After quite a while in waiting, two of my self-published comics have been been, well, published. Printed by Ka-Pow and available through Indy Planet, my highwaywoman comic Sinnerhound and my space-cow comedy Hot Rod Cow is now available for you to have, hold, read and treasure. Click the ad to see the teaser and buy if you want.
Sinnerhound costs $3.50 (that's just £2.17) and Hot Rod Cow is just $1.99, which is as cheap as a comic can get, ain't it?
Hope you enjoy them. If we ever sell any, you never know, I might do some more.
NB: For my own records, here are the costs (having taken delivery of my first printed batch of comics)
Sinnerhound (24 pages, no ad on back cover), 10 copies ($19.31) + postage ($17.06)
= $36.37 = £22.14. So that's £2.14 per copy. Selling at IndyPlanet for £3.50
Hot Rod Cow (12 pages, ad on back cover), 40 copies ($50.40) + postage (£19.02)
= $69.42 = £42.46. So that's £1.06 per copy. Selling at Indyplanet for $1.99
     
Hi Socks fans
Three top gigs in a row coming up, if you know anybody who could make it to them please spread the word.
Thurs May 12th (tonight) The Lowry, Salford
Friday May 13th, The Victoria Theatre Halifax
Saturday May 14th Chorley Little Theatre
Hoping these will be as big as our gigs last weekend at Brighton Fringe, a ★★★★ 4 star review in Latest 7 of which you can read here. "Darn it he's good" is not a bad quote, but sadly I won't be using it, as I hate anyone referring to me rather than "them" ie the Socks.
Meanwhile Facebook have made us move our group to the new group here.
You'll need to rejoin it to stay in touch. So far 137 out of 1127 have made the move, please join the throng when you can.
See you there or somewhere soon, all the best
The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre
  
I live in England. Not just any England. I live in M&S England. Okay, North Somerset. So, I'm afraid the SNP's not an option in the local council election we just had today. (I orginally wrote this in response to Mark Millar's column about why he's voting SNP). In fact nothing's ever been much of an option where I live because I'm a left wing liberal and I live in one of the safest Tory seats in the country. Liam Fox is our MP. For all the years I've been eligible to vote, my vote has never counted, because I've always lived in a safe Tory constituency, as a student, in my parent's house, then in Leicester now down near Bristol. So the first bit of my voting today was easy. Yes to AV. I know it's a halfway house, it's not full PR. But as someone whose vote has never counted and has always been thrown into a big bin with the spoiled ballots and the hanging chads (okay, we don't have hanging chads, but I like to picture them there in the big bin, it makes it seem less lonely), any move which is likely to make my vote count just an iota more can only be a good thing. People like me, Labour voters in rural England, are like Tory voters in Scotland, or Green voters anywhere. We want something that'll make us feel like we count. And we know we'll lose and be ignored. Yet still we vote. I think we might be mental.  These are the Socks. They play Farnham tomorrow and Brighton at the weekend. Come.The next part of my vote was harder, who should I pick for the local council election? Last time I voted it was the General Election and we were all disappointed by our Labour government and, godammit, it looked like these spunky little Lib Dems might just make some sort of difference. So, throwing caution to the wind, I voted Lib Dem for the first time ever. Okay, I know now. Liam Fox increased his majority in my constituency which just adds insult to the injury of my vote which now looks so craven, twattish, and even more pointless than all my previous wasted votes. So today, bouyed up by their excellent "Stand Up" Election Broadcast, I went along today deciding to vote Green. The choices on my ballot were Tory or Labour. Sigh. Kev F
The question debated on the Guardian blog today is: Is Doctor Who now too scary for children? Me drawing The Silence & Dr Who stuff for kids at school in Wiltshire last weekA few interesting points and arguments are made, including: Pete May (Thinks Who is too scary): "In the Jon Pertwee and Tom Baker eras, there was a clearer realisation that the monsters were men in rubber suits."
"Sometimes you just yearn for aliens invading a home counties quarry, and a simple good versus evil plot"Michael Hann (No, it's not): "Doctor Who's great gift has been to introduce generations of kids to dread, with the safety net of knowing, first, that the Doctor and his assistants will prevail, one way or another; and second, that the fear will pass in less than an hour."
"today's monsters are creepier than the Daleks, but so what? The Hammer version of Dracula was terrifying once, but now it's about as unsettling as Anne of Green Gables."I fall squarely in the Yes but No but camp. That is to say I think Doctor Who is very scary so far this series, but I think that is A Good Thing, and I think the kids can take it. A few fears were raised in my mind by various blogs, postings, tweets and articles, not least Si Spencer pointing out in a thread on my Facebook page that episode 2 Day Of The Moon opened with two lead characters in a kids TV show being shot at point blank range by a man from the CIA with a gun, then being dragged off in body bags - at 6pm on a Saturday. I have to confess that I had not stopped to think just how upsetting that could be if you're a seven year old. Or possibly even worse if you're the parent of a seven year old. But my fears have been allayed after two days teaching my Comic Art Masterclasses in Oxfordshire and Swindon. I brought up Saturday's Doctor Who with the kids who, on Tuesday, were year 5 (age 9-10) and on Monday ranged from age 7 to 14. To my delight, two thirds of every class had watched the show and all had enjoyed it. They all had me draw a Silence on the flipchart (I'd brought a picture on my iPod in preparation) and were au fait with the storyline and its ins and outs. One 9 year old joked that, when I flipped the flipchart page over, we'd all forget what I'd drawn.  You can just about make out my drawing of the Silence from this photo in yesterday's Oxford Mail.But as for the potentially disturbing stuff, it either went right over their heads or didn't bother them. The heroes getting shot at the beginning was the least of their problems because, very simply, they all came back to life before the opening credits. The very definition of a "safe scare", it wouldn't have mattered how extreme it got, as long as the scare is resolved clearly and quickly, the kids don't seem to cast their mind back to it again. As for the "grown up" stuff that might be hard for parents to explain, ie River & the Doctor snogging, and Amy being pregnant or not, these either made the kids go "uurgh", as all talk of such romantic things do to almost all kids till they reach puberty (at which stage they either grow up fast and drop Doctor Who like a stone or turn into a geek who'll find Doctor Who more interesting than snogging for a bit longer, sometimes too long) or they just didn't care. And the proper mysterious bits in Day Of The Moon? Frances Barber looking through a hole in a door and saying "no, she's just dreaming"? And the girl at the end who's dying but it's alright then she regenerates? Those were just plain brilliant, exciting the kids' minds and keeping them exchanging ideas and talking about the show until next week. Next week which has pirates in, which there's a danger of them finding a bit juvenile. So my tiny bit of anecdotal evidence suggests Doctor Who is not too scary for kids, it's just the sort of scary they like. And lest we forget, the show's been worse in the past. The Deadly Assassin starring Tom Baker was pounced on by Mary Whitehouse's Viewers & Listeners Association, criticising the cliffhanger where the Doctor has his head held underwater by the bad guy. Whitehouse wrote: “The programme contains some of the sickest and most horrific material ever seen on children’s television, but no-one has to take my word that such material is likely to disturb. For young children, even a week may be too long to wait for reassurance that the characters with whom they identify are safe. Doctor Who has turned into tea-time brutality for tots. My personal reaction to the sight of the Doctor being viciously throttled underwater is unimportant. What’s important is the effect of such material – especially in a modern setting – upon the very young children still likely to be watching. Strangulation – by hand, by claw, by obscene vegetable matter – is the latest gimmick, sufficiently close-up so that they get the point. And, just for a little variety, show the children how to make a Molotov cocktail." (Thanks to DrWhoInterviews) And questions were asked in the House of Lords when Terror of The Autons has plastic items like flowers, chairs and telephone cords turning into killers, and in particular a policeman turning out to be an evil Auton in disguise. I think the Pertwee and Baker generation, who did not at the time realise "the monsters were men in rubber suits" by the way (I find the Daemons, the Sea Devils and that first Sontaran pretty damn convincing 40 years on) survived unscathed. Indeed I rather pity the subsequent generation, who had to make do with the Davison, Baker 2 and McCoy era which, frankly, wouldn't scare a highly string 5 year old (though they might bore them a bit). 
For some reason I have yet to fathom, Facebook wants you to move your "groups" so you have to start a new "group" that seems to be identical to your original group, save that you've left all your original members behind so they have to rejoin. I've just done this with my Comic Art Masterclasses. Before / after. It seems to have another flaw in that you can't send a message instantly to all members of the group, which was its most useful function before (or am I missing something on the new group that lets me do that?) See, here's the old page with its prominent photo in the top corner, and a Message All Members button at the top of the things to do:  Then here's the new version, which only gives you a small photo, and seems to have no option for messaging all members + keeps your own Facebook info hogging space up the left hand side:  Now I'm trying to move the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre's Appreciation Society, which was actually started for me by a Socks fan, and currently has 1127 members already. It's been very useful for telling people about forthcoming gigs, events, publications etc, so I want to keep something like that going. But I've noticed that, in moving the Comic Art Masterclass group, I haven't been able to give it a personalised url, you know like: facebook.com/TheDandyComic or facebook.com/doctorwhomagazine and I want one of that. So I've been trying to set up a new page, which is immensely slow and frustrating, and won't let me upload a photo. Then when I search for my page (which looks like this) I find another page which looks like mine but seems to have been set up by someone else - it looks like this. This ghost page lists us as a Company rather than a Comedian, and already has 14 likes, whereas mine only has 4. It also has no photo on yet. Should I give up this "Page" and start another "group", even though you seem to be able to give a named url link to a page and not to a group. Oh groan groan. And I've got work to get on with. Here, let's take our minds off it with a song written so long ago yet so comparatively recently, from a time when Facebook was clearly a lot simpler and more fun than it's become:  PS: Grrrrrr. I just tried making another photo into the "Profile Photo" for the page, and when I've finished "cropping" it it give me this page: http://upload.facebook.com/crop_profile_pic.php, a page of white, and no profile photo. Grrrrrr.
My Comic Art Masterclass has had a group on Facebook for a while. Now for some reason Facebook have told us to move, so now we're at: Comic Art Masterclass group(We used to be at Comic Art Masterclass group as was but don't go there, it won't be there for long) As far as I can tell this is absolutely no different from our previous group, except that all the members have to rejoin it, so we're going to lose people along the way. Ours not to reason why, eh? It's still the place to learn about forthcoming classes and to share thoughts about comics and education, and remember there might be kids reading.  Ooh, and look at me and my Comic Art Masterclass, all over the Oxford Mail
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