My Comic Strip Review Of The Year 2022

A very interesting year, but then aren't they all? This year we moved house, after thirty years in the same place, and I have to say that's dominated the year in a way most activities don't. My comic strip sums up most of it, and it's only fair that Hev takes an equal share of the strip this year, because a house is a 50/50 thing, on which she's done way more work than me. I, for my part, just seem to have done less of my actual usual work, as the table below suggests.

The house moved happened, at quite short notice in the end, on March 3rd, after our old flat had supposedly been bought way back in August, and we'd put in the offer on the Chepstow house. The first sale fell through on December 23rd but very very luckily our estate agent had a new buyer waiting in the wings, and we were sold again before Christmas. But by the end of February, when we were on the very brink of our mortgage offer running out, we still hadn't moved and were worried we never might. We did.

Hev has done so much work on the new house, you wouldn't believe it. Not that we haven't had to cough out for some expensive professional work as well. This house had no central heating when we arrived, as well as no broadband or phone line, no TV aerial, and there were holes in the roof. The scaffolding to fix that last part only came down a week before Christmas. We have a new kitchen, which is nice. We still have many many more things to work on.

Yes, the DVD watching section of the year was fun, as were the constant visits from BT Broadband and Open Reach, neither of whom could manage to bring the right things with them. The telegraph pole right outside our house has, you see, no steps up it. So you need a cherry picker to attach a line to it. Two months that took. I'm well aware that it's been hard either to boast or to complain about your new place, the war in Ukraine having started the very week we moved, and we know how lucky we are to have this place. One quaint ritual I have is, whenever I have a bottle of beer, I use the golf club shaped bottle opener that always lived in the drawer at Kibworth, raise it high and thank Mum and Dad for the house (it was the sale of their house in 2019 that made it possible for us to buy this).

The year's biggest disappointment was the Scottish Falsetto Socks' appearance on Britain's Got Talent. We had a smashing day in January filming it, doing great interview pieces all day, and being on top comedy form. Then we did our two minutes on stage, got buzzed off, and looked forward to watching our moment of ritual humiliation on ITV in the Spring. And it never came. Why we ended up on the cutting room floor I'll never know. Luckily our short run at Edinburgh sold marvellously regardless, and was blessed with the best weather we've ever seen up there. We even got four 4 star reviews, which is more than we manage after a full month's run most years.

Tadpole there, telling you how busy I have or haven't been. Fewer days in schools than most years, but that's because the house really demanded a lot of attention, which was hard to avoid. The various Comic and Book Festivals were good, especially LFCC in London, and the Lake District. 

One thing I've not mentioned is the comic strips, because I really didn't draw any. I completed the 6 page Enigma Variations in January, and just received my printed version of it, in the Spitfire annual, this week. But I don't get paid for that. I did a couple of pages of strips that appeared in the Kirknewton history comic, for which I did get paid, and again finished that before we moved house. But compared to 2020's three graphic novels, and the Comic Tales From The Bible that I got the rights to self-publish this year, all drawn between 2013 and 2018, 2022 was a comic-drawing-free year.

The garden has been one of the many delights of the new house. It's a total suntrap which, in this record-breakingly hot summer, was a treat. We threw our first garden party, and took full advantage of it while the weather allowed. We hope to continue doing so.

The packing boxes! You would not believe. I've sold over 120 of the heavy duty ones the removal men supplied, over on eBay, and there's as many again coming out of the unit. We still haven't emptied the unit, though at the beginning of December I did move from a 100 sq ft unit to a new 50 sq ft unit, which will save some money. Got to get rid of stuff on eBay in the new year. Anyone want a lifetime collection of Q and Empire magazines?

I also didn't mention the Colouring Books, my publishing empire which reached a peak early in the year, then went a bit sour at the end. The sour part was having my Amazon KDP account closed, for reasons I still don't know, at the start of November. I'm appealing but not hopeful. Before that, according to my totals at the end of October, I sold over 700 colouring books this year, and was on target to keep growing. I now sell them on Etsy and, in December, have sold 30 books. Not as many as Amazon, or as simple as KDP's print on demand (I have to physically post all the Etsy copies myself), but it's something. Let's see how we get on with the crime novels in 2023.

Happy New Year when it comes, everyone

My Comic Strip Review of 2021

My Review of 2020

My Review of 2019

2018  • . 2017 .  • .  2016 .  • .  2015 .  •   2014 .  • .  2013

2012   • .  2011 .  • .  2010

My Books and where to get them:

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy 
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 

Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Lulu

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy 

Eurovision Colouring Vol 1 - Amazon -  Lulu  - Etsy 
Eurovision Colouring Vol 2 - Amazon  - Lulu  - Etsy 

Eurovision Colouring Best Of British - Amazon
Doctor Who Colouring - Amazon - Lulu  - Etsy 
Punk Colouring - Amazon  - Lulu  - Etsy 
70s Pop Star Colouring - Amazon  - Lulu  - Etsy 
60s Pop Star Colouring - Amazon  - Lulu  - Etsy 

Scottish Pop Star Colouring - Amazon

NB: Etsy editions are signed and posted by me, and generally cheaper

The Goes Wrong Show strip I forgot I drew

 At the start of the year I was commissioned to write and draw a strip for the Goes Wrong Show, to appear as part of a charity event of some sort. I got paid for it and heard no more about it. Did anyone see it at any time? Well, here it is for your pleasure.

Happy New Year

(Kev F's graphic novels)

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy 
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 

Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - tbc

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy (signed)

Eurovision Colouring Vol 1 - Amazon -  Lulu £10.94 - Etsy £6.99
Eurovision Colouring Vol 2 - Amazon £15.32 - Lulu £10.72 - Etsy £6.99

Eurovision Colouring Best Of British - Amazon
Doctor Who Colouring - Amazon £11.84 - Lulu £9.98 - Etsy £6.99
Punk Colouring - Amazon £15.61 - Lulu £10.98 - Etsy £6.99
70s Pop Star Colouring - Amazon £10.98 - Lulu £10.98 - Etsy £6.99
60s Pop Star Colouring - Amazon £12.69 - Lulu £10.98 - Etsy £6.99

Launching Lady Lucy on the world

 It'll be happening in 2023. In the meantime, here are some logos for linking purposes...

By george, she's only been and got herself a new website - HKBerwick.com

And a mailing list, or Reading Group if you prefer.

And we can't tell nobody. So please, if you're sharing anything about HK Berwick and the Lady Lucy books, don't say who's behind them just yet.

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy 
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 

Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - Lulu

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy 

Eurovision Colouring Vol 1 - Amazon -  Lulu  - Etsy 
Eurovision Colouring Vol 2 - Amazon  - Lulu  - Etsy 

Eurovision Colouring Best Of British - Amazon
Doctor Who Colouring - Amazon - Lulu  - Etsy 
Punk Colouring - Amazon  - Lulu  - Etsy 
70s Pop Star Colouring - Amazon  - Lulu  - Etsy 
60s Pop Star Colouring - Amazon  - Lulu  - Etsy 

Scottish Pop Star Colouring - Amazon

NB: Etsy editions are signed and posted by me, and generally cheaper

Progress with those crime novels

 I've been banging on for a long time now about these crime novels I was going to write. Ever since Tony Lee gave me The Talk back in September 2021, about how much money these was to be made if you write a series of crime novels and release them on Amazon KDP. At that stage he looked like he was about to make £20,000 in a month. 

So I stared, first by plotting a novel about an insurance claims adjuster who goes around stumbling upon crimes, Underwriter Hogg. In my imagination I cast David Mitchell in the lead, and I wrote quite a detailed plot for it. Then I got distracted, most likely by producing colouring books, which were easier to make, and started selling instantly. By November 2022 I'd sold over a thousand quid's worth of them on Amazon, as detailed here.

Sadly, what happened about a week after I wrote that blog, on Nov 9 2022, was that Amazon closed my KDP account, and banned me from opening another, which didn't bode well for the crime novels. Which was a shame, because I was well into writing them.

Following the first attempted plotted novel, which I did in October 2021 then went cold on, I had another stab in Feb 2022, doing what they called Pantstering. That is making it up as you go along. And I was doing pretty well, with a thing called Dead Sitting Room, which starred Detective Inspector Macduff (modelled on the version of Macduff who appears in my adaptation of Macbeth). I got up to 24,000 words when, after a long wait and at short notice, we moved house. 

We moved on March 3rd and, what with one thing and another (the house, school visits, and Socks gigs culminating in the Edinburgh Fringe in August) I didn't manage to even look at any crime writing again until September.

At the start of September, Hev and I started comparing notes, and we came up with the premise for a cosy historical detective series based partly on her research on the Victorian theatre. We devised some characters together, brainstormed some ideas, then I got stuck into the grunt work of writing the damn things.

We started busking ideas on September 13th, and by September 21st I'd completed a first draft of a thing I was calling Murder At Her Majesty's, though a draft that was only 20,000 words long. I pressed on, and by November 1st had completed a second draft that was now up to 48,734 words.

I left it there to settle and come back to, and embarked upon a second book in the series, Dead Man's Jest. This time I used NaNoWriMo as inspiration. In two days I'd written 8000 words. By 8th December I'd completed a first draft, which stands at 53,000 words. 

Now I have two books, each about 50,000 words long, that I'm going to go back to and turn both into 70,000 word complete stories. I'd like to launch the first in January if I can. Of course launching is the big deal, and I've spent a long time down the rabbit hole that is 20BooksTo50K, the Facebook group of people who are making the big money doing this. (I checked in with Tony Lee, by the way, who seems to have earned half a million quid in a year by doing this. Now to see how difficult that is to emulate).

The first part I want to get right, publicity wise, is the front cover. At the top of this blog you can see my first draft version. I set a house style which I was quite happy with, and drafted covers for all six of the books I'd loosely dreamed up...

But I wasn't sure about these covers. Firstly I didn't think the titles and lettering style were clear enough. Also, I was unsure they chimed with the expected style that tells a reader it's a "cosy" crime novel, in the mould of Richard Osman or Agatha Raisin (or whoever we choose to be our "comp authors", just one of those many 20Books bits of jargon, meaning writers to whom you compare your work). Thirdly I was unhappy about these covers because I'd used an AI programme to create the images. And, in the last month or so, AI has become the bete noire of the comic art community, and its use is frowned upon. So I had another go at a design...

The type was clearer and more readable, it includes an image of Hev herself. But was it the right tone? Further research suggested we really needed to be looking at a white background and a simpler, starker colour palette, which led me to the latest design...

Work in progress, but I think we're getting there. Now, two novels need completing, shaping into 70,000 words each, of the most riveting crime fiction you ever read, and I have to get my head around how you market this stuff. Let us see how 2023 goes, shall we?

(Kev F's graphic novels)

Findlay Macbeth - paperback - ebook

Prince of Denmark Street - paperback - ebook

The Midsummer Nights Dream Team - paperback - ebook

Comic Tales From The Bible - paperback - ebook

Eurovision Colouring Book

TV OF THE YEAR 2022 - My Top 10

 It's purely my personal choice, don't take it too seriously. I'm betting you didn't see half these shows, and you've got your own list which is totally different to mine. So be it. we've already looked at..

Shows that Lost It, weren't any good, or I See The Title I Forget The Show
My Top TV of 2022, 40 to 21
My Top TV of 2022, 20 to 11

Here comes my TV OF THE YEAR 2022 - The Top 10

10 - This Is Going To Hurt

Adam Kay should be very pleased to find himself being played by Ben Wishaw. This adaptation went more from drama than comedy, probably because it's only doctors who find this gruesome stuff funny, or have to laugh or else they'll kill themselves. A fascinating insight into the world of medicine that should put anyone off ever becoming a doctor ever again.

9 - She Hulk Attorney At Law

The amount of money Marvel spend on these shows, I'm delighted to find that the only one to make my top ten was the one that cost the least. It's all about good writing, and this comedy managed to get it right from the start. I confess I'd never read the comics, She Hulk arriving just as I was growing out of Marvel comics. But if they ever manage to do Howard The Duck as satisfyingly as they did this, then childhood me will be very happy.

8 - The Outlaws 2

For the second series to be as good, or even better, than the first, appearing so swiftly after it, is quite remarkable. A comedy drama series set in Bristol never deserved to be this good.

7 - Derry Girls 3

A fabulous end to this exceptional series. A comedy with all new actors from an all new writer, covering subjects that hadn't been touched before, and managing to be serious as well as laugh out loud funny. One of television's best comedies ever, history will record.

6 - Your Honor

One of those nice finds that comes up, on Now TV I think, that nobody'd told you about and you took a punt on. Adapted, interestingly, from an Israeli TV series, it builds fabulously from its inciting moment through twists that you never see coming, to a great end. A hidden gem.

5 = Ghosts 4
5 = Ghosts US

Two very different takes on the same show. The original UK team delivered 6 excellent episodes, getting the comedy spot on, and managing to mine the drama and pathos beautifully. I was originally critical of the US remake, which is inevitably in a different style, but with its 18 episodes to play with, it's very much become its own thing. The UK is still best, as watching old episodes reminds you every time, but the US series would be a favourite even if it were the only one.

4 - Inventing Anna

It's interesting to find true stories take up four of my top ten shows, and 3 of my top 4, this year. I guess, when they're done well, they can be stranger than fiction. The story of Anna Delvey wasn't one that I'd heard before, and its glimpse under the lid of New York society is fun. You're still left wondering about the motives and/or gullibility of most people involved.

3 - The Devil's Hour

This shouldn't have worked. Indeed, in Inside Man, this show's executive producer Steven Moffat took tropes from this show and made total nonsense of them. But this was remarkable. From a new writer, Tom Moran, you get a story which you think is one thing, then it turns out to be something else.

2 - Maid

Based on a true memoir of a single mum who worked as a maid, you wouldn't think there was much to happen here. And then everything does. Just one of the shows in my chart that includes incredible child acting, this also has the novel spin of the lead actor and the woman who plays her mum, being real life daughter and mum, Margaret Qualley and Andie McDowell.

1 - Pistol

I was totally drawn in by this retelling of the Sex Pistols story. Even though the casting as unlikely in so many cases (though I love Johnny and Malcolm, most are far too pretty), and they story plays fast and loose with the truth (Chrissie Hynde didn't, it seems, play as big a part as is shown, for example), still I have a romantic attachment to the period and mythos (my own Prince Of Denmark Street is, of course, set at the same place and time) and loved this from start to finish. John Lydon felt very differently about it, as you'd expect.

So there we have my TV of the year. What was yours? I'm on Twitter and Facebook if you want to share.

My TV Of The Year 2021

My Top TV Of 2020

My Top TV of... 2019   2018 •  2017 • 2016 • 2015 • 2014 • 2013 • 2011 • 2009

My Books and where to get them:

Findlay Macbeth - Amazon  - Etsy 
Prince Of Denmark Street - Amazon - Etsy 
Midsummer Nights Dream Team  - Amazon - Etsy 

Shakespeare Omnibus Collection (all 3 books) - tbc

Tales From The Bible - Amazon -  Etsy (signed)

Eurovision Colouring Vol 1 - Amazon -  Lulu £10.94 - Etsy £6.99
Eurovision Colouring Vol 2 - Amazon £15.32 - Lulu £10.72 - Etsy £6.99

Eurovision Colouring Best Of British - Amazon
Doctor Who Colouring - Amazon £11.84 - Lulu £9.98 - Etsy £6.99
Punk Colouring - Amazon £15.61 - Lulu £10.98 - Etsy £6.99
70s Pop Star Colouring - Amazon £10.98 - Lulu £10.98 - Etsy £6.99
60s Pop Star Colouring - Amazon £12.69 - Lulu £10.98 - Etsy £6.99