Posted in: Comics | Tagged: dog man, kev f sutherland, william shakespeare

What If Shakespeare's Richard The Third Was In The Style Of Dog Man?

Kev F Sutherland is one of my favourite people in comics, especially when he adapts the works of Shakespeare as contemporary graphic novels.

Published Thu, 27 Jul 2023 10:58:08 -0500

by Rich Johnston

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Kev F Sutherland is one of my favourite people in comic books. Whether he's writing, drawing and inking comics for everyone from Marvel to Red Dwarf to the Beano, running national comic book conventions in Bristol after the UKCAC company folded, launching a standup career as two Punch And Judy-style socks in high-pitched Scottish accents, a stage show turned TV show The Sitcom Trials which included some of my work, teaching kids how to create comics, by getting them to do just that in lessons and then doing the covers for them, adapting books of the Bible as EC Comics, adapting the works of Shakespeare into more contemporary graphic novels, such as Finley Macbeth, Hamlet Prince Of Denmark Street or the Midsummer Night's Dream Team, or musical colouring-in books, I always love to follow along.

And his newest Shakespeare graphic novel is a corker of an idea. Always looking to follow popular trends, and always showing himself to be the smartest man in the room, Kev F Sutherland has noticed that the biggest-selling superhero comic, nay any kind of comic in the English language, is Dog Man by Dav Pilkey.

So why not do Shakespeare in that style? And that's what he is going to do, and indeed has started doing, with a Kickstarter to help finish it off. Richard The Third, Shakespeare's most popular of the historical plays, in the manner of Dav Pilkey's Dog Man and Captain Underpants. He writes on his mailing list;

What If Shakespeare's Richard The Third Was In The Style Of Dogman? — Richard The Third by William Shakespeare and Kev F Sutherland

It was at one of the comic events I've been attending this summer that I realised my table, my books, not to mention my avuncular nature and, of course, my Comic Art Masterclasses attracted families with kids. And many of those kids are aged between 7 and 11. But my existing Shakespeare books are a little "old" for the primary school readers. And it was when a child was at my table clutching a book, not a Dog Man book, but a Dog Man-lookalike (of which there are many at the moment), that I realised what I should be doing for my next book. Because not only is there an audience for a fun book like this, but it's also something that I've always done. I've worked for The Beano! I started my career in OInk! I write and perform the Scottish Falsetto Sock Puppet Theatre which, if not for kids, is definitively childish. So why on earth was I not writing and drawing a Shakespearian adaptation that 7 year old kids could read? And who better to star in my new book than Shakeapeare's cheekiest scamp? The laugh a minute roister-doistering prankish rascal who is Richard The Third! Okay, he kills people, and ends up dead (spoilers). But that's not going to stop me telling the funnest story yet.

The Kickstarter for William Shakespeare's Richard The Third will go live on the 1st of August, but courtesy of Kef F Sutherland's newsletter, here are three sample pages from the new book.

American publishers or agents looking to get more graphic novels into school book fairs? This is made for you. Get in touch with Kev F and tell him I sent you.

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