Comics produced by pupils in my Comic Art Masterclasses here, from primary schools in Newham and Bradford and a birthday party near Marlborough, with some caricatures of their faces thrown in for good measure.
My Comic Art Masterclass draws on my 25 years working for everyone from The Beano to Doctor Who & Marvel comics and teaches everyone in the class, of whatever ability, how easy it is to write and draw comic strips. I can work with two groups in a day, maximum 30 in each group, and I need a minimum of two hours for each. Age 7/8 (yr3) or older only. By the end of each session they'll have produced a comic with a strip in by each of them, which I run off on the photocopier and they each take a copy home, along with a caricature I'll have drawn of every one of them.
When asked to name a celebrity for me to draw in a demonstration strip on the flipchart, these groups ended up choosing Zayn Malik, The Queen, Michael Jackson, Mr Bean and Cristiano Ronaldo.
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.
With the dust well and truly settled after this year's Edinburgh Fringe, and the Socks about to do their first live show in a month, I've had a chance to look back at this summer's show, ...And So Am I, and see what I think of it in retrospect. It's been interesting, in the intervening time, to re-read Stewart Lee's How I Escaped My Certain Fate, in which he dissects three of his stand up shows, with footnotes that take up far more space than the routines themselves. I don't propose to do that, but for my future reference it will be interesting to look at this, our most topically-based show, and see what was in it.
Intro - Mass Debate. Good start, we greet the audience with a gag stolen from Radio Active, making it a good 30 years old. So they know what they're going to get. This three-gag routine does, actually, set the tone very successfully for the rest of the night and, plagiarism aside, I'm rather happy with it. It's also three short lines, which gave me the confidence to then launch into audience interaction and improv before the opening song, which is a good thing to do, as long as you've delivered some good punchliney material to begin with. A bad move is going off at a tangent before you've set the actual course of the show.
I'm A Sock - I've tried in past years to replace our theme tune. But disastrous preview shows where that was attempted (Brighton, Bristol and Leicester have suffered these over the years) hammer home the fact that we can't do it. Again, it sets the tone for the show, and also gives me a chance to assess the audience. If they laugh at certain points, ("...not on your cock", guitar solo, and "do you want a fight?" are the three key ones) I know they're newbies, or particularly easily-entertained regulars. If they don't, they've heard it many times before, or they're going to be harder work then usual.
Ignoranus - This very good routine asking how the audience are going to vote in the Scottish Indenpence referendum is sadly redundant now. Again, continued the theme of the show nicely.
Clegg/Milliband/Cameron - Shamefully I use the c word to get the first big laugh of the night (actually often the openings have done that, with their scope for audience interaction and improv).
Pros - The first thing I wrote for the show, this is a very old-fashioned and tenuous wordplay routine that I was worried wasn't going to work. So many points of reference that not everybody would get - Heidi Fleiss, Cynthia Payne, Billie Piper in Diary Of A Call GIrl and a list of golfers - but the structure and momentum made this work. It was written hurriedly one morning, literally on the back of an envelope. Here is that envelope.
The Adele/Peter Benchley joke - My Stewart Lee moment. A joke that only I got (and so did David Quantick when I originally tweeted it, which is frankly why I kept it in). It's a good gag, but only if you are au fait with the works of both Peter Benchley and Adele which, I can confirm, is about 3 people in every 90.
Intro to Mumford & Son - rubbish, never made that make any sense, changed it every night, will happily never try it again.
Mumford & Son - jolly good fun. It's more Crackerjack than Mitch Benn, if I'm honest, but I like it and so did every single audience.
Baby In The Corner - the running joke. This was a shamelessly reverse-engineered callback, which saw me starting with the punchline which comes towards the end of the show, and inserting set-ups through the preceding hour like a comedy-writing automata. Worked every time. I shall be using this piss-easy comedy-whore writing-by-numbers method again.
Europe / MP passing a motion - Some more set-of-three good comedy gags, which are fun to write and a treat to deliver. And topical, so their shelf-life is coming to an end.
Noah - What was this doing in the show? Doesn't fit the theme of the show whatsoever, but kept getting laughs from the start, had so much scope for audience interaction it got better every time, and best of all it's not topical so it has life in the touring show. Best laugh from a rubbish punchline in years.
Downton Abbey - One of those scripts that starts promisingly, starts to look less funny as you go through the previews, then finally comes together during the Edinburgh run. I chopped a good third of the lines out, keeping only the funniest bits, then mercifully found a way of giving it a punchline by segueing it into the next song.
The Franz Ferdinand gag - Wrote this about 3 days into Edinburgh, thus linking Downton to...
Oh What A Lovely War On Terror - I'm proud of this. I don't care if you think it's Crackerjack-y, and I'm not too worried at those people who were laughing at "My old man is in the Taliban" for the wrong reasons. This is a satirical tour de force in my books, and the fact that it's not been seen by million on national TV is their loss.
Stereotypes - A classic Socks word-association routine, and their best for years. Well done them.
Street Where You Live - A new addition to the "three songs" the Socks have been doing for years. I like it.
Song For UKIP - My favourite three minutes in the show, about which I can only reiterate my remark about the millions on national TV and their loss. All going well this will last till next year's election, possibly with lyrical updates. Also not a problem that the "Jews" line doesn't get a laugh. Satire's not all ha-ha hee-hee, you know.
Send It Back gag - Can't fathom why this never got the laugh I wanted, it's another of my favourite gags.
St Andrew - Early on, in previews, someone remarked that the show was all good except for this routine, and I started to agree with them. Then it got whittled down until only the funny was left, and I made it segue into the pre-finale break-up routine, and suddenly it was perfect. For about a week it ended a bit messily though.
Always A... - Revived from 2010's show, On The Telly, this fitted perfectly. Big Sock fans hadn't seen it for at least 2 years, and for newbies it was as good as ever. Fitted the mood of the moment perfectly. Followed by..
The Break Up - On early nights of the run, we had the Batman/Tennis routine, which thankfully was squeezed out once the laughter made earlier parts of the show last longer. Now we went straight from the song to the break-up, including the Snot Talking, which was an ad-lib that stayed in.
Baby In The Corner punchline song - This wasn't so much stolen as inspired. I mean, obviously it comes from Dirty Dancing. But breaking into this particular song at this part of the show came from seeing a series of French double acts on TV in Toulouse back in April, all of whom ended their routines with a choreographed musical bit, and one of which used this. To say I thought "I'm having that" would be libellous. But I did end up having it. Coincidentally, in one of our last preview shows, in Birmingham in July, the new double act Crumpkiss ended their routine with exactly the same song. So it's a meme, clearly.
Macbeth - The bin is welcome to this. I was so glad on the nights when there wasn't time to do this finale, which had gone from being well-written but unfunny, to re-written but still not funny enough, to its final state of "done in 90 seconds and get to the punchline quick". When it was good it was very very good, and very short. And it did round up the theme of the show, which is something the Socks have failed to do many a time.
Sweary Poppins - Finally we ended with a song, often by sacrificing Macbeth, and it's the perfect ending. It's been in our touring show for years, but Edinburgh has only ever seen it in 2009's show Goes To Hollywood, so a perfect note to go out on.
In all I thought And So Am I was our best structured show, with some of my favourite songs (however long they stay topical) and the most consistent level throughout, and the audiences seemed as happy as ever, but I don't think ultimately it gave us any timeless routines quite as strong as Socks In Space (Avengers, Star Trek, David Bowie), Boo Lingerie (Horror Cliche Song), Hollywood (Star Wars, the 3 Songs, Word Association, Sweary Poppins) or On The Telly (Missing Off TV, Ship In A Bottle, Walk On Wild Side, Always A.., Sawing A Sock In Half).
Seven shows later, we still got it. Now, what shall we write next?
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
The Socks return to the stage after a month long gap tomorrow, at the Belfast Comedy Festival. But which show should we do?
We only have a 60 minute slot, so we have the choice of doing the recent Edinburgh show And So Am I - with its Scottish Independence material all removed now that it's out of date, but keeping the killer songs. But then how relevant is the UKIP song in Northern Ireland? Or we can do Socks In Space, which we haven't done since June or July time (seems so long ago).
Or a mixture of the two? Or some of the best-of stuff? And what about debuting the brand new ISIS Song, is that worth risking?
Ee, it's fun to be thinking live Socks again, after what must be the longest break in the last year, maybe since Christmas? Here, in case I haven't blogged them, are some recent gig listings that looked pretty nifty.
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
Christmas may come earlier every year, but that's nothing compared to the deadline for planning your personalised Christmas card. And, in my role as comics writer and artist for everyone from The Beano to Marvel to Doctor Who, this is the time of year when I also offer my services to produce unique and bespoke comic-strip styled Christmas cards for clients far and wide. If you want me to consult, please email me (see below) and we'll take it from there. Here are some works produced for previous happy clients...
Contact Kev F Sutherland, comic genius, for a quote at by email
or on 01275 872111 / 07931810858. And, as always, my services as a
comic strip creator, historian, consultant and teacher remain at your
disposal.
For the first time in a few years, I have a number of stories in this year's Beano annual, the 2015 edition. Unfortunately, because I didn't draw them and because we hadn't discussed sneaking credits into them, my name doesn't appear on any of them. But almost all of the Bananaman and Biffo The Bear strips in the book are written by me. Here's a sneak exclusive behind-the-scenes look at a bit of the script for the Bananaman 4 pager Vom-Monster, drawn in the book by the brilliant Wayne Thompson.
This is how I prefer to deliver my scripts, in biro layout form. It's quicker to send a type-script, but I don't think it gets the humour across nearly as well, especially if another artist is going to draw the finished item. Don't forget to buy The Beano annual as the perfect Christmas gift this year, and if you want me to sign my stories at any time, just so posterity will know who wrote them, bring them along to one of my classes.
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.
Brand new from the Socks, a satirical song that we're quite proud of, we do hope you like it.
This is has already gone through a few rewrites before getting it right, under the working title Hello Muddah, Intifadah. Some lovely rhymes that have hit the bin include "que pasa / madrassa", "hit home / Iron Dome" (the first draft was set in Gaza, hence the intifada mention, which is still a valid term for any uprising, though admittedly mostly used to refer to Gaza), and "great big Satan / these bombs did not keep raining". Here are the words that we wound up going with:
Hello muddah hello fadda
I am fighing an intifada
I am being a jihadi
Though I'm worried it might turn out I'm a baddie
I'm a rebel, here with ISIS
It turns out they're not as nice as
You would think, you saw that video?
They do all that stuff and more I do not kid you
We kill folks in every nation
Without much discrimination
Are they Shias are they Sunnis?
We don't care which per-su-asion anyone is
It's as hot as volcanic lava
Yet they make me wear a balaclava
Why'd you ever let me do this?
Could be worse, I haven't told them yet I'm Jewish
Take me back, I don't want to go to Iraq
I don't want to be with ISIS
Or are we called ISIL or IS no-one knows which one it is
Take me home, oh mudda fada
It's bad here, worse than in Gaza
I don't like being a terrorist
And worse you can't even get pissed
I thought we'd be liberating
We do more decapitating
Those 70 virgins I was promised
Don't seem worth the effort if I'm being honest
Wait a minute, there's incoming
US drones are doing bombing
I'm about to be a martyr
Kindly disregard this email mum & fada
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
You start googling yourself and suddenly you find another newspaper photo you hadn't spotted. Here's me in the Weston Mercury back in June (which, if it appeared in the printed edition, went into the recycling before I'd even looked inside. You can lay the demise of local newspapers squarely at my door. Beside the recycling.)
CARTOONS came to life when a comic book artist paid a visit to a North Somerset school.
Youngsters at Locking Primary School saw their favourite superheroes and children’s characters recreated in front of their eyes. Beano
cartoonist Kev Sutherland visited the school in Meadow Drive as part of
literacy week, to show how pictures can illustrate a narrative. Kev has taught comic art master classes for more than a decade in schools, colleges and at festivals.
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.
A nice interview with Wales Online that I forgot I'd done, in advance of last month's classses in Porthcawl.
Comic capers as Beano illustrator brings summer masterclass to Wales
Kev F Sutherland will be teaching children the art of comic
illustration during two workshops in Porthcawl this month. Rhiann
Williams speaks to him
Kev F Sutherland who is holding comic art masterclasses at Grand Pavilion, Porthcawl
If you want some tips on drawing cartoon characters then who better
to learn from than a man who has illustrated classic kids comics like
Beano and Marvel.
Kev F Sutherland has spent his career drawing
iconic characters, including the Bash Street Kids, Dennis the Menace and
Doctor Who.
Now he will be passing on his tips during two
masterclasses aimed at children aged seven and above at the Grand
Pavilion in Porthcawl this month.
Kev has been an avid comic
reader since he was a child, and said that having grown up in a
generation that loved comics, it seemed natural to aspire to be a comic
artist.
“It was something many kids wanted to do,” he says. “I was lucky enough to turn my hobby into my job.”
He
has worked on a variety of projects during his career, including ‘Twas
the Night Before Christmas’ a full-length seasonal comic featuring
Dennis the Menace.
He believes that creating comics is something which any child with a pencil and some paper can achieve.
And as well as being fun he reveals its “a great educational tool” especially for those who struggle with reading.
And
he says that those who are disinterested in books, more often young
boys, can perfect their reading by picking up a comic instead.
“It’s
like telling a 10-year-old to stop watching television and just listen
to the radio; things are always more interesting and engaging when
there’s with pictures and words.”
He points out that comics filled with brightly coloured pictures
where most of the words are in speech bubbles from characters’ mouths
can make comics easier to follow than regular picture books.
“Pictures
with words makes it a lot easier to understand what’s going on, rather
than a wall of words on one side of the page and just one picture on the
other,” he says.
Kev also points out the fact that picture books
more often than not have to be read to children whereas it’s easier for
them to follow a story in a comic by themselves.
The artist has
drawn a variety of characters throughout his career and many of them
deliver their young readers an important message.
“Obviously some
of them just go off into the universe, fight some aliens and then come
home the hero, but some characters I like to make points with.”
Taking
much of his inspiration from the world, he says some of his storylines
and characters can be minor parodies of events and happenings in the
real world.
And in some instances, Kev’s work is also ‘pastiche’
whereby he takes situations or characters from older comic strips and
incorporates them into new ones. One of his best examples is Miracle
Banana who appears as part of a Bananaman script which Kev describes as
“lightly satirical”. Miracle Banana is a character based on Miracle Man,
formerly known as Marvel Man.
Kev started his masterclasses at
Bristol Comic Festival when he was asked to be part of an educational
outreach programme for seven to 12 year olds. They went so well that
people asked if he would do more and since then he has travelled around
schools, art centres and colleges sharing “the wonder of comics”.
Now
he is heading to Porthcawl for two classes which are designed so that
the children can make their own comic. To begin with, each child creates
their own comic character then Kev helps the children to put the
characters into a storyline.
Each child contributes a page to the
story, and by the end of the class, all of the pages are put together to
create a completely unique comic book.
And while the classes are typically aimed at children aged seven to 12 years, they are adult-friendly too...
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.
Last night's Doctor Who episode Listen was one of the best of recent years, and has been particularly well received by fans. Could this be because of all the previous stories it reminds them of? Here are some previous Doctor Who stories (and a sitcom) that moments in Listen may have brought to mind. (Obviously this is full of Spoilers for the episode Listen, and all the other stories mentioned).
ALIENS OF LONDON - The previous episode's "Next Week" trailer spoils a
significant bit of the story (in this case we knew the man in the
spacesuit was going to be Danny, or Dannyish). In AOL, the first two-parter of Christopher Eccleston's season, we leave the story of a cliffhanger wondering whether the Doctor will escape, only to show a second later that he obviously does.
ALL SEASON 1 - The Doctor wears a black sweater under his black coat, a la Eccleston
BLINK - Words appear written on the wall. Behind you.
SILENCE IN THE LIBRARY - Invisible things that are always there in the shadows everywhere
FAMILY OF BLOOD / ELEVENTH HOUR - Thing that's in the corner of your eye
CORNER OF THE EYE (story by Steven Moffat in the Dr Who 2007 Storybook)
COUPLING (sitcom by Steven Moffat) - Couple on a date, story is cut up and loops back on variations on how date could have gone
BOOM TOWN / ROSE - Out for a meal in Cardiff, it is interrupted
IMPOSSIBLE ASTRONAUT - Creeping round a childrens home at night
FEAR HER / LOVE & MONSTERS / NIGHT TERRORS - There is a grown man in a child's bedroom, and that's not strange.
GIRL IN THE FIREPLACE - Looking under child's bed
FATHER'S DAY - Rose meets her future boyfriend as a child, also sees herself
UTOPIA - The end of time
WATERS OF MARS - Future earth space traveller shown in headlines making well-reported journey
IMPOSSIBLE PLANET/WATERS OF MARS/HIDE - That orange space suit, which
every astronaut everywhere always wears. But only since 2006
BOOM TOWN - Tardis needs to recharge
WEDDING OF RIVER SONG - Reveal of who's actually in the spacesuit
HIDE - Astronaut turns out to be descendant of central couple
MIDNIGHT - Something invisible tries to get into spaceship in place where there's no life
THE BEAST BELOW - Doing a 'thing'
ROBOT - "Sontarans perverting the course of human history". Why the hell say that right now? *Self-referential cringe* (To be precise, Tom Baker's first line is "Typical Sontaran attitude… Stop, Linx… (mumble) course of human history…")
DAY OF THE DOCTOR - That barn. Yes we all recognised it. And, no, we
didn't need to learn that the Doctor's parents dress like Amish.
BIG BANG - Whispering to a sleeping child and hoping they'll remember this above everything else they'll ever hear.
I'm sure there were original things in the episode too.
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre (who features as DVD easter egges in Doctor Who's The War Games, Horns Of Nimon and elsewhere) are on tour... NOW!
The first comics of the new school year by kids in my Comic Art Masterclasses, from Mendip Green in Worle to Phillipstown in Gwent to Sandy Lane in Bradford. Yes, this is the fruit of a fair bit of travelling, and what a delightful selection, wouldn't you say?
From the randomness of Clapapasp, a word which was the pure invention of its year 6 creator, to the accidental genius of Oluv in World War 2 - a mis-spelling of Olaf from Frozen, mixed up with the school's history project - these titles were chosen from 180 suggestions, all equally imaginative. Their choices for the celebrity who got to tread on a worm in my demonstration strip were slightly less varied: Simon Cowell (twice), Keith Lemon, Rihanna, Katy Perry and (suggested by a year 3 & 4 class) Mrs Brown the sweary-word drag act. Kids, eh?
An interesting range of class names this week too. In Mendip Green we have Class 14 and 15, both being the first ever year 4 classes in a school which is expanding upwards from being an Infant School, so next year those kids will become the school's first ever year 5s; in Phillipstown, in the valleys, we have Dosbarth Rira and Dosbarth Enfys, whose Welsh translation I'm sure you can work out so I won't insult your intelligence by explaining it here (I've forgotten. I've clearly forgotten.); and in Bradford we have classes named after famous local figures David Hockney and William Edward Forster (there was also a Titus Salt, a Richard Oastler and a JB Priestley, with the kids campaigning to have a class named after Zayn Malik out of One Direction)*.
*(I've just Googled famous people from Bradford and it must be the biggest wellspring of celebrity and influence of any town in the country! Check them out. What other town of a similar size could boast luminaries as varied as Mollie Sugden, Rodney Bewes, Harvey Smith, Dynamo, Harry Corbett, Tasmin Archer, Richard Whitelely, Mortimer Wheeler, Kimberley Walsh, Ricky Wilson, Tony Richardson, George Layton, Fred Hoyle, Gareth Gates, the author who wrote Lassie, a Doctor Who companion, dozens of famous cricketers & footballers, and heaps of inventors and industrialists. Well done Bradford.)
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.
There are two chances to vote for the Socks at the moment, one of which has given me the incentive to re-edit a classic video. Et voila the new version of Halloween, uploaded to Daily Motion* (above), as part of a competition to be part of the Montreux Comedy Festival (about which I know little at the moment, though I did see it on TV in Toulouse earlier this year, from which all I can tell you is that all the comedians were speaking French, so I'm not sure how high our chances are). This clip is also on Youtube. You will notice, if you've got an eye for these things, that it is edited together from two completely different shows. The soundtrack and close up angle comes from Edinburgh in 2010, while the wide shot come from The Rondo in Bath earlier this year. Seamless.
And here we have your opportunity to vote for the Socks' UKIP medley in the British Comedy Awards new comedy video section. We're a bit late to the contest, with literally hundreds of entrants ahead of us in the queue, so we won't get our hopes up. But next year, we'll try and get an entry of quality in early. Do vote, you know it can't hurt.
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
At last the UKIP Medley / Farage Song (whose name we've never really settled on, obviously) is up on Youtube. Recorded live in Edinburgh, it was my favourite song of the show and the Socks hope you enjoy it.
There's also a studio version of it online, if you prefer:
Which means you can now get the feeling of a virtual version of being at the Socks new show, ...And So Am I, (part of it anyway) by watching it in these two or three minute chunks. Though frankly, you were much better off being there. Everything was in focus, for example.
Attention Socks fans - the 2014 Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre t-shirt is now available at a post-Edinburgh reduced price. It's a classic and every one must go.
Now only £12 a shirt plus postage, all you need to do is Paypal your payment, tell us your size, and the shirts (already printed, so no waiting) will be on their way.
That logo in its full classic glory.
This year's shirt design (above) is our "classic" pose which has not been available on a t-shirt
until this summer. And this year's shirt is back to top quality (some Socks
In Space shirts suffered a small problem with the logo on the front,
which won't be happening again!).
The shirts now cost £12 (UK pounds) or $20 (US dollars) each.
Postage is £3 to the UK, $10 to the US.
(So that's £15 total from UK, $30 total from US)
To be sure of getting the size you want, order your shirt now, paying by
PayPal to sockpuppets@sitcomtrials.co.uk and telling us the following:
1) Size shirt you want (see sizes below), and quantity. (Only add one lot of postage per order).
2) Your full mailing address
Include the above details with your payment.
Sizes available are:
MALE S (36/38"), M (40"), L (42"), XL (46"), XXL
(50"), XXXL (54")
LADYFIT S (UK size 10), M (UK size 12), L (UK
size 14/16)
All shirts are black with the full colour Socks logo on the chest. The
printed full colour image is approx 8" round. Any queries, email sockpuppets@sitcomtrials.co.uk
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
Pansy Potter is back again in this week's Beano and this week she's ski-jumping. Though the version you'll see in print is quite different from the original first draft script, which you can see above. Both good, and this one is an exclusive glimpse just for your pleasure.
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.
Here are the last few comics from Comic Art Masterclasses held during the Edinburgh Fringe, at libraries in Corstorphine, Drumbrae, Kirkliston and South Queensferry , and a couple from the classes at Porthcawl Pavilion, as seen on TV last week.
The celebrities they chose for my far-famed "treads on a worm" routine were Boris Johnson, Ed Sheeran, Olly Murs, David Tennant, and 2 unknown. And of course I rattled off a few more flipcharts while I was at it, some of which I remembered to take a photo of.
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.
You know a summer silly-season meme is coming to an end when the Socks finally get round to doing it. And they've just got round to doing the ALS/MND Ice Bucket Challenge.
In a few months time we'll all be watching the Big Fat Quiz Of The Year and this will come up as one of those questions with its own ready-made compilation of celebrity clips, and no-one but no-one will be able to remember what ALS stood for, if indeed they ever knew*.
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!
