Bart's Bottom - new comics by kids from Yorkshire to Windermere

This must be the furthest travelled between classes in one day: the morning session was in Windermere in the Lake District, and the afternoon session in South Bristol. The morning was, of course, virtual, and the afternoon session was in real life.

Threshfield in North Yorkshire was, however, a real life in-person visit, and the furthest I've driven for 18 months. A four and a half hour drive and an overnight stay, all paid for courtesy of the wonderful Grassington Festival, who'll be having me back again in a fortnight.

Boyle & Petyt Primary in Beamsley had the same number of pupils as yesterday's Threshfield, but instead of squeezing them into one class of 34, divided them up into two groups. Twice the comics, that's all good by me. The comics on this visit have been my favourites for ages. I find it much more stimulating to be creating the covers in the classroom. Somehow Zoom or virtual classes lass a little stimulus in that way, I guess cos the kids can't really see what I'm drawing as I draw it.

The celebrities these 6 groups (Thunder Chicken is from the class I did at Clevedon Literary Festival two weekends ago) chose to appear in my demonstration strip were George Washington, Thomas Brodie Sangster, Taylor Swift, Dwayne The Rock Johnson, Donald Trump, and Marshmello (a Youtuber, I'm told).

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who, and graphic novels adapted from Shakespeare, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He is the host of the podcast Comic Cuts The Panel Show. 

Socks do Beat The Frog & a garden party

Well, last night's journey to the Frog & Bucket was worth doing, just to get out there and experience doing gigs, but sadly The Socks couldn't grab the audience's attention.

We were 6th on the bill of competing new acts, each trying to last 5 minutes before being gonged off (by three audience members who got to hold up cards if they didn't like the act). Three acts before us had been gonged off, and two had lasted the whole 5 mins, none had been that bad or that great.

We came on after an interval, so I'd had time to erect the set and be ready sat on stage for the start of the set. Then, when he introduced us, I was doing the set without music (which would have been too complicated) so I go on cold, with my "20th Century Fox" sign and me just singing the music. Then when the first Sock says "hello" we get no reaction at all. That's never a good sign. We get nothing for "shit he's got a guitar", nothing for the quick costume change. We really were not grabbing their interest, and when that happens I'm really not sure what to do. I ploughed on with our best opening material, but when a room is thinking "what's this nonsense?" rather than "ha ha what's this nonsense?" you can really feel it's going nowhere.

Although we got good laughs from parts of the room for some funny lines, all in all they just weren't a Socks crowd, and after about 2 minutes the three cards had gone up and we were off. We got probably our biggest laughs from me then having to sidle off stage with the set, remaining unseen.

As I was packing up backstage I heard all 4 acts after me getting gonged off too, so the audience were just in that kind of mood. The plus side was I didn't have to stay to the end of the show and got back to my hotel by about 11.30.

As I type this it's Tuesday morning, and I'm looking forward to a 50 minute drive to my school near Grassington, a day of classes, and a four and a half hour drive home. It's good to be back on the road again.

In contrast, just two nights earlier on Saturday the Socks played Zion Arts in Bristol for their 10th birthday party. It was a garden party, we were on at 7pm, we were following an avant garde pop act who sang in Japanese, and we absolutely stormed it. We did half an hour, opening (with proper music cues) pretty much exactly to how we opened the Frog & Bucket. Only at Zion they were amused from the start, thought we looked and sounded funny, then found everything we said funny. We interacted, we got bigger and bigger laughs as the time rolled on, and before you could believe half an hour had passed, they'd had the "TV Ariel" routine, the I'm A Sock song, Ship In A Bottle, Earth Song, The Magic Routine, and for the first time in ages Star Wars, which went so well I shall be resurrecting it for future shows (I'd done it for the previous night's 20 minute set for Wollaton Arts Festival, which also was a stormer, and which turned out to be on Zoom, I discovered the day before, having been all set to drive to Nottingham for it!).

So, for the record, the last three Socks gigs of June were a storming 20 minutes online (a paid gig by the way), a storming 30 minutes out doors (an even bigger paid gig), and a poorly received 2 minutes in a comedy club (unpaid). On balance we're actually doing rather well.

July 2 - Lichfield Garrick
Jul 3 - Theatre Shop Clevedon 

July 24 - Bedfringe 

Aug 1 - Jul 4 - Derby Bar One 
Sept 3 - Whitchurch Comedy Fest
Sept 4 - Stourbridge Comedy Fest

Sept 17 - Bridport Arts (Shakespeare)

Oct 5 - Old Joint Stock

Oct 8 - Ropery Hall Barton

Comic Cuts episodes 13 to 16 + a trailer

Easily the most laugh-filled Comic Cuts recording came this week with the recording of episode 13 which, spookily, goes out on Friday 13th of August. It was Adam Roche of The Secret History Of Hollywood's contribution that did it. I recorded four shows in a day (Tues Jun22nd) then took the next two days to edit them.  

Aug 13 - Adam Roche & Hannah Berry https://www.buzzsprout.com/1788415/8761565 

 

Aug 20 - Rachael Smith & Paul Kerensa https://www.buzzsprout.com/1788415/8761578 

Aug 27 - Nerine Skinner & Steve Noble https://www.buzzsprout.com/1788415/8761597 

Sept 3 - Bennett Arron & Susan Murray https://www.buzzsprout.com/1788415/8761614 

Comic Cuts on Buzzsprout

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Comic Cuts on Amazon Music

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who, and graphic novels adapted from Shakespeare, 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.  

Piggy The Biggy - comics by kids, online and for real

 

After a bit of a break from schools, during which I've gone a bit bonkers in the production of my new podcast, thanks to my inability to stand idle for five minutes, in the past week I've returned to Comic Art Masterclasses with a vengeance. This one, with Stockton libraries, was the only one squeezed into the latest half term (in contrast to February's half term, when there was one every day. This time, with schools back, the online classes aren't so vital to everyone. This, however, was one such).

It was the greatest delight to be doing classes with the International School in Hannover again. I was scheduled to fly there in April 2020, which obviously didn't happen, and I recently learned that the teacher who'd had me in, Kathryn Eagle, is moving on, so these really didn't look like happening. But lo, she appeared with the good news that they'd found the money and the time, and two days of Zoom classes went ahead, with years 6 and 7.

A novel feature of these days meant that, with a combination of their German time table, and the time zone difference, I started the classes at 7.30am and was finished by midday. A whole day's classes in what feels like half a day. 

Don't tell everybody, but these two days of Zoom classes also worked out way more profitable than travelling in person. Because my day rate has gone up since my last visit in 2019, the total on my invoice for these two days was just £90 less than a two day visit back then. Despite the 2019 visit including flights, airport parking, train into town, and a hotel! And, of course, involving an extra day's travelling. I could do more of these Zoom gigs to international schools, I do hope they'll continue.

That said, I love travelling to these schools in far flung locations, especially Hannover which has one of the best art galleries I've ever visited. I like having an excuse to go to these places, however not-quite cost-effective it might make things.

A bit of travelling that I certainly didn't mind was making my first return visit to Ruskin Juniors in Swindon since 2019. I've been going there every year since at least 2011, possibly longer, teaching the Year 6s. And, stop press, they've already booked me for 2022!

I'm still not taking these real life school visits for granted, as everything's still not quite back to normal. Just this week the relaxation of rules got set back a month, so my scheduled visit to the London Film & Comic Con in July has been cancelled (or rather the whole event has, I'm not really the headline in the story). But it's starting to feel normal, and I'm happy to say I'm loving it. Real laughter, photocopied comics for the kids, listening to podcasts on the journey. This is what we want.

The celebrities these eight groups chose to star in my demonstration strip were Ariana Grande (twice), Bill Gates, Lionel Messi, Albert Einstein, Elvis Presley, Kim Kardashian, and Michael Jackson.

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who, and graphic novels adapted from Shakespeare, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He is the host of the podcast Comic Cuts The Panel Show. 

Back on stage, and back on the flipchart

The Socks made their return to the live stage this week! Their first stage gig since they played a birthday party in Margate in February 2020, the Socks headlined Widcombe Social Club in Bath, on a bill with Danny Buckler and Mandy Muden, and Chelsea Birkby. Haven't seen Danny and Mandy since they were in the 2002 Edinburgh Sitcom Trials performing, as Danny remembered and I'd long forgotten, I See Dead People, written by Jovanka Steele. But I digress. Mandy was en route to another gig that Danny was driving her to, so she grabbed 5 minutes extra stage time by warming up the show and introducing him.

The Socks did a 25 minute headline set and it went brilliantly. Getting good laughs from crowd work to begin with, then giving them I'm A Sock, An Actor Prepare, Earth Song, Magic, and ending with Walk On The Wild Side. A joy to do. Biggest thanks to Nick Steel for giving us the perfect comeback gig after a year on Zoom.

To be strictly accurate, Friday in Bath wasn't the Socks very first live gig. By way of a warm up, we played a 10 minute sat an an open mic night at Cloak & Dagger in Bristol on Wednesday. A very different environment from Widcombe Social Club, this was a mixed night including music and poetry, without an MC, and we opened the night cold, in broad daylight, at 8pm, to a room of about fifteen people. But we got away with it, getting great laughs from the Magic routine, and passable response to the rest of what we did. 

I didn't bring any music with me, just stand-up material, so it was flatter with less impact than we usually have. I think I was echoing the simplicity of the many Zoom open mics we've done this year, where our pure talking heads made all the impression that was needed. I realise that, live, so many of our routines benefit from the musical punchline, so I won't be doing 'musicless' Socks appearances again in a hurry. Also 5 minutes on Zoom is a lot shorter than 5 minutes in real life where you become very aware if you've not heard a laugh for ten seconds. Which is what it's all about, and why I needed to break myself in with a warm up gig like this. It really helped prepare for Friday's headline slot in Bath.

In the same weekend that the Socks returned to the stage, I returned to the flipchart, giving my first public Comic Art Masterclass (outside of a school) since March 2020 (that was at Baldock Arts Centre, now you're asking). And it was easy to get to, being in Clevedon.

As part of Clevedon Literary Festival, I did a sold out masterclass to 30 kids, in the Princes Hall bar, after which I unfurled my new pop-up banner for the first time and sat behind a table with my books and comics. I sold out of Captain Clevedons, and came within one copy of running out of the Prince Of Denmark Streets I'd brought with me, ending up selling a satisfying £130 worth of my work. My iZettle card reader got its first use in two years, proving dizzyingly simple to use. Bring on those comic conventions, I'm ready for you all!

On the flipchart I wheeled out a new version of Captain Clevedon, which is how I envisage her looking if I ever get round to producing a second issue. I'm not sure the "mankini" costume, that I originally designed way back in 1994,  looks any less dodgy on a female figure than a male. Also, though CC did a roaring trade and sold out in Clevedon, I doubt it'll do similar business anywhere else on the planet!

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who, and graphic novels adapted from Shakespeare, 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.  He is the host of the podcast Comic Cuts The Panel Show. 

Comic Cuts episodes 9 to 12

I'm happy to announce the next four episodes of Comic Cuts The Podcast, episodes nine to twelve (see previous episodes here)

July 16 - Dean Friedman and Juliet Meyers bring in panels from an American underground legend and a twist of one of the most famous newspaper strips of all time.

July 23 - Brian Bolland and Rianne Rowlands bring in panels from an overlooked Silver Age artist and a colourful comedy horror.

July 30 - Metaphrog's Sandra Marrs and John Chalmers bring in panels from adaptations of two classic novels into equally classic-worthy graphic novels.

August 6 - Juliette Burton and Gary Northfield bring in panels from an outstanding current British cartoonist and a less well known North American indie artist.

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Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who, and graphic novels adapted from Shakespeare, 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.  

Comic Cuts - episodes 3 to 8

I'm happy to announce the next 6 episodes of Comic Cuts - The Panel Show podcast, which will be coming out every Friday at midday.

June 4 - Peter Hogan & Bethany Black bring in panels from an uncharacteristic comic by a legendary US artist, and the most exciting new superhero of recent times.

June 11 - Louise Leigh & Ashley Storrie bring in panels from a new Scottish indie comic, and a fondly remembered nursery title.

June 18 - Jessica Martin & Wil Hodgson bring in panels from a title of mystery and magic, and an imaginary story (but aren't they all?)

June 25 - Nigel Auchterlounie & Laura Howell bring in panels from a classic underground comic, and a surprising British horror story.

July 2 - Jaleelah Galbraith & Okse bring in panels from a classic British girls title, and a legendary superhero graphic novel.

July 9 - Laura Watton & David Leach bring in panels from a multi-million selling 1970s manga, and one of Britain's most famous cartoonists of all time.

Guests have been lined up for the next four shows, being recorded next week. Stay tuned for news. Subscribe to Comic Cuts to be sure of getting every episode when it comes out, wherever you get your podcasts from.

Comic Cuts on Buzzsprout

Comic Cuts on Apple Podcasts

Comic Cuts on Spotify

Comic Cuts on Amazon Music

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing for The Beano, Marvel, Doctor Who, and graphic novels adapted from Shakespeare, 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.