Kev F. Sutherland

0:29How incredibly cheesy is that there you go that's me cheesy green I do cheesy greens that's what I do I do cheat I posed beside flip charts I draw it had I thought I could have brought a big flip chart here.

0:40And I would have done a drawing on the flip chart. And it would have been very impressive had you been a child you're not children so I didn't bother doing that I didn't want to insult your intelligence but I do I do pose by flip charts quite a lot there you go there's me posing by flip chart looking cheesy cheesy green that's what I do I'll pose cheesily my foot justin's cheesy flip chuck that matt smith that's the most popular doctor at the moment if you ask primary school kids which got it shut up if they want primary school kids okay you're just going to carry on doing that aren't you right.

1:11So there you go me and one more I have no idea what's happening with my hair there very much a bad hair day this is me in a school teaching kids how to do what it is I do for a living because I was very lucky I've been able to turn my hobby into my job.

1:27And then teach people how to do it and there's a clue to the hobby and the job there's my name down there kev f that's me. And that's my name on dr strange's underpants dr strange's pants in can anybody identify the character big blue fella at the top that's banana man that's what banana man looks like nowadays well.

1:48That's what banana man looked like until a few months ago until they made him look like he used to do in the old days and the reason I included doctor strange in banana man is because I used to do doctor strange I was one of the artists in the 90s reading doctor strange and when I started teaching kids how to do comics I was showing them my artwork from marvel comics from things like doctor strange and star trek there's my captain kirk mr spock just out of shot I couldn't fit him into the slide that's his chin leonard nimoy's chin up that my name landed nimoy's chin clearly my name more important to me than leonard nimoy's chin and gladiators I used to do comics which were based on tv shows anybody seen the gladiators tv show I guarantee more people saw the gladiators tv show that saw the gladiators comic I lost a fortune during the gladiators comic I was very pleased with myself because I've been working in comics for a few years.

2:38And I I became an entrepreneur I found I watched the gladiators which I wouldn't have normally watched but I watched it with my young cousins and I thought this would make a great comic and so I got in touch with lwt I said is anybody doing the comic they weren't I found a publisher who I've been working with on some other photo magazines I brought them together we made this comic it sold for it was it really didn't work at the other extreme of publishing captain clevedon is earth's most parochial superhero I live in a small town near bristol called cleveland there's cleveland pier one direction just out of shot but one direction did film a video recently on that pier that's the town where I live and it's the biggest selling it out sold the vino that week tip for anybody in marketing don't make your target audience a town with a population of only 5 000 people only 10 of whom are likely to buy the comics set in their town it's it's finite it's got a ceiling just a word from the wise there.

3:42So I also work for things like doctor who adventures I get paid money to draw dialects you can tell that's from 2010 because the daleks are the wrong shape wrong shape dark bad the dialects are more like teletubbies I got paid to draw those you're quite right it's very cheesy stuff I do oh she's a highway woman I do her and oh yeah wedding invitations anybody wanting to do their wedding invitations now I realize I realize I'm in a room full of illustrators who can possibly draw far better than I can draw that is naf and that is cheesy but it does pay more than the the big thing I'm most famous for which is writing a drawing for the b note there you go there's me writing and drawing the bastard kids or bastard kids adventures also starring dennis in fact you may have read that in your own childhood it's from about 10 years ago.

4:32Now that was the christmas issue where. I had the whole b note to myself and although I worked for marvel comics I've worked for loads of things like red dwarf and the gladiators and and and doctor and donald love tv related material in comics for marvel comics I also did ghost rider 2099 and various comics in the 90s the beano is the work that I'm most proud of and but it's the most fun to do because I've been able to be part of history I've been able to add to the legend that is roger the dodger roger the dodger I I invested it with a character who's I made him much more conniving machiavellian and money-oriented I only probably already is but you know when you when you take these characters on and make them your own you.

5:18Actually get to well like the bastard kids I actually got to get you give the individual bastard kids actual individual characters which most of the time I feel they don't do I also by the way do a couple of things which you may have seen the scottish falsetto sock puppet theater if you've ever seen those at the end of the fringe that's that's I know I don't sound like the boys but the boys aren't me and our new show edinburgh this year is called minging detectives that's edinburgh we'll be on at the gilded balloon at 10 30 at night and I do a show called the sitcom trials I don't know if any of you anybody think they can write a sitcom no you're the first people I've ever met who don't think they could write a sitcom the sitcom crosses the show that I do where we take the work of writers and we put them on stage and sitcoms compete head-to-head and the audience decide which one they like the best and that was the final at the fringe but this is this is amongst the be no work that I do and I'm most proud of I I was the guy who invented the bastard werewolves I was the guy invented the bastard zombies now zombies pretty much ubiquitous in comics nowadays and in youth culture but back in 2008 I was worried that the editor that's him alan digby the editor of the time I was worried that he wasn't replying to me when I pitched this script the bastard zombies I thought yeah zombies is a bit too far for the beano the winner which is read by six year olds up to 12 year olds and when he did eventually reply he just said I apologize for being 28 days late replying just see what he did there wasted anyway he's he's a fantastic editor and my favorite editors have been the ones that allow the creators to have their creative head does anybody read the vino has anybody seen the vino in the last decade actually anybody used to read the vino then you stop stop reading the vino when you discovered it was insulting to the intelligence of eight-year-olds yeah me too but a lot of creators have had the opportunity to do original and inventive work jamie smart laura howe myself mike pierce and if I called gary northfield they've just released a book called julius zebra and previously did derek the sheep they mean a lot if you're nine years old trust me they really do and the wise editors allowed them to do the work that they thought was great one of the things that I do which I think is great but it might just be pathetic is I hide my name in the background everywhere there's me in the attack of the 50-foot knits and there's my name up there and there's can you see my name there the name's hidden nicki's name who spotted the name kev f but you said it's pathetic and it really is in the shadows along there. I really do and just just so the kids will become fans of my work.

7:57But it totally does work and there's my name hidden down there. And that's where cleveland is where captain cleveland is I'm originally scottish by there any other fellow scots in yeah we invented comics comics are ours we can claim those tell you the scottish accent only comes out when I'm on performing the boys rocket pants was a comic strip that I did where I took plug out the bastard kids and rocket pants the title came from when I used to work on red dwarfs magazine and there was a character called robbie rocket pants who I pitched as a story and just as we were about to run rugby rocket pants they cancelled red broth's magazine just before series six started don't ask me why and so I was left with these stories so I turned them into stories for the vino and then when the bino decided that plug's arse catching fire on a regular basis wasn't entertainment I stole all the stories for myself and I made hot rod cow my own self-published comic which appears a hot rod cow appears in the bino as plug's favorite character hot rod cow his name is an anagram of my favorite tv series which is hot rod cows and anagram of exactly well done yes doctor who and he appeared first of all in the video and then he became my own parodies homages and pastiches are a thing that I love doing because I think the kids can be you can flatter the intelligence of of children and you can insult the intelligence of children and I think the latter is to be avoided flattering their intelligence nobody but nobody who read that edition of the beano would recognize what I was even doing does anybody recognize which comic I'm paying homage to there issue 100 of the x-men from 1970 why what was the point of doing that.

9:32That's professor x there. That's x-men versus replicants of x-men and so I did the battery kids versus replicants of mastering kids their robot it featured a panel where dennis the menace smashes the robot in the face and says stare into the fist of dennis that was an homage to a judge dredd story from 1970 pointless absolutely pointless but it's what I do they go roger the dodgers reservoir dodge why they're eight years old there's no reason they'll get this it's because comics can work on these levels and they often do the best comics dude if you've ever read adventure time if you've read the simpsons at glastonbury miracle man he's a parody of oh god I've only got 10 seconds left okay well that was a satire google it. And so was that pansy party they're hilarious but you haven't actually got time to read those three strips because this is the thing that I was going to talk about and with one minute second over time I'm afraid I can't tell you much about the fact that I go into schools and teach kids how to do what it is I do I'm evangelical about the importance of comics for the literacy of kids kids learn like I did I had the best reading age in my primary school year because I was reading unnecessarily long words and they were in voice bubbles so I go into schools and kids produce comics they look like these these are the comics that I've used with kids in the schools they each of them in the space of two hours has created a comic strip and then I do a drawing of every single one of their hideous little faces we run these off on the photocopier and they take them home they come up with these titles themselves these are titles invented by children all invented six non's fighting a fire inferno I also work in ireland that was an irish comic up there unfortunately I've run out of time.

11:12So I won't be able to explain to you why that is my enemy I hate that w.h smith call those comics they're not comics they're just plastic bags with things in that don't actually include comic books that's comics comics is stuff done by kids comics is one picture after another telling a story comics is what I love comics is what I do comics is what I teach and thank you