Ninjas, Cheesestrings & Germs - heaps of comics by kids

I've just enjoyed the pleasure of going into the same school for a whole week, so we have the pupils of Thackley Primary School in Bradford to thank for the eight front covers that you see above.

Working with years 3 to 6 over four days, and with each of the 8 classes being joined by up to a dozen parents and grandparents for a special week where they got to observe things, I was working with rooms of up to 36 at a time, which means I've drawn a good 250 caricatures and they've produced twice as many pages of comic strips and character designs between them.

A wide range of comic titles ended up being chosen, with a couple of teachers getting their names on the covers, and a handful of inexplicable titles (Adentootic was, we think, supposed to be a reference to Adventure Time, but so elaborately mis-spelled the class liked it as it was written; a similar brain-to-pencil confusion also gave us But Simson Resi Dasey Uck Ever A Invincible Ha Ha Ha (I amended the spelling of invincible); and no-one knows what the Sape in Save Me From A Sape is).

The celebrities they chose for my demonstration strip (in the selection process for which Simon Cowell was suggested at leat half the time) were Keith Lemon (three times), Katy Perry, Joey Essex, Elvis Presley, Ariana Grande and Bob Marley.

And, yes, I left them some fine flipchart drawings...

NB: Doctor Who was more popular with year 3 and 4 than year 5 and 6, and when I offer to draw the Doctor, kids now universally ask for Peter Capaldi.



Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing Pansy Potter, Bananaman, Biffo The Bear et al in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something. 

Giant Flaming Rainbow Beaver - new comics by kids

Brand new comics by kids in my comic art masterclasses in Standens Barn Primary in Northampton and Kendal Library at the Lakes International Comic Festival. The widest and most imaginative range of titles, I'm sure you'll agree.

Bort Hat Chubuw Iteus was the result of a syndrome that happens occasionally with Year 3 classes, whereby the poor young pupil has clearly intended to write down on their piece of paper a title, the spelling of which is beyond their abilities. In such instances the child in question can never remember what they meant to write, and the rest of the class (who usually don't know who wrote it) find the end result hilarious.

When asked to choose a celebrity for my demonstration strip these groups plumped for Simon Cowell (as per), Lionel Messi, Selena Gomez, Joey Essex, Katy Perry and Michael J Fox.



Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing Pansy Potter, Bananaman, Biffo The Bear et al in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something. 

Greetings from the Lakes

Here I am all over the Westmorland Gazette (online version, if it makes the print version I should imagine that'll be Monday) with a lovely interview and photo from this morning's Comic Art Masterclass at Kendal Library. It's always good to get a return booking, and being invited back to the Lakes Comic Festival is even better as it's such a classy event.

Once more the town has joined in, with windows full of comic strip decoration, and events in even more places than last year.  So much stuff, so little time to see it all, but we'll squeeze in what we can. Last night we managed a few hours in the bar with old friends - good to chat with Lew Stringer, David Leach, John Freeman, Mike Collins, and others - and today, after a solid day's classes, there could be more of the same. It is, after all, my birthday.

(I could hardly come all the way here without this, now could I?)

A window in Kendal, where the whole town joins in with the festival. These are the characters deigned by Jonathan Edwards for the festival. brought to life by Felt Mistress, just some of the impressive merchandise from the event.

 

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing Pansy Potter, Bananaman, Biffo The Bear et al in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something. 

Artist For Hire - recent commissions

It's a funny thing, this freelance artist thing. I can go months without doing much drawing, then suddenly I'm doing nothing else. The past month has been the latter. As if someone somewhere knew that I had a gap in my diary, with no Socks gigs for a while and only a few schools in September and October, I've found myself deluged by commissions.

Above you can see a tiny snippet from a 4 page strip I've done for, would you believe, Bible Society. I've written and drawn Samson's Philistine Wife, the published version of which I look forward to directing everyone towards very soon. A couple of things I can't show you very much of, however, are a comic strip-styled birthday card and a comic-cover-styled wedding invitation, from each of which here is the smallest excerpt:

These are a couple of enjoyable production jobs which have reminded me how much I love writing and drawing comic strips. It really would be nice to do more of it, if I could make it pay. (For the record, each of these jobs pays twice as much as a page of The Beano and, were they for corporate clients rather than individuals on a budget, they'd cost a lot more). I've also designed the logo for a disco queen and a series of 16 characters for a magician. These will appear on their publicity somewhere soon, here's a sneak preview:

So, quite a productive few weeks at my desk, at which I've also written the 6 page Christmas episode of Dennis The Menace, which has been drawn by Nigel Parkinson. And with all that under my belt, I look forward to a couple of months of gigging and schooling. I'm writing this at a Holiday Inn in Stafford, en route between last night's Socks gig in Beetham in Cumbria and this morning's Beano caricaturing-and-class session at St Pancras station which will segue directly into a journey to Leamington Spa to play a family-friendly Socks gig. And then home. And coming up over the next few weeks we have schools in Wexford, Waterford, Dungarvan, Dublin, Bradford and many more. (In case you were wondering why I've not been writing many blog posts lately).

 

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing Pansy Potter, Bananaman, Biffo The Bear et al in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something. 

Machine Gun Monkey - new comics by kids

Here we see a selection of comics dreamed up by pupils in my Comic Art Masterclasses in Bewdley, Ebbw Vale, Porthcawl and Hertford. One was done for a birthday party, which is something that works surprisingly well and that I've done a few times recently. As a kid I can't imagine how I'd have reacted if my nine or ten year old friend had invited me to party and then we'd spent two hours doing an art class, but amazingly kids love it and don't want it to end. Aren't comics brilliant?

These groups, given the chance to name a celebrity who I should draw in my demonstration strip, conformed to type and chose Simon Cowell twice (he is named in 8 out of every 10 classes, so much so that I write his name down on a piece of paper in my pocket and elicit a laugh from teachers by producing it when his name is called, saying "every time"), Keith Lemon twice, Cheryl Cole, and Taylor Swift.

And of course I knocked up some nifty flipcharts along the way. Here, why don't you enjoy a couple?

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing Pansy Potter, Bananaman, Biffo The Bear et al in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something. 

A new postcard for the Comic Art Masterclass

I've produced a brand new postcard design to publicise my Comic Art Masterclasses. With comic festivals coming up in the Lake District and Leeds, there'll be a couple of opportunities to hand them out, so a new design was on the, if you will, cards.

I've tried out two online print-on-demand companies, printed.com and Vistaprint. Having used both companies templates to upload my designs, I found that, although Vistaprint has the better online proofing, through which I could be sure I'd left enough room for the margins for example, Printed.com has a faster turnaround and a cheaper delivery price (2 quid cheaper to send 100 cards). So, I've ordered through Printed.com, and if they're not that impressive, I can click and go ahead with the Vistaprints and compare the two. For future reference, it'll be interesting to see who wins the quality battle.

The photo on the front of the card comes from a class I did in Marlborough earlier this year, and on the back from the library in Greenock. I've coloured up a sketch of Peter Capaldi and smuggled him into the PsycheDalek sample page from a few years back, and you'll see one of my recent Pansy Potter strips, Bash St Zombies, a snippet of the unpublished Bananaman vs Thor, Captain Clevedon, Hot Rod Cow, and a montage of comics by kids. What you see is very much what you get.

UPDATE Nov 2 2015: Vistaprint just emailed me with a £5 off offer, I thought sounded good. So it looks like 100 reprinted postcards will cost £25.31 instead of £29 (saving £4.17). But when I get to the checkout, the cheapest post option is £3.99 and the VAT is added, bringing the total to £35.16. I am currently cancelling the order and seeing how cheap Printed.com is.

UPDATEDER Nov 2: Printed.com look like they'll only be £13.07 plus Vat and postage, but they haven't kept my art on file so I'm having to upload again, and finding problems with their proofing (as I did before). Upload your portrait artwork and it appears to float in a landscape frame. Awaiting their feedback before I complete the order.

Kev F Sutherland, as well as writing and drawing Pansy Potter, Bananaman, Biffo The Bear et al in The Beano, runs Comic Art Masterclasses in schools, libraries and art centres - email for details, and follow him on Facebook and Twitter. He's been writing and drawing comics for 25 years, he must know something. 

October in the Socks' calendar - Rachel Whiteread

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre's 2014 calendar is on the theme of modern art and October's page is the one that so far nobody has been able to recognise. We blame ourselves. Have a Google of the work of Rachel Whiteread yourself and see if we've even come close.

The calendar is on sale through Lulu.com at a devilishly reasonable price and is a joy to see and a marvel to treasure. (Also someone had me sign one after the gigs in Brighton last month which reminded me how incredibly valuable they're going to be someday.)

To see all 12 entries, plus the front cover, click and look at the free preview of the calendar. And you can see 2012 and 2013's calendar (cult icons and sci-fi respectively) on the website.

The Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre are on tour... NOW!

Sept 26 - MAC, Belfast Comedy Festival
Oct 10 - Heron Theatre, Beetham Cumbria
Oct 11 - Leamington Royal Spa Centre
Oct 16 - Ormskirk Civic Hall
Oct 31 - Lichfield Garrick Studio