“I’ll strip for cash!”

John Cooper on turning his comic strip into a Kickstarter comedy calendar.

Hi – I’m John, a comedian and illustrator originally Sunderland, now living in Manchester. The Best Job is the World is my strip comic that pokes fun at the cold realities at what it’s like make a living as a stand-up comedian.

I started doing the strip as an outlet for my own comedy career, attempting to capture the epic highs and lows of being on stage, as well as the wonderful comradely and backstage bitchiness that goes on in such a competitive industry. It was intended to be just for other comedians, but has proved popular enough that I’m now Kickstarting the strip into print.

My first strip – to my surprise – was picked up on by a well-know UK comedy critic who said: “In a few frames with minimal words Cooper has captured the tragic essence of a lot of modern comedians”. Which is a lovely compliment for me as an illustrator, and equally damning praise for me a ‘modern comedian’ – but that probably sums the strip quite well.

Back in the 1990 I drew a lot of comic strip, and some of them may well find their way on to Kickstarter, but I wanted to do this first; it’s what I’m currently working on, as well as being short, sharp and to the point. I love the brevity of succinct short ‘news-strips’, and over the years have been influenced by stuff like Max Cannon’s Red Meat and Matt Groening’s Life in Hell where a few short panels can present a whole world view. I’m not those guys – but I can dream.

Back to this project, I’ve not used an online print wizard service to create the calendar part – I can’t abide inconsistent use of fonts. So I’ve even drawn all the date boxes:

If this sounds like the kind of thing you want hanging on your wall, make a pledge and see this selection of tough love tales from the comedy circuit make the jump to shiny high definition print, so you can appreciate the cross hatching as nature intended.

You can contribute to John Cooper’s Kickstarter project by clicking here. Pledges start from £1 rising to £99 if you want to be immortalised in one of John’s comic strips.