Here we see the fruits of the labours of classes of schoolkids from Birmingham to Devon to Alton in Hampshire. Two days apiece in primary schools in Bournville and Newton Poppleford, and a day at Wessex Arts in Alton, and we have 9 beautiful covers, with names dreamed up by the kids, containing a strip be every one of them and an individual caricature by me.
Only nine you say? But surely you do two classes in a day? True, I usually do. But on Monday in Bournville I had an interestingly different morning spent drawing a goat.
The school's badge features a goat which they've included in such things as a stained glass window, and so the thought was that I could draw a goat in various positions, in illustrations that could be used in promotional and educational materials. They got some pretty good value for money from me, I must say. Half a dozen illustrations rattled off in the library in the course of a morning and coloured at home that night for no extra charge. I do hope no other schools are reading this, cos I can't promise to offer such a bonus service for everyone who asks.
The celebrities the kids in my classes chose for my now-legendary "treads on a worm" demonstration strip were Meghan Trainor, Olly Murs, Simon Cowell (of course, twice), Michael Jackson, Taylor Swift (twice), Dec out of Ant & Dec, and most original of the week Martin Luther King.
Thanks to the wonderful folks of Wessex Arts at Alton College, here's me on the front page of the Alton Herald. I'm honoured and flattered (and can only assume last week was a quiet news week in Alton).
News
Comic book lovers converge on centre
Friday, 27 February 2015
AROUND 60 comic book lovers from as far afield at Bentley and
Oakhanger visited Wessex Arts Centre at Alton College last Friday to
take part in two separate workshops with Marvel and Beano illustrator
Kev Sutherland.
Mr Sutherland’s engaging and bombastic style had the children, aged from six to 15 years, inspired for two hours.
Each young person left with a comic book made from the session’s
individual comic strips, the title of which was chosen by group vote –
the morning session was Invasion of the Rubber Ducks! – plus a
caricature of themselves drawn by Mr Sutherland who said he was really
impressed with the drawing skills and creative ideas of the young people
he had worked with.
Have I really been delivering Comic Art Masterclasses in schools for ten years now? It would appear so. I just had a shuffle-round of stuff on the shelves of my office and took the opportunity to lay out the volumes of comics my pupils and I have produced over that time and snap them, as you can see above.
It looked at first glance like I had comics here dating back to 2004, but on closer examination I'd dated that first one, "Whizz-Crash" wrongly. It says May 2004 in the Marvel-style date box in the top left hand corner (from the start I was modelling these photocopy comics on the weekly Marvel reprints I got as a kid), but the clues point to it very clearly coming from a year later. Can you spot the obvious giveaway?*
That error aside, there's a pile here for every year, 2005 to the present (having just filled a volume, I'm onto my second of 2015). For the recent busiest years I've been
filling four volumes a year to overflowing, plus stacking away
less-impressive comics in plastic bags. Oh the British Library and the
museums of Britain will be fighting over this little lot when I'm gone.
The two examples above from 2005 are from schools in Kentisbeare and South Tawton in Devon, both of whom have just had me back. My god, I've been there longer than half the teachers. And the first pupils I taught there are now at University. Reading comics, I can only hope. The other comics are from Dorset (06), Oxford (07), Inverness (08), Chippenham (09), Maidenhead (10), Dublin (11), Newham (12), Worle (13), Morningside (14) and Coventry (the cover of the 2015 volume, is sneakily from December 14).
I'm pleased to see how well I've mastered the skill of producing a half-decent cover design in no time at all. The better covers usually come from morning classes in schools, where I've had 15 minutes of break time to give them a bit more attention. But half of them must come from afternoon sessions, where I have just two hours to do the whole class, including drawing the cover, logo and all from their suggestions, as well as teaching them how to do my job, and drawing a caricature of every one of them. Yes, I even amaze myself sometimes.
* The obvious clue that "Whizz-Crash" is from 2005? It has Christopher Eccleston as Doctor Who on the front cover, which would have been a marvellous act of clairvoyance 12 months before the show went out. (Even if he was announced that early, and I don't think he was, I doubt I could have convinced a class of schoolkids to put him on the cover of a comic, let alone correctly guess his costume, hairstyle and sonic screwdriver). Oh yes, and I've put the correct date beside my signature in the bottom right hand corner. How I managed to get the date a year out in May is anyone's guess.
The video demonstrating my caricaturing skills is now updated on YouTube. I hadn't looked at it in a while, but in its original form it was one of those videos that was so lo-res that it was appearing as a miniature picture within a picture, which isn't a good look.
It dates back to 2007 and shows me drawing a face in under a minute, and now gives my proper contact details rather than ending with my MySpace address! It also shows me doing the caricatures with a bullet-tipped felt tip pen which I haven't done in years (a chisel tip gives a much better line).
I remain available for parties, should you want everybody caricatured in a minute each, you know where to find me.
Ranking as one of the odder occurences of the week must be this. A group called Rooster Teeth, who make Youtube videos about video games, have put up a video which they have called, for no explicable reason, "Doctor Who Season 6 - Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre".
There is no mention of us in the video itself and, apart from the appearance of their own sock puppets as part of the video, no connection. The title they've lifted is that of one of our own vids from 2013 which was quite a high rater, getting 12,000 views, while Rooster Teeth's own has only had 85 hits, despite them having half a million followers.
If we ever get an explanation as to why they've done this bizarre title-lifting thing, and whether we benefit from it in any way, I'll let you know.
A brand new song and video from the Socks, intended as audience-in music for the new show Minging Detectives, a tribute to Cannon and Ball (albeit a slightly backhanded one) with video to match. I'm quite pleased with this one, I hope it's not just me. Do please click to play, and enjoy.
This week I've also written and recorded the Police Reggae medley, Coppers Cabana, and Delilah, all intended for the soundtrack to welcome the audience into the show. One of these tracks might actually find its way into the show itself, the rest will eventually emerge on Youtube. Though it's only right that something will be kept for the audience's ears only.
The Socks will be debuting new material from Minging Detectives, and the best of their recent satire, on tour
If you want to bring the nutters out of the woodwork, post up a video about UKIP. Here are the Socks, live in Leicester this past weekend, getting a riotous response for their ever popular Song For UKIP. Comments in so far include:
