Magna Carta - work in progress

This mega Magna Carta comic that I'm working on has had to be done whenever and wherever time has allowed. Having done a week in schools in Lincoln assembling the material, as part of my regular comic art masterclasses there, I've then had to string them together with a linking strip and assemble the pages. Meanwhile I've had 2 days in Brighton with the Socks, followed by a Sunday late afternoon caricaturing at a wedding in Snowdonia, then Tuesday I did classes at G Live in Guildford, Wednesday I flew to Edinburgh then drove to Aberdeen (I know there are direct flights, you don't need to keep reminding me! It was a rescheduled easyjet fli - never mind), then a day of classes in Aberdeen on Thursday, after which I thought I'd get some artwork done but instead found myself having an impromptu meal with Mike and Marie (he runs Asylum comics, it was a chance meeting), then Friday I had to drive all the way to Hartlepool where I've been staying for two nights in order to do classes at the comic expo in Sunderland (I know they're 45 minutes apart, it was another long story resulting from the Premier Inn in Sunderland not being finished in time). Here, have another page.

So it was that, after doing a Comic Art Masterclass at the Wonderlands expo in Sunderland, I drove back to Hartlepool and spent Saturday afternoon and early evening finally getting this artwork assembly finished. Of course the client has to approve it and then I need to colour the whole lot. But how long can that take? Oh god.

Stay tuned for more updates. The deadline for completing the art is this Friday, and all that stands in my way is four days in a primary school in Bradford, added to which I have classes on two evening in Ripon and Bradford, and the drive home afterwards. Oh and Friday I'm at a school in Croydon. Yes, I know.

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. 

Fools and Bairns Shouldnae See Half Finished Work

In the last few years with my Comic Art Masterclasses, I've got into the regular habit of uploading the covers of the comics I've produced with my pupils and putting them here in my blog. For the last couple of years I've even taken to adding colour to these comics to make them look even better (the schools appreciate that little bit of after care, and I find it very satisfying too). So having spent four days last week in Lincoln doing classes you'd think I'd have lots to show you. And I do. But not quite yet.

(I've no idea why this has slurped into the blog upside down. Hopefully I'll get more time later and find a way of turning it round)

Because you see last week's classes were all very special. Organised by a company called Art Reach, these comics were all part of the Freedom Prokect, to produce a comic which we'll actually be printing up and publishing, to coincide with the 800th Anniversary of Magna Carta, a copy of which will be going on show in Lincoln Cathedral. So I'm taking all the comics we produced and adding full colour, and then selecting the best of the pupils comic strips and making them into a finished 8 page magazine.

So bear with if you will. The fruits of my labours in three primary schools (including St Hughs, flipchart above), a high school, and two youth clubs, will be appearing soon. I'm typing this from my hotel room in Aberdeen where, after a day of classes as part of the May Festival, I should be spending my evening compositing and colouring Lincoln creations, before setting off to Sunderland where I'll be doing classes as part of the Wonderlands graphic novel expo. In the meantime, here's a picture of the windmill I stayed in in Lincoln. Enjoy.

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. 

Kev books travel, Mr Micawber sums it up

As Mr Micawber might put it:

A day of classes in Aberdeen for 250 quid plus 2 nights hotel followed by a day of classes in Sunderland for 250 quid plus 2 nights hotel, result happiness.

Flight to Edinburgh £169*, amended to return from Newcastle an additional £87, 4 days car hire now dropping off at a different airport £195, cost of airport car parking now £69, result misery.

I agree to these things, I am an idiot.

*Edinburgh flight rescheduled from earlier flight hence higher cost. Still idiot.

Socks in Brighton - a tale of two previews (with added Dean Friedman)

How different two performances of the same show can be was exemplified by this weekend's two Minging Detectives previews at Komedia in Brighton. The good news being: it's going well and the new hour's certainly had a good testing. (And with added Dean Friedman).

We've been playing the Brighton Fringe every year since 2008, previewing the shows we were taking to Edinburgh, and the audiences have been very supportive and have grown and grown. But the worst thing you can do is get complacent, and you must never take your eye of the ball as far as promotion is concerned. Which is exactly what I did, not getting flyers and posters delivered to the venue. An unforgiveable oversight which can't have helped the poor turnout for our first night. So there were only 20-odd punters for our 6.30 Friday show, and when the Socks asked who'd seen us before, we got an "aye"... from one punter.

So there we were trying to do almost-all-new material in front of an audience who'd never seen the Socks before. Which is a big challenge. When we do regular gigs (eg recent shows where we've performed in the windows of cafes, which has happened twice in the last month for some reason) we whip out all the best stuff, like Halloween or Michael Jackson, Sweary Poppins or Star Wars. This time I was opting to open with brand new sketches and songs, with only a smattering of last year's show ...And So Am I to serve as tried-and-tested zingers.

It had worked last weekend in Keighley, but there, as well as having a supportive return crowd (50% new) we had 45 mins of ...And So Am I and an interval before we launched into the Minging stuff, so we'd broken them in. This first night in Brighton we had a hard job getting laughs from them, unless it was a reeeeeeeaallly good gag, and we had our work cut out to establish the characters of the two Socks before dressing them up in costume and mixing it all up.

To be fair, we didn't do badly. Great laughs for the great lines, and an audience trying to sound like there were enough of them to sound like an audience. But it made me sharply aware of how strong materials is needed throughout, and to be aware that we should expect any and every audience to be full of people seeing the Socks for the first time, so you have to win them over from the start, never forget.

So, a bit depressed after a less-than-brilliant show (though it had some highs, including a solid end with Sweary Poppins) I spent the last bit of Friday night and all of Saturday morning rewriting the script, adding new gags which I'd dictated into the iPhone and not got round to transcribing , then getting a newly re-ordered script printed out at the Most Brighton-est of printshops:

Saturday's show was on at 4.30 in the early evening, which you might not think would bode well for numbers, but the opposite was true, with us pulling a good 60-strong crowd who sounded for all the world like a full house. Helped by being 50% newcomers to 50% fans, we now had a script that was well-structured and resilient and it was deservedly well-received. Including, among many others, by good friends Stephen and Nick, who I was really sorry I didn't have time to go for a drink with afterwards, and, sat in the front row, Dean Friedman with his wife Alison and a couple of friends. And it's his birthday. Honoured and flattered.

We opened with a barrage of new cop jokes mixed with the opening of And So Am I, then gave them the UKIP song so we knew we were on safe ground. And then of course the sketches sailed:

Gangsta (now with extra x/ y/ mdnight z gags throughout the script) = excellent
Tie A Yellow Ribbon = excellent
Sponsorship running gag - excellent, but still needs replacing
Merchant Of Venice = now draped in extra gags and excellent
Z Cars = now has "Liverpudlian Initials" in and is excellenter than before
(then we threw in Stereotypes, which may not have been needed but was great)
Black & White Mistrels = still needs trimming but excellent in parts
Magnum / NYPD / Morse tied in with audience impov = very good
Killing Breaking Bad = very good but falls flat at the end still
The Sweary = getting better every time, borderline excellent
Hello Muddah = first time out since Leicester in February, still a bit of a room divider, but by god I'm going to stick with it. It's this year's UKIP song I think. I think it's excellent.
Coppers Cabana = the music is out of tune, I've made a cockup in modulating it on Garageband. And I want the punchline prop to get a better laugh, which dammit I will. Getting there.
Falling out / Time Of My Life. Excellent, but needs replacing still.
Hatton Garden heist / Duel = excellent.

And whereas we'd had to end with Sweary Poppins on the Friday, this time the show ended on its own merits and to rapturous applause. Hoorah. A testing couple of shows, and the show's better as a result. Now to write another 15 minutes worth to replace the bits that need replacing and, by golly, when we don't get a sniff of a Comedy Award in Edinburgh, we can say "we wuz robbed" with some justification.

May 22 & 23 Brighton Komedia
June 25 Cheltenham
June 27 Old Joint Stock Birmingham
July 17 Carriageworks Leeds
July 19 Sheffield New Barrack Tavern
July 23 Spread Eagle Croydon
July 24 Porters, Cardiff
July 25 Bedford Fringe
Aug 5 - 31  10.30pm Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Graham's Got Mint - new comics by kids

A good selection of comics by kids in my Comic Art Masterclasses this week, ranging from a couple of groups of kids and their parents at Bradford College as part of Bradford Literature Festival (above), through the works of some year 8s and 9s....

... in Healing in Lincolnshire. (If they have a Twitter address, I can't find it. Type "healing school" into Twitter and see just how many gurus and layers-on of hands you turn up!) These two groups were years 8 and 9 and both of their titles are typical of that age group, comprising a bit of cyber-bullying (Mollie, I learned too late, is actually a girl at the school, and the cheese-grating refers to her eating habits. Sorry Mollie, I changed the spelling, but that was the best I could do by that stage). Graham Needham is one of the pupils' dads, who runs a butchers shop. 14 year olds find each other hilarious and nothing else of much interest.

This pair comes from the pupils of Dixons Kings School in Bradford, again as part of Bradford Literature Festival. Bolidloces and the Three Hairs is another instance of that old favourite, the mis-spelled title (obviously meant to be Baldilocks) which the class of year 7s found irresistibly funny.

The celebs they chose to tread on a worm (see blogs passim) were Nigel Farage, Steven Gerrard, Simon Cowell, The Queen, Beyonce and Cristiano Ronaldo.

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. 

May 15 Exchange Keighley
May 22 & 23 Brighton Komedia
June 25 Cheltenham
June 27 Old Joint Stock Birmingham
July 17 Carriageworks Leeds
July 19 Sheffield New Barrack Tavern
July 23 Spread Eagle Croydon
July 24 Porters, Cardiff
July 25 Bedford Fringe
Aug 5 - 31  10.30pm Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Socks in Keighley - good unexpected preview

Thanks to the wonderful punters of the Exchange in Keighley for an excellent gig last night, which turned out to be an unexpected first almost-full preview of Minging Detectives. Although next week in Brighton will be the first time we do a 60 minute slot ostensibly showcasing the new Edinburgh hour, last night we did 90 mins comprising 45 mins of ...And So Am I and nearly 45 mins of Minging, and it went marvellously.

The Keighley crowd, who've had us three or four times now, were a full houses again and were made up of 75% returnees. This makes for a very supportive crowd, which meant they went along with stuff with other audiences possibly might not, but which meant the ad-libs really took off. Noah included an improv about God moving in mysterious ways and wiping his arse along the ground like a dog with worms which was just brilliant - the Socks impress me too sometimes - but it's unlikely we'll ever be able to do again. And the improvised songs from musicals had some inspired mis-hearings, including the full song Arse-Spray (a gift from a Yorkshire accent there) and others I can't remember.

(Full listing for part 1 was: Mass Debate, I'm A Sock, TV detective gags inc Luther, Election/Europe/Angela Merkel/MP motion, Song For UKIP, Stereotypes, Noah, Sponsorship gag pt 1, Oh What A Lovely War, Magic routine, Sweary Poppins.)

Then part 2 was almost all Minging Detectives. Still using the Sponsorship routine to string the disparate parts together, and with more material still waiting to be debuted in Brighton, they got the following:

Mumford & Socks (from And So Am I, likely to be retired now)
TV cop audience suggestions - overwhelming, but some good ad libs inc Taggart and Miami Vice
Gangsta routine - excellent. First time out. The costume gets a great laugh and the routine went excellently throughout. If it stays that way it's a perfect opener. Should return to in the rest of the show.
Tie A Yellow Ribbon - excellent. If it goes this well with every audience we have another winner, though it may be too peurile for some, let's see. Even the prop got applause.
Merchant of Venice & gags - okay, but not as good as what they followed.
Dixon - not so good, can go
Z Cars - excellent again. This has been good since Leicester. Needs smoothing into rest of material.
Black & White Minstrels - good, still needs shortening, and they key changing. Too high!
Sponsorship running gag - worked well throughout, but needs replacing
Magnum / NYPD / Morse - very good
The Killing v Breaking Bad - works in parts but nobody got "the one who knocks" gag.
Walk On Wild Side - thrown in to bring the laughter back up
The Sweary - excellent until the last few lines, punchline not strong enough
Fallout / Time Of My Life - excellent, but has to go cos it's from And So Am I
The Heist - excellent. For the first time it now incorporates Duel (revived from 2010's Period Drama sketch) which is perfect. And we were able to end there, no song needed.

So the Socks and I came away very pleased having made an audience laugh for 90 mins without doing too many old favourites (apart from Magic, Sweary Poppins and Walk On Wild, this was all material from the 2014 & 2015 Edinburgh sets) and boding well for Minging Detectives' progress. Oh and did I mention I'd done a day of classes in a school in Bradford beforehand, and that I'm doing more again today, and I'd been up at the Brad Lit Fest awards dinner on the Thursday night following a day at a school in Lincolnshire before that? Solid days, no rest for the wicked, blah blah. Onwards and upwards.

May 15 Exchange Keighley
May 22 & 23 Brighton Komedia
June 25 Cheltenham
June 27 Old Joint Stock Birmingham
July 17 Carriageworks Leeds
July 19 Sheffield New Barrack Tavern
July 23 Spread Eagle Croydon
July 24 Porters, Cardiff
July 25 Bedford Fringe
Aug 5 - 31  10.30pm Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Boom Chicken Soup - new comics by kids

Here are the front covers of comics produced by three groups of Year 5s at Colmore Juniors in Kings Heath, who've been kind enough to have me back a few times over the years, as well as the pupils of all ages who attended my two classes at Dorchester On Thames' festival at the weekend. Sterling stuff.

You're right, that's a higher proportion of ninjas-per-half-dozen comics than is strictly necessary. There's often a bit of suggestibility that goes on when I show them the comics by other recent groups.  Oh, and here are some of the caricatures of just a few of their faces as well.

The celebrities they chose for the "treads on a worm" (or in one case treads on a snail) demo strip were Tom Jones, Benedict Cumberbatch, Ant McPartlin, Robert Downey Jr and Lionel Messi.

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. 

Hats, buses and laminator - new props aplenty

This week has seen some new writing, recording and prop making for the Socks, along with a couple of gigs and a visit to Bodelwyddan over an extended bank holiday weekend. I'm pleased with a couple of gags, a nifty new sketch and a new song, all for Minging Detectives that we'll have to wait a while to see. Meanwhile here's a prop (see clip above) that's very much work in progress.

And ain't this a treat? I'm really hoping the song for which this prop has been made (Tie A Yellow Ribbon) works, otherwise I'll have to start writing some new bus related material. Any suggestions?


And this rather ropey video captures the moment when I used my new laminating machine (for which many thanks to Audrey and Dennis in Bod, who gave it to us as a pressie, unused and unopened, it works like a dream) for the first time, to make a prop of Walter White. Another brand new piece of material for Minging Detectives which, if it works, will be a delight. Not having so many shows this month, and those that I do have being the sort of show where you can really only do the tried and tested stuff, means that I have to wait until either next week in Keighley or the following week in Brighton before we'll know whether the new songs and sketches are as funny as I think they are, and whether the whole thing holds together as it should.



Last night's gig in Bristol, from which these selfies came, was certainly not the sort of show to test new material in. Playing on the bill at RipRoar in Bristol we were supposed to open the show, so the Socks and I got into place behind the set on the stage at about 8.20 ready to lurk behind thru the MC's set (Ben Van Der Velde, now you ask). Then, just before the start, Ben pops his head round to tell us there's been a problem with the lights and that the Socks won't be on until the middle of the show. But before I got the chance to nip out and watch the show from in front, they'd started and I was stuck in situ throughout the opening act, then the next interval, then another MC set, eventually getting to perform at 10pm. Not a bad set but not one of our best, it being hard to keep the energy up after over an hour and a half behind the set, exhausting my water bottles and not getting the chance to exercise the voice. I hate to let you in on too many tricks of the trade, keep it to yourselves eh.

And here's Saturday night's novel but enjoyable gig, playing at a 50th birthday party in Redhill in Surrey, in a marquee extending out from a couple called Emma & Tom's living room giving a nice 50 seater venue. The Socks headlined, following Anil Desai and Carey Marx, and I was away not long after 9.30. We do some interesting gigs at times.

The Socks do new material from Minging Detectives, and the best of their recent satire, on tour

May 15 Exchange Keighley
May 22 & 23 Brighton Komedia
June 25 Cheltenham
June 27 Old Joint Stock Birmingham
July 17 Carriageworks Leeds
July 19 Sheffield New Barrack Tavern
July 23 Spread Eagle Croydon
July 24 Porters, Cardiff
July 25 Bedford Fringe
Aug 5 - 31  10.30pm Gilded Balloon, Edinburgh Fringe

Predicting the 2015 election

(Written on election day, but post-dated to tomorrow in case it's me who jinxes it every time).

Anyone else get two polling cards with different variations of their name on? Just me then. I only voted once, for I am A Good Thing.

Every time I've predicted the election I've got it wrong, as this blog shows in detail.  (In brief 1983 - Labour victory, 1987 - hung parliament, 1992 - Labour landslide, 1997 - Tory victory, 2001 and 2005 - don't remember caring, 2010 - Tory clear majority.) So this year here are my guesses, written on the afternoon of the election before the polls have closed.

I voted Labour, even though this marvellous website shows we're in such a safe Tory seat it's hardly likely to make a difference.  So obviously my favoured result would be:

Labour 300, Tories 299, Lib Dems and SNP = doesn't matter.

Here are my wild card predictions:

Lib Dem will get more than predicted, I say 32
SNP will get fewer than predicted, I say 48
UKIP will get no seats and Nigel Farage will have to resign (fingers tightly crossed)
Greens will retain their one
Plaid Cymru will get 4, though I don't know what they had before. No one does.

And the majority party? Tories 280, Labour 270. And if that adds up to too many seats, that shows how good I am at maths.

Final coalition? Nick Clegg has said he'd go with the majority vote so on that basis I predict he will form another coalition with the Tories and there will be riots.

In other news Katie Hopkins will not leave the country and Ed Miliband will not resign.

There you go, let's see how right I was shall we?

Kev F, 5.29pm, Thursday May 7th 2015

UPDATE 8am: I was of course totally wrong. A Tory majority (50 seats still to declare as I type).

I can't see why we didn't predict this. Labour were always going to lose about 30 seats to the SNP, the Tories were always going to gain about 30 seats from the Lib Dems, and that's basically all that happened. There was only a 1% change between Tory & Labour, so this was obviously going to happen, yet none of us predicted it. We are all idiots.

To refute my predictions in full:

Lib Dem will get more than predicted, I say 32 = they were knocked down to 8
SNP will get fewer than predicted, I say 48 = they rocketed to 56
UKIP will get no seats and Nigel Farage will have to resign (fingers tightly crossed) = they have 1 (Nigel still to declare)
Greens will retain their one = Yes, I got one right
Plaid Cymru will get 4, though I don't know what they had before. No one does. = Still no-one cares.

Comic Art Masterclass across Scotland this August.

Attention schools & libraries! If you would like me to bring my Comic Art Masterclasses to you this summer, and you're anywhere in central Scotland, get in touch. 

 I'll be in Edinburgh from the 3rd-30th of August (doing a show every night at the Fringe) and can come to you in the day. Last year I did classes from Gourock and Greenock to Portobello (that's coast to coast, in case you wondered), so drop me a line and I'll give you the details.

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. 

What I Found In My Bargain Bucket - comics by kids (with added background noise)

Here we see some comics created by Year 9s at Woking High School. Have you ever worked with Year 9s? Then I need tell you no more. Bless their little hearts, there are plenty of diamonds in the rough. But, oo, if you're waiting for laughter and applause, you can wait a long time with a group of year 9s. Good work from all of them.

And here at the opposite end of the age scale we have comics by Year 4s at Chilcote primary in Birmingham. And an homage, apropos of noting, to the front cover of a Spider-Man comic from my childhood. In my mind I've drawn Danny out of the Bash St Kids as the Punisher in the style of Gil Kane. I may be alone in this delusion.

The celebs they chose were Megan Fox, David Beckham, Roald Dahl and David Walliams.

And this is an experience for which pictures alone can't tell the whole story. Play the clip to see and hear one of the less well-planned of this year's classes. A venue (who shall remain nameless) arranged a day of comic art masterclasses for which I'd clearly failed to brief them on my requirements. So it was that I ended up in a hall, trying to be heard by two tables full of kids while, in the background, a reggae band perform a full set at full volume on the main stage. The clip shows just how hopeless the endeavour was, and yet I persevered and, by the end of the two hours, I had a load of satisfied customers, full of praise. I now have no voice.

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.