Nettlebed Oxon, St Pauls Waterford, Tallaght Dublin, Enniscorthy Vocational College

Dec: Our Lady's Coventry, Hilperton Wilts, Darley North Yorks, Eastern Green Coventry, Kentisbeare Devon

So, if you want to see it for free, or to buy one, you can check out the whole thing with no obligation by clicking here. It's on sale at the discount price of just £8.99. Order now to avoid disappointment.



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. 

Voldemort vs Aliens - Comics by schoolkids

After a break of a couple of weeks writing and drawing for next year's Beano and Dandy annuals, I'm back in the saddle of Comic Art Masterclasses. Above and below you see the fruits of two days in the primary school in Nettlebed in rural Oxfordshire. And a wonderful range of imagination it demonstrates. These, of course, are the covers of the comics that they each take away with them, containing a strip by every one of them and an individual caricature by me.

It's a treat to work at a school that can give me good long sessions with the pupils, and after two days where even the afternoon class was 2 and a quarter hours long, and the morning lasts over 3 hours, it makes me wonder why so many schools have so few hours to spare. Enjoy it when it's on offer, that's what I say. The front covers are a testament to the extra few minutes available to indulge myself in my doodles.

And here a couple I'd almost overlooked, from the Manchester Literature Festival at the end of last month. A smashing pair, nice to see them again.

The celebrities chosen by these six groups of pupils for my demonstration strip were Simon Cowell (twice), Taylor Swift, Ronaldo, Elvis and Michael Jackson.



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. 

Dandy Strictly - a week at the drawing board

A visual gag that no-one will get to see for a year, and most people won't even notice when they do, these are a couple of backgrounds from Sickly Come Dancing, a 4-pager I've just finished drawing for the 2017 Dandy Annual.

There are few things as satisfying as delivering a finished piece of artwork last thing on Friday night, getting home in time for tea, and this week I had that pleasure. A 4 page strip shouldn't take 4 days to do, but I enjoyed putting in the details, and had fun throwing Dandy characters into the backgrounds, so the colouring took as long as the pencilling and inking. And I drew the whole thing as A2 pages, God knows why, just giving myself elbow room.

So, as well as getting Fowlers Christmas card roughed out on Monday (I'm awaiting instructions to totally redraw it from scratch next week, it's an annual ritual), and redrawing one of my recent Bible Society cartoons (there was a theological issue over elephants in Noah's ark so I had to replace them with cows), it took me two days to layout, pencil and ink the 4 page strip, and a further two days to colour and letter it. Drop-Box to the Dandy and home by 6, joy.



It is a rarity these days for me to spend five consecutive days in the studio drawing, with no schools, no Socks gigs (the October mini-tour ended last Friday in Canterbury), and no Socks videos (I could have, but art deadlines are art deadlines, and I'd forgotten how much I like meeting them), and I have enjoyed this week. Next week three days of Comic Art Masterclasses beckon, and after that we have international travel to look forward to.




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. 

Halloween pumpkin 2015 - Rocky Horror

It's become a bit of an annual tradition that I carve a Halloween pumpkin, and this year's no exception. I'm hoping you recognise who I've done this time? Oh shut up, it's Tim Curry as Frank N Furter in the Rocky Horror Picture Show. You're welcome.

I managed to get the reverse side of the pumpkin carved, just in time for our Halloween night dinner party. If you'd like to see my previous years' creations, here's a gallery for you.

2014: Peter Capaldi

2013: An American Werewolf In London

2012: I think we all know who this is. Still my best pumpkin ever.

2011: A bit generic this one, wouldn't you say? Inspiration didn't really strike.

2010: Boris Karloff's Frankenstein's Monster. And before I started keeping a blog, somewhere in the mists of time, I did a Christopher Lee Dracula and a Bela Lugosi. I may well have done more, I'm sure photos exist somewhere.

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. 

More travels - Manchester, Liverpool, Halifax

Don't say I can't sometimes plan my work schedule well. I say well, I mean I can pack an awful lot of work into a weekend and, just for once, keep it all in the same end of the country. So, whereas recent weeks have seen me scudding to all points of the compass, like Norfolk to Brighton to Suffolk to Switzerland etc, this weekend saw me hitting the north and staying there, vaguely. We began with the Socks playing the Kings Arms in Salford on Friday night (above). A simple enough three hour journey which, because it was the Friday afternoon before half term, took over 5 hours.

From Salford, or Manchester, if you can't quite work out where one begins and the other starts as, I fear, I still can't, to Warrington where I'm spending 4 nights at the Holiday Inn. This is partly because it's centrally placed for my travels, but originally because it was the first place that wasn't stupidly expensive. Then, on Saturday morning it was back to Manchester.

To Manchester Central Library for a day of Comic Art Masterclasses as part of the Manchester Literature Festival, and I can report happily that they were very well received. The festivals I've been doing this year really have expanded my audience and gone down well. Saturday night was then a night in my hotel watching Doctor Who and enjoying not driving too much for a day.


Sunday began in Liverpool Exhibition Centre and an event called Toytopia, where I was on the impressive Beano stand doing a short Comic Art Masterclass then absolute heaps of caricatures. At first I was doing my usual thing of drawing everyone who came to the stand, and building up an impressive queue. The, because part of their remit was to sell copies of the Beano, we came up with the idea, as you can see above, of asking people to buy a comic and get the caricatures as a bonus, and it worked a treat. Then, as the afternoon drew to a close, I zoomed off to Manchester to pluck another string of my bow (you don't pluck bowstrings, I realised as I wrote it, but it's too late, I've said it).

What a handsome bunch, eh? Yes, it was the Manchester Sitcom Trials team, at the Kings Arms Salford again, performing the Halloween Sitcom Trials, with me as their host. As always, full details are on the other shelf on the Sitcom Trials' own blog. It's been their busiest year in a while.

Back to the Beano stand at Toytopia in Liverpool on Monday morning and how's this for a guitar? A Les Paul copy with Beano decorations, for £140? I didn't buy one, but I can't say I wasn't tempted. Meantime my day was taken up with another class and lots of caricatures (over the two days I must have done about 250) and more flipchart action, some promotional, some fun for the kids.


After which I got away at about 4 o'clock to get to my evening commitment, a Socks gig in Halifax. Theoretically that should have been a two hour journey but, thanks to me going via my Warrington hotel and it being rush hour on Monday, it was three hours before I got there.

And by golly you get a better standard of decorative ceiling at the Victoria Theatre Halifax, I'll tell you that. A cracking 90 minute gig with a lovely big audience, a fine way on ending a jam-packed, four day, 6-gig Socks/Masterclass/caricaturey/Trials/Socks busy old weekend. Now we just have the drive home to Clevedon to look forward to, and I can get back to the pleasant experience of getting my accounts finished.

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. 

Travels - Harrogate, Belfast, Isle of Wight, er, Clevedon

Look at us all over the big screen. In the foyer of Harrogate Theatre where the Socks returned to give their 90 minute show including Minging Detectives, and nifty it looks too. This was all part of the past couple of weeks travel which has seen me putting the miles in, while doing a little bit of everything that I'm famous for.

Returning from Switzerland I'd had a busy Saturday doing a class in Thame in Bucks then zooming off to Leamington Spa for a Socks show, then on Tuesday Hev joined me on the trip to Harrogate with the Socks. After which we started the proper travel.

The Shirts 1978 album, bought at a retro shop in Harrogate. On blue vinyl on less. Now tell me your plans...

Up at 4am to get the 7am flight to Belfast where I returned to Wellington College and Aquinas Grammar after a few years absence. They did the usual fab work and my librarian Tanja was most accommodating, feeding me and driving me to the airport even. During my time in the airport I was busy reading, reviewing and voting on the 48 scripts entered in the forthcoming Halloween Sitcom Trials (being very active in its parallel universe over at sitcomtrials.co.uk, I ought to mention it on this blog more often, oughtn't I).

Here's me grinning cheesily by a Belfast flipchart. I don't know whether it shows, but over the last month I've had some of my teeth done. The discoloured fillings in my front teeth have been replaced. So, though they're hardly Hollywood teeth, I should have a smile that looks a little more lovely and unblemished.

My flight from Belfast got me home at about 11 at night, after which the alarm was set for 3am so that Hev & I could get to Southampton for the 7am Isle of Wight ferry in order that I could do two days of classes at the Isle Of Wight Literary Festival. A glittering affair, it saw us at a lunch party at the Royal Yacht Squadron rubbing shoulders with the likes of Michael Morpurgo and Whispering Bob Harris. None of whom we spoke to, of course, being far too shy. Though we have a wonderful chat over breakfast with a couple of our fellow authors.

Still can't see the new teeth? Me and a flipchart in Cowes. After a class on Saturday afternoon, we caught the early ferry and were home in time for Doctor Who.

Back on my desk in the studio I've been busy writing scripts for the 2017 Beano annual - with all the Bananaman and Gnasher scripts delivered, I'm writing the Bash Street Kids scripts now - and writing and drawing for 2017's Dandy annual. The Great Dandy Bake-Off has been drawn and delivered, then I had to re-letter the whole thing having discovered they've moved from lower case lettering to caps. I also have the embarrassment of having drawn Beryl The Peril in her Karl Dixon style as per the 2014 annual, only to discover she's being drawn old-style. So in my second strip, Strictly Come Dancing, I'll be drawing her in a different style and making a joke to cover up the difference. Oh yeah, and I've also been doing my accounts for my tax return. How many miles did I drive in 2014? You don't want to know. Oh yeah, and I made a Socks video for The Martian.

From the script for Gnasher: Conkers, the only script to get rejected from the 2017 annual (so far),  only biting the dust because they already had a conker story.

And just ahead of a busy weekend in Manchester and Liverpool, with the Socks, the Comic Art Masterclasses, the caricatures and The Sitcom Trials (house!), last night The Socks played a gig in Clevedon, of all places. In The Theatre Shop, the brilliant new community theatre initiative in a shop in the centre of town, we had a wonderful receptive and voluble audience and a cracking show. I didn't see that coming.

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.