Comic Cuts — 15 April 2022

I guess the main thing of note to happen this week is that I feel I've eaten enough food to sink a battleship. Like the Queen, I celebrated my birthday twice, with a meal down the pub and, later, a second back at home; add a huge chocolate gateau to the mix and I probably added half a stone to my weight in one day.

We started celebrating birthweek early with a trip out on Saturday night to see Nish Kumar, whose latest tour reached a packed Charter Hall for a couple of laugh-packed hours. Just what we needed after a busy few weeks. The whole evening went off smoothly thanks to the discovery that it's easier to catch the train to get across town than it is to take the bus. And quicker. And cheaper.

Kumar was at has shouty, ranty best. It seems unfair to call him a divisive comic, but as the show is about how people have reacted to him over the past few years, it is true to say that there are those who like him and those who wish him dead and will pile onto his social media to let him know. Let's be clear: those latter people are wrong. I've been a fan since his appearances on Josh Widdicombe's XFM show back in 2013, and we've seen the majority of his appearances on TV (yes, even the shows he did with his comedy husband, Joel Dommett).

There were a lot of laughs to be had in the show, but sometimes it's funniest when something unique happens that will never be repeated at any other gig. This particular evening, it was a guy who'd had a few beers returning from having a pee — Kumar noted the cluster of empty bottles around his feet, to which the response was "I've only had five, you c*nt!" (the expletive used as punctuation rather than insultingly) delivered with such drunken indignity that even Nish keeled over with laughter. You definitely had to be there... and if you get a chance to see him, I'd suggest you "be there" too.

The earlier part of this week can be described as scanning (Monday), admin (Tuesday), day off (Wednesday) and scanning (Thursday). Next week I'll be spending the week cleaning up scans for a colour strip reprint from a German publisher. (An earlier job for the same people should be coming out some time this year, but I often don't hear about them appearing.)

One of my scanning jobs is about to appear here in the UK: Captain Condor from Hibernia. David McDonald has put out some fine books over the years and is definitely doing some great titles at the moment, the latest being The Indestructible Man by Scott Goodall and Jesus Blasco from the pages of Jag. The new Captain Condor reprints the run of three stories drawn by Brian Lewis in the early Sixties Lion. The 120-page book also includes an introduction from Kelvin Gosnell, an interview with writer Frank S. Pepper.

It's available from Comicsy: https://comicsy.co.uk/hibernia/ for £12.49 + various different postage costs around the world.