My Comic Strip Review Of 2018

  

In the nick of time, here it is. My annual comic strip review of the year. Hope it doesn't look too maudlin in black and white. To be honest, I didn't have time to finish it in full colour so I opted for monochrome. As you can probably see, the image in the bottom right hand corner had to be changed from a picture of The Knoll, described as Mum's new home, to a picture of Mum herself, who timed it nicely and squeezes in as the final and biggest news of the year.

The last few months saw me moving out of my office of 16 years and working from home, with mountains of stuff currently in storage, at the same time as Mum was moving out of Windmill Gardens, her home for 50 years (we moved in in 1968, how perfect and anniversorial was that?), and into the Knoll care home for, it turned out, a little over four months.

The Socks had a good year, with Superheroes being another hit show at Edinburgh, followed by an interesting nine day run in Denmark doing a mixture of Superheroes and special Brexit shows. And I had another bumper year of comic art, drawing The Story of Joseph and, with Book Of Ruth and Jael Wife Of Heber, completed my Women Of The Bible book, which we should see in the new year. And, yes, I know I've said that before. Some publishers move in mysterious ways.

103 of my days were occupied delivering Comic Art Masterclasses and similar things at schools, libraries, art centres, festivals and the like all over the world. From Switzerland to the Isle Of Wight, Hannover to Dublin, and all points in between (inc all countries of the British Isles, as per, from Falkirk to Felixstowe and Enniskillen to Neath).

I can't begin to imagine how many miles I drove and flew this year, but I can only apologise to the environment. Here's the table of the big stats of the year.

	2018	‘17	‘16	‘15	‘14	‘13	‘12	‘11	‘10
School days	103	96	92	117	120	97	82	124	109
Flights (return)	15	21	14	7	14	18	12	23	?
Socks shows	54	36	65	55	71	76	110	64	?
Caricature gigs	0	3	6	7	8	20	8	13	?
Nights away	tbc	66	90	90	79	74	123	?	?
Socks videos	50	25	56	41	37	55	81	36	79

As for the year to come, all we know is it begins with a funeral on January 9th, after which surprises galore await I'm sure.

Happy New Year when it comes!

Kev F Dec 31st 2018

My Comic Strips reviews of past years:

2017 .  • .  2016 .  • .  2015 .  •   2014 .  • .  2013

2012   • .  2011 .  • .  2010

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.