Prince Of Denmark Street - Press Release

Press Release – Books / Graphic Novels

Release date immediate

Prince of Denmark St – Shakespearian graphic novel made during lockdown

Publishing July 2020

What did you do during lockdown? This guy wrote and drew a 120 page graphic novel, adapting Shakespeare’s Hamlet and setting it in punk era 1970s London.

Kev F Sutherland is best known for his work as a writer and artist for The Beano (on Bash St Kids & Bananaman), for Marvel Comics’ Dr Strange & Star Trek, and countless humour comics from Oink to Viz and many more. He also gives Comic Art Masterclasses teaching kids how easy it can be.

Now he’s released his second graphic novel – Prince Of Denmark Street, written and drawn entirely during the Covid 19 lockdown.

It’s a comic strip adaptation of Shakespeare’s tragedy like you’ve never seen it before, giving the familiar tale a unique spin.

Having produced his debut graphic novel in March, Findlay Macbeth, Kev had lined up book and comic festivals galore to promote it at. Then came lockdown. So, with no schools to visit either, he had no choice but to start work on a brand new book.

The Prince Of Denmark Street is set in London’s Tin Pan Alley in 1977, where young Prince Hamlet and his band The Danes are rising stars. But when he discovers the story behind the death of his dad, the rock & roller King Hamlet, he goes off the rails. The story takes Shakespeare’s original and adds fiendish twists he hopes you won’t see coming.

The paperback also includes the full text of the play, illustrated by Kev F.

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Anyone who wants to make this a palpable hit can support the project on Kickstarter from as little as £3, and can bag themselves original artwork, specially drawn sketches and other goodies. Kev F is available for interview, and images from the book are available to reproduce.

PRESS CONTACT:                                  

Kev F Sutherland                     T: 07931 810858    E: kevf.sutherland@gmail.com                           

Kickstarter:  https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kevfcomicartist/prince-of-denmark-street-graphic-novel

Twitter @KevFComicArtist

Facebook.com/KevFComicArtist

Prince Of Denmark Street retails at £5.99

ISBN 978-1-8380824-0-6      

Prince Of Denmark Street - Kickstarter launched

https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kevfcomicartist/prince-of-denmark-street-graphic-novel

Announcing The Prince Of Denmark Street, my brand new graphic novel. It's going live on Kickstarter now and I'd love you to take a look.

It's my adaptation of Hamlet, with a twist. Set in 1977 on London's Tin Pan Alley at the height of the punk revolution, it's a 120 page graphic novel paperback, plus you get the full Shakespeare play at the back of the book illustrated by me.

You can simply reserve a signed copy, or a PDF for just £3, over on Kickstarter. And if you'd like to get more involved you can get yourself a specially drawn sketch, and even original art from the book itself.

Thanks for your attention, join me and let's make this a hit - a palpable hit!

Prince Of Denmark Street Soundtrack Album

For a bit of fun I've written the tracklisting for the soundtrack album for Prince Of Denmark Street. This might be fun to actually record someday. For the meantime, I've enjoyed dreaming up the back-stories that go with all of these...

Prince Of Denmark Street Original Soundtrack

Side One

1 The Hour Is Almost Come (Prelude)* – King Hamlet

2 Solid Flesh** – The Danes

3 Watchman To My Heart*** – Ophelia

4 Song To A Brother*** – Ophelia

5 Words To The Wise – Polonius Monk

(from the album Tragical Comical Historical Pastoral ©1967 Bongdooby Music)

6 Murder Most Foul* – King Hamlet

7 I Love Dear Ophelia – Prince Hamlet (demo)

8 Lost My Mirth** – The Danes

9 To Be Or Not To Be – Prince Hamlet (demo)

Side Two

10 Sweet Belle – Ophelia Monk (demo)

11 The Mousetrap (To Be Or Not To Be) – Hamlet & The Danes

(single, not on album)

12 Piece Of Work** – The Danes

13 Boast** – The Danes

14 Sweet Belle – The Ophelia Monk Band

(single, not on album)

15 In Youth When I Did Love – The Two Reggies

(from the album Goodnight From Them ©1971 BBC Records)

16 The Quick And The Dead (poem) – Laertes Monk

17 Palpable Hit Medley – Prince Hamlet & Laertes Monk

18 4’33” – John Cage

*from his posthumous album King ©1977 Rich Records

**from their debut album The Danes ©1977 Rich Records

*** from her debut album Sweet Ophelia ©1977 Rich Records

 

History of Denmark Street - new video, and work in progress

This weekend I made A Brief History Of Denmark Street, a 15 minute video about the history of the street where my book's set. It's quite good fun, a couple of gags slipped in among and subtle re-writing of wikipedia (there's a little more research, but frankly not that much). Please tell me if you enjoy it.

Meanwhile work goes on on Prince of Denmark Street - catalogued day by day in my virtual worksheet here. At time of writing I've just drawn page 90 of 118, which I calculate, having started drawing on April 16th means that over 34 days that averages out at 2.647 pages per day, a lot slower than its predecessor Findlay Macbeth. Mind you, Findlay Macbeth didn't get drawn in conditions like this...

Yeah, take that, all of you digital artists working on your cintiqs! Let's see you ink 4 pages out in the flaming sunshine. (I have a bit of sunburn now, the truth be told. But did I mention four pages inked?).

And, fingers crossed, my lovely struggling printer may, hopefully hopefully, be able to get my Findlay Macbeth books to me soon. They're two months late, but that's hardly his fault. He has to wait for things like slots at bookbinders, and everyone's suffering lockdown difficulties, so I bet he'll be as relieved as I'll be delighted when he finally gets my job off his hands and into mine. Then I can have the fun of sending them to my patient Kickstarter punters. All fun to look forward to.

Miley Cyrus - new video from the Socks

The Socks made their second appearance on Dean Friedman's Live Stream at the weekend (Sunday May 10th) and used the slot as the incentive to record a new song - Miley Cyrus (click to watch).

Dean has asked us to make regular appearances, so we'll be back in a fortnight with another excuse to write and record something. In this instance we wheeled out the Miley song that I've already blogged about, which was actually scribbled down before the Covid crisis started, in the first week of March, and by the start of April felt a bit outdated. However, a month further on, I don't think it sounds that bad.

So I pulled out the keyboard, for, I think, the first time this year, and made me a new Garageband recording. The video is shot from the laptop to be in keeping with the rest of Dean's podcast. The Socks also did a live chat, and popped up to sing along with him on two of his kids songs, Mama Said and This Is Hot. I pre-recorded our musical slot as that was the only way to mime along in synch and not fall foul of the transatlantic delay (and I can only cue a piece of music properly when I have no Socks on my hands, sorry to ruin the illusion).

The whole DeanZine Live Stream is here, and you'll find us back on May 24th.



The Scottish Falsetto Socks full hour-long Superheroes show is available, free, on Youtube here. See more of their videos all over Youtube, follow them on Twitter and Facebook. And, if you're lucky, they'll be performing live again as soon as that's a thing.

Prince Of Denmark Street - work in progress grabs

Every day as I go along drawing Prince Of Denmark Street, I've been making screengrabs of one or two choice panels to post. Whether or not it's building any interest, who can tell? Here are the snippets I've shared so far...

Lockdown Film Reviews - Current War, Just Like Heaven, Fantastic 4, Proffesor & Madman

Lockdown film reviews. Has everyone else got to the stage where they’ve watched every must-see and recommended film on Netflix and Amazon and is trawling the unlikelies? Here are 4 we just watched, to compare, contrast and learn from:

The Current War, The Professor and The Madman, Just Like Heaven, and Fantastic Four (2015).

Easily the poorest of these four is Fantastic Four, a superhero film which has no superhero-ing in it, with Marvel’s funniest and most colourful characters rendered humourless, colourless and characterless. To make so many mistakes in a story structure, removing all tension at every opportunity, then to make crazy directing choices like identical spacesuits with the wearer’s face concealed so, in the first action scene (which you’ve waited over half an hour for) you literally can’t tell who’s who, is mind-boggling. 1/5

The best of the four is Just Like Heaven, a rom com from 2005 starring Reece Witherspoon and Mark Ruffalo. Very 1980s-ish in its style, which isn’t a bad thing, it has a script which hits every beat, balancing humour and drama perfectly. Surprisingly I’d not even heard of this movie, it being the sort of genre that rarely makes a showing at the oscars or gains a cult following, but it’s a solid entertaining comedy drama that serves as a perfect example to anyone studying screenwriting. Also a cracking 90s indies soundtrack. 4/5

Which leaves us to compare and contrast The Current War - period drama based on fact, with Benedict Cumberbatch as Thomas Edison - with The Professor And The Madman - period drama based on fact, with Mel Gibson as the man who started the Oxford English Dictionary and Sean Penn as the murderer in a mental hospital who helped him write it.

The Current War is a triumph of style over content. And, although its script is tight and has lots of great dramatic moments (it might have been an Oscar contender had it not been a Harvey Weinstein production that happened at exactly the same time as the Me Too movement), the director (Alfonso Gomez Rejon) manages to distract from every important moment with camera trickery that serves no purpose other than to draw attention to the existence of the camera. He can’t leave the damn thing still, and has his Steady-cam fly up and down corridors for no good reason, take shots from overhead when we’d really rather see the face of the person talking, and all in all turn what could be a gripping drama into an ignorable pop video. 2/5

The Professor and the Madman, it turns out, was a dream project for Mel Gibson, whose production was so fraught he tried to sue to stop the film’s release, and the director wouldn’t even put his name to it! That learned, it’s not that bad, but all the way through you keep thinking how this bit could have been improved, and how that bit might work better. A shame, as an excellent true story is buried in this film. Sadly it’s buried by some unfortunate Scottish accents done by English and Australian actors, Sean Penn delivering all his lines in a barely audible whisper, and those bits of writing that keep making you realise it’s adapted from a book. When the rights are released again, someone will make this story into a good TV series. 3/5

There you go, Uncle Kev’s lockdown film reviews. What else is left on Netflix or Amazon that we’ve not seen yet?