The Goodies in this week's Beano

Thanks to cracking writer and artist Stu Munro, this week's Beano features the return, after four decades in the wilderness, of the comic strip adventures of The Goodies. Okay, they're subtly smuggled-in lookalikes of the guys who provided the voices for TV's Bananaman cartoon, but they're instantly recognisable to anyone who a) is as old as me and was raised on the TV show & Cor!! comic, or b) is Australian where they've never stopped repeating The Goodies, so they're not as woefully forgotten as they are over here. Bonus marks to Stu for finding the Goodies original typeface too (more recently used by Harry Hill). Here's a taste of Joe Colquhoun's original Goodies strip for Cor!! back in 1973:

For anyone too hopelessly young to still not know what we're talking about, The Goodies were Bill Oddie, Graeme Garden and Tim Brooke-Taylor, three Cambridge Footlighters whose BBC2 surreal sitcom (so surreal some TV historians forget it was even a sitcom and list it under sketch shows) ran from 1970 to 1979, with a brief less successful run on ITV afterwards.

As well as being TV comedy stars, they were successful recording artists appearing on Top Of The Pops and having chart hits with such singles as The Funky Gibbon, Nappy Love, Black Pudding Bertha and Make A Daft Noise For Christmas. Their weekly strip in Cor!! comic was drawn by Joe Colquhoun, artist of Charley's War and Roy Of The Rovers, and ran from 1973 to 74 (you can see examples here on the Goodies Rule OK website).

I am indebted to a marvellous blog called Kazoop for the image below and for the following information (do please check out the blog, it's full of gems): "licensed for just the one year, The Goodies were unique in the fact they were the only adapted characters featured with the comic's pages with copyright credit being given to Bill Oddie, Tim Brooke Taylor and Graeme Garden. According to Robert Ross' book "The Complete Goodies" the strips were all authorised and approved by The Goodies prior to publication and Tim still displays an original Cor!! strip in his study”.





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. 

Dr Strange and more in this week's Beano

A bumper bundle of my stuff in an excellent Beano this week. In Bananaman I've smuggled in a Doctor Strange lookalike and a not-quite Doctor Octopus - and Wayne has very niftily snuck my name in the background as you can see. And as if that weren't enough, the fantastic Hunt Emerson has drawn my Little Plum strip Damon The Shaman, and credited me kindly on the artwork, and my Pansy Potter strip Mrs McGleish's Pussy is in there, with my name hidden in the background, can you spot it readers?

It's the first time I've worked on Doctor Strange in a comic (however obliquely) since I used to ink the actual Marvel comic back in the 90s. Why I even got to pencil it, over Mark Buckingham's layouts, for a couple of issues. I must tell you all about it some day. Wait, stop, where are you all going?

And as if all that weren't enough, this week's Beano features the first appearance in a comic for over 40 years of my favourite comedy triple-act of all time! Who could they be? Well, if I were to suggest you take a bit of good advice, try a trip to paradise, it's not hard to find you've got it on your mind, you can't pretend it wouldn't be nice.... (the answer is..?)

Update, the full original script for Doctor Squid:

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.

EE by gum - my fun with phones

 
11.30am.  I have just been told I cannot migrate my old T-Mobile phone number to my new iPhone except at the point of sale, which was two weeks ago. That cannot be right!
In EE chat just now it went:

EE: you cannot port a number from T-Mobile to EE. To do this would need to via Migration & this can only be done directly via EE

Me: You are EE

EE: You can call 150 but I assure you that only the migration will allow you to obtain the number. (this may be the reason as to why you have not had the number transferred up to now).

Me: So how do I Migrate?

EE: The only way for you to obtain that number now is to port out to another network & then port back in via the EE.
You can only migrate at the point of sale

Me: So I cannot migrate after I've bought the phone?????????????????????????????????????????????

EE: That's correct.

Me: So I have to take this phone back? Or lose my number that I've had since 1998?

EE: You would need to discuss with Apple to confirm if this is possible.

Me: Bloody hell.

EE: Kev.....please bear in mind that this was you that chosen to visit the Apple Store

I've since spoken to Apple who say they can't help and have sent me back to EE. What can I do?


UPDATE (12.10pm): I spoke to EE on the phone and they have just told me the phone number is going to be transferred. Sometime in the next 12 hours it will happen. All I need to do is, er, "turn it off and on again" and wait. Thankyou EE (if it works).

UPDATE (12.18pm): YES! Thankyou EE! You have just migrated my phone number from my old T-Mobile to my new EE iPhone! Hooray! You are smashing. Bringing new meaning to the phrase "under-promise and over-deliver" you spent an hour telling me how you couldn't do it, then you did it! Thankyou again.

UPDATE May 3rd: I text EE asking "@EE Why would I have just got a text from 7626 saying "You've used up your data, buy more for as little as £1.99" when I haven't? In fact @EE .co.uk says I still have 4GB left, out of my 4GB allowance, after two weeks solid use. Can that also be true? Who is "7626"?  They reply:  "Some data texts were sent in error, as long as you check online using My EE this will show the correct data amount." Hmmmm.

Noah - new video from the Socks

Brand new from the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre, their first totally new online sketch in ages (work in progress, it might find itself in the new show, you never know) - Noah. We hope you enjoy it.

Also newly uploaded in Watchable-Vision (the previous upload, from 2008, was tiny and tinny) is Romeo & Juliet, live at Brighton Fringe. Despite this being from the very early days of the Socks, when they not only had no costumes, but they seem not to know where to point their faces half the time, it's still very funny though I say so myself. I think some more Shakespeare is called for, don't you?

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre ...And So Am I runs from July 30 - August 22 2014 at 10.30pm in The Gilded Balloon at The Edinburgh Fringe. Tickets are on sale already.



The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
Apr 3 - Adam Smith Theatre Kirkcaldy
Apr 12 - Stroud Subscription Rooms
May 9 - Exeter Barnfield
May 14 - Camden Head, London
May 17 - Brighton Komedia
May 23 - Keighley Exchange
May 31 - Aylesbury Limelight
June 6 - Hazlitt Theatre, Maidstone
June 7 - Butlins, Bognor
June 11 - Camden Head, London
June 19 - Phoenix Arts, Bordon Hants
June 20 - Derby Assembly Rooms
June 21 - Halifax Square Chapel
June 22 - Derby (family show)
July 4 - Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham
July 9 - Bedford Fringe
July 11 - Beverley Puppet Festival
July 13 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern 2pm
July 17 - Larmer Tree Festival, Wilts
July 18 - Leeds Carriageworks
July 19 - Cradley Heath Comedy Festival
July 22 - Comedy Den Cardiff
July 23 - Taurus Manchester
July 30 - Aug 25 Gilded Balloon, 10.30pm - Edinburgh Fringe 2014

Killer Machine vs Adventure Time - new comics by kids

Here we see a brand new collection of comics produced by kids in my Comic Art Masterclasses. From two days with the pupils of Carrongrange School in Falkirk, to an Easter Holiday class in Leyton and a birthday party in Woking.

Celebrity suggestions to step on a worm you ask?  Miley Cyrus, Katy Perry (twice), Simon Cowell,  Susan Boyle, and, most original suggestion of the week, John Goodman.



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.

10 more versions of Bananaman to bend your mind

Since I posted 10 Versions Of Bananaman last week, more and more keep cropping up. Here's another Top Ten, starting with....

10 - Jamie Smart's Bananaman. This never saw print, which is a great shame as his revamps of Desperate Dan and Roger The Dodger were legendary (and may make their way into a book some day if there's any justice).

9 - A Bananaman die-cast steel belt buckle? Yes please. From designerbeltbuckles.co.uk

8 - A Taiwanese Bananaman. I can't claim to fully understand where he's from, but he's on the Kinnikuman Wiki where it says he's "A Taiwanese choujin competing in the Choujin Olympics: The Resurrection. He made it to the third round in the preliminaries but came short to Kinniku Mantarou in the "Beach Flags Yeah" competition and was eliminated out of the Olympics." So now you know.

7 - Bananawoman. I found her here, from where I can tell you she's Australian born in Logan City in 1986, she can lift 200.0kg, she has a Total: 13 PD (8 rPD) and a Total: 13 ED (8 rED), and she has Probability Manipulation: Elemental Control, 66-point powers. But not only do I not know what any of that means, I can't find who created her or what she's for.

6 - Another Bananawoman, this time by @Sparky597 on Deviant Art. So her bum transforms first, then her chest. Yes, I can't see that going down well in The Beano. Or in the 21st century, come to think of it.

 5 - A realistic Bananawoman. About whom I can't tell you much more than I found her here. And she's Fairtrade.

4 - Bananagirl. Created by the brilliant Lew Stringer for his Super School series, she's Bananaman's neice. A crossover has yet to happen but I'm sure it's only a matter of time.

3 - Lego Bananaman? There's a Lego Bananaman? (Actually, turns out there isn't yet. But this artist here has made it so there nearly is)

2 - Banana Minion. Once you start scouring Deviant Art, you never stop finding stuff. I won't bore you with some of the Bananamen that are out there, but this is above average, by @sloth79

1 - Bananaman's very first appearance. Courtesy of John Freeman's Down The Tubes, (artwork copyright ©2014 DC Thomson & Co), here's the very first splash of the Man Of Peel from Nutty Comic No 1, February 1980, written by Steve Bright and Dave Donaldson, and drawn by the late great John Geering. Our hero's costume's changed since then, as has the look of young Eric, mostly under John Geering's hand - it was his style that was replicated for the TV cartoon, and reprints of his strips appeared in The Beano as recently as 2013 - but the essence of the strip remains the same. Very silly, steeped in parody, and encourages healthy eating. Long may he reign.



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.

Orson Welles in this week's Bananaman (just out of shot)

In this week's Bananaman strip in The Beano, drawn by Wayne Thompson and written by me, we do a take on Orson Welles' famous War Of The Worlds radio broadcast. Well, we did in the original script, a snippet of which you can see below. For length, as much as anything, the whole Orson Welles element has been chopped out, leaving a fun story with aliens, so who can complain?

The aliens turn out to be shape-shifters this week, which I wasn't expecting. Spa-Foon of the Squa-Trontians is a character I created for my Bananaman stories and who's appeared half a dozen times. Until now he's been a green one-eyed creature with tentacles wearing a space helmet, but this week, because it was thought he looked a little too much like the aliens off an even more famous TV cartoon, he's changed into an orange two eyed guy with a widow's peak.

Perhaps I should have made them look less Simpsons-y and more like the Al Williamson originals that inspired them (read the legendary strip The Aliens here):

Also in this week's Beano is my Pansy Potter strip "Cheek". My name's hidden in the background, very subtly this time. Can you spot it readers?

Here, for your behind-the-scenes DVD-extra pleasure, is the opening of the Bananaman War Of The Worlds strip as it looked when I wrote it...

-->

BANANAMAN – WAR OF THE WORLDS      Kev F Sutherland 2 pager

1               BLACK & WHITE picture. WE begin with ORSON WELLES in a 1930s radio studio in front of a big microphone reading from a script very dramatically

WELLES          I AM ORSON RYDER AND YOU’RE LISTENING TO THE RADIO THEATRE OF THE MAKEY-UPPEY. WE TAKE YOU NOW TO THE PALM COURT BALLROOM WHERE WE FIND –

2               Black & white again. WELLES pulls great dramatic faces into the microphone, pretending there are aliens, while behind him his actors shout and scream & bash pots and pans with bits of wood for sound effects

WELLES          WAIT! WHAT IS THIS? IT’S ALIENS FROM SPACE! WE’RE BEING INVADED!

FX        SWOOSH! ZAP! ALIEN INVASION NOISES!

3               Full colour is resumed. Cut to the streets of BEANOTOWN where ERIC is listening to a radio playing in the window of a shop. Close up on ERIC listening.

RADIO             “HELP! RUN FOR YOUR LIVES! AAAARGH!”

ERIC                BRILLIANT, THEY’RE REPEATING A CLASSIC RADIO PLAY FROM THE OLDEN DAYS. LOVING IT!

4               We pull back to reveal that all the people of Beanotown are running up and down the street screaming and panicking. They all obviously think the radio play is real.

ERIC                IT SOUNDS A BIT DATED NOWADAYS BUT  –

PERSON          HEEELP! ALIENS!!!

PERSON 2      O.M.GEEEE! IT’S A INVASION INNIT!

5               ERIC tries to wave his hands and shout to them all, but in vain, panic has spread. People are arming themselves with sticks and dustbin lids

ERIC                NO, LISTEN! IT’S ONLY A PLAY ON THE RADIO! THERE’S NO ACTUAL –

PERSON          BUG EYED GREEN MONSTERS! ARM YOURSELVES!

6               Close up on ERIC, talking to camera as he unpeels a banana

ERIC                SERIOUSLY? PEOPLE LISTENING TO A RADIO PLAY IN 2014? WHATEVER, I’LL SORT THIS OUT!

7               ERIC transforms into BANANAMAN who shouts in a big voice to the people who turn and listen

FX        BANANANOING!

BANANA         I’M BANANAMAN, I’M BACK! NOW SHUT YOUR CAKE HOLES!

8               First of a pair of matching frames. To the left of the picture the crowd are all frozen to the spot looking up, open mouthed at BANANAMAN. He looms over the right hand side of the picture talking to them pleadingly. A shadow starts to creep up his back.

BANANA         READ MY LIPS! THERE’S NO INVASION, THERE ARE NO ALIENS, AND THERE’S NO SPACE… SHIP….

9               A repeat of the same panel. Only this time the shadow has engulfed Bananaman, there is clearly something very big behind him and that is what the crowd are actually staring in awe at. Bananaman doesn’t look round at it yet.

BANANA         IT’S BEHIND ME, ISN’T IT?

(end of page one)

And the strip's final panel originally went...

-->

1               Final panel. SPA FOON is in his space ship, with a hanky over his nose, his eyes streaming. To the left, out of the porthole window, we see a big explosion of sneezing powder coming like a mushroom cloud from Beanotown far below on the earth. And to the right of the panel we see ORSON WELLES and his radio actors, who are all black and white despite the rest of the picture being in colour. They are looking up from their scripts towards Spa Foon who is telling them to shut up.

FX        POOOF!

SPA FOON (to WELLES)       AND YOU LOT CAN SHUT UP! HASHTAG FAILED AGAIN!

END

 

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.

How the new Socks Edfringe ad came to life

It's a mysterious and marvellous process, enigmatic and shrouded in secrecy, that brings a creative design from tentative concept to dazzling fruition. But it's just happened with the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre's advert for their brand new show ...And So Am I, in the programme for the 2014 Edinburgh Festival Fringe. Now, for the very first time, we take you behind the scenes of this miraculous creative process. It began like this...

And then I did this...

Er, that's it. Sorry, probably not all that impressive after all. Still, thanks for letting me share.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre ...And So Am I runs from July 30 - August 22 2014 at 10.30pm in The Gilded Balloon at The Edinburgh Fringe. Tickets are on sale already.



The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
Apr 3 - Adam Smith Theatre Kirkcaldy
Apr 12 - Stroud Subscription Rooms
May 9 - Exeter Barnfield
May 14 - Camden Head, London
May 17 - Brighton Komedia
May 23 - Keighley Exchange
May 31 - Aylesbury Limelight
June 6 - Hazlitt Theatre, Maidstone
June 7 - Butlins, Bognor
June 11 - Camden Head, London
June 19 - Phoenix Arts, Bordon Hants
June 20 - Derby Assembly Rooms
June 21 - Halifax Square Chapel
June 22 - Derby (family show)
July 4 - Old Joint Stock Theatre, Birmingham
July 9 - Bedford Fringe
July 11 - Beverley Puppet Festival
July 13 - Sheffield New Barrack Tavern 2pm
July 17 - Larmer Tree Festival, Wilts
July 18 - Leeds Carriageworks
July 19 - Cradley Heath Comedy Festival
July 22 - Comedy Den Cardiff
July 23 - Taurus Manchester
July 30 - Aug 25 Gilded Balloon, 10.30pm - Edinburgh Fringe 2014

71 New Comics by Schoolkids

In Kev F's Comic Art Masterclasses in schools and art centres nationwide (and beyond, in the past year he's taught from Dublin to Toulouse) he draws on his 25 years as a comic creator for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who et al to teach pupils how to write and draw comic strips. Everyone takes home a comic containing the group's strips and a caricature by Kev. The titles of these comics are invented by the pupils in the group, here are the 71 most recent comics, in ten batches...

10 - Floating Cactus of Doom & other comics, from pupils in Falkirk, Birmingham, Devon and Cardiff

 9 - Reverse Psychology and Super Dooper Pooper Loo, comics by pupils from Borehamwood, Taunton, Kings Lynn, Croydon and Guildford.

8 - Curse Of The Singing Go Compare Man & other comics, by kids in Kent and Henley

7 - Grandpa From The North Goes Fudge Cake Berserk & more, by pupils from London and Salisbury

6 - The Living Moon Pie, Supergranny Sweatpants and Under Pans - hilarious titles by pupils from Cambridgeshire, Glasgow, Croydon, Largs and Henley On Thames.

5 - One Direction vs The Doom Monster and more, by pupils in Falkirk, Grangemouth, Edinburgh and Ripon.

4 - The Marshmallow That Suffocated A Bee and more, by kids in Croydon, Richmond, Glasgow and Largs.

3 - Bob & Dave's Adventures and more, by kids from Cheshire & Staffordshire to Hertfordshire and Buckinghamshire. All the shires represented here.

 2 - We Was Chased By The Moon & other comics, by kids from Hertfordshire and Weston Super Mare

1 - Psycho Bunnies, Hottest Hamsters and Epic Chickens - this year's most far-flung comics, created by pupils in English language schools in Colomiers near Toulouse in France.



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.

10 Versions of Bananaman Like You Never Dreamed

You think you know Bananaman, the Beano comic superhero who's lined up for his own major motion picture? Then peel your eyelids back and check out the Top 10 Bananamans I just found online.

10 - An American indie comic hero called Bananaman. Either the creators have never heard of the British original or they're pushing their luck big time. This is on its 5th issue at least, all available on Kindle.

9 - PJ Holden of Judge Dredd fame drawing the Man Of Peel. Can I just get my dibs in now? If Paul wants to draw him, I sooooo want to write it!

8 - The Japanese Bananaman, which appears to be a comedy double act with a talkshow. You buy the DVD for £48, and you tell me all about them.

7 - Bananaman... in Pyjamas? Oh come on @shaun_hazlenut, don't mess with a classic. What next, Superman with a Tellytubbies head on? (Mental note, that might work. Tinky Winky, Dipsy, La La and Jor El...)

6 - A Bananaman whose diet has not been restricted to bananas. Via @NScot_csaund  

5 - The University of Southampton's librarian, running a marathon as Bananaman

4 - Professor Stephen Hawking and a stag party of nine Bananamen, a photo which went on to become a Bananaman strip, of course

3 - Concept artist Michael Doig's take on Bananaman, which is quite brilliant isn't it?

2 - Matt Damon, starring in the Bananaman live action movie. I was really starting to wrap my head around this concept. Then I saw the date this story was posted.

1 - Us, of course. It's art by Wayne Thompson (who's been drawing the strip since it was in The Dandy, along with a number of writers, and with whom it's been a privilege to work, long may it last), script by me in the weekly Beano. In this excerpt Bananaman faces off against Miracle Banana and Captain Banana in a big copyright battle.




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.