This week's had a bit of everything in it, the most pleasant of which has been writing and drawing a three page strip for the newly-Kickstartered Wallop comic - Space Elain.
I've whipped out the red space suit and rocket pants for their third (or maybe fourth) outing, this time being worn by Space Elain (her surname's an anagram of alien) who has adventures in space and wakes up at the end. Yes, I've done Little Nemo in space. Keen eyed fans of my work will recognise the suit, helmet and jet pack from its last appearance in Hot Rod Cow, and its first time around as the outfit worn by Plug in a series of strips called Rocket Pants in The Beano and Beano Max. I mention a fourth incarnation, as the Plug strip began life as an unpublished pitch to Red Dwarf Smegazine, Robbie Rocket Pants. There may be nothing new under the sun, there's certainly nothing all that new when I'm coming up with humour strip ideas.
The script for this one is totally new and I'm sweetly pleased with it. Scripting and pencilling was done between Monday afternoon and Tuesday night, inking completed on Wednesday. Lettering and colouring still to do.
On Thursday night the Socks did their first 5 minute open mic slot in over a decade, I think. We guested in Frenzy Comedy's New Material Night and, I think, went pretty well. Here,
it's on Youtube, judge for yourselves.
It's hard keeping it down to five minutes. We'd planned a set that included a string of gags, Walk On The Wild Side, then rounded off with the Hose routine from Shakespeare. We got as far as Wild Side and our five minutes was up. Good laughs, and kind words afterwards.
Zoom comedy club gigs have an odd dynamic, I found. Whereas the Socks get away with their shtick online by directing the set ups and punchlines at each other, them breaking the fourth wall to talk aside to the audience, stand ups have to direct it all out at the crowd. Which, last night, found the problem of the MC's rhetorical questions being taken as conversation, so punters were actually replying to things like "so who's been down the shops lately?" and replying in full, rather denying the comic the chance to get on with their material. That's a problem you don't get in a club. A Zoom show is like a club where every punter's brought their own microphone.
We have one more guest lined up, at Mortified Comedy, and want to get some more, especially at London clubs. For years it's been unfeasible to do open mikes, what with the travelling and the lack of pay, not to mention the rigmarole of putting up the Socks' set for so short a time on stage. (When the set up and take down is three times as long as the gig, it really doesn't seem worth it.) But for Zoom gigs, nothing could be easier. Bring em on.
The past week and a bit has included not only three Comic Art Masterclass days and Tilly & James's excellent Burns Night Zoom party (above), but also a guest slot for The Socks on Dean Friedman's Groundhog Day show. We attempted a second stab at John Cage's 4'33", having failed to record it in our Burns Night show, but this time our mistake was to forget to tell all the audience to unmute. They're used to being muted during Dean's song so stayed largely silent through our routine. So it fell flat and still doesn't give us a clip worth sharing. We'll have another go sometime.
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