One of Scotland’s most popular comedy duos is making the leap from the stage to the page: their successful television series is returning as a comic.
The main characters of “Still Game”, Jack Jarvis and Victor McDaid, star in “He Who Hingith Aboot Getteth Hee Haw”, which also features animated versions of the cast.
The television series ran for nine seasons between 2002 and 2019, with one break in between.
In addition, three live productions sold out on multiple dates at the Hydro in Glasgow, and from 2014 to 2019 the orchestra performed 50 shows in front of a total of around 500,000 people.
Ford Kiernan, who plays Jack, and Greg Hemphill, who plays Victor, worked on the book with Gordon Tait of Scunnered Ink, who hired a team of cartoonists to bring the popular characters to paper.
Hemphill said: “We still love Jack and Victor, and Ford and I still talk about them all the time.
“We realized we had never seen it in cartoon form and had never really explored it as an art form.
“This is where Gordon and the team at Scunnered Ink came in.
“The comic book version of Still Game has its own fantasies. There are things in the comics that the cartoonists put in that didn’t exist in our minds or in the TV series. So there are plenty of Easter eggs for readers.
“Working with Gordon and his team on the comics was like seeing Still Game with new eyes. The results are super exciting, the new versions of the characters look adorable. And we don’t have to spend an hour and a half in the makeup chair.”
Kiernan said: “Greg and I are huge fans of things like Oor Wullie. Greg has a connection to Marvel and has always collected comics.
“Gordon took our idea of seeing Jack and Victor and the whole Still Game gang in comic form and made something wonderful out of it.
“We have a long tradition in Scotland of waiting until Christmas to get a yearbook and then spending an hour in a corner on Christmas Day reading it. In that respect it’s an old-fashioned, back-to-basics idea and that’s what I like about it.
“It’s an incredible journey. We had an idea, we wrote a script out of it, it became a sitcom and now it’s a comic book. We’re really happy with it. I love the way my little cartoon guy looks.”
Mr Tait is a former DC Thomson Heritage Editor and has worked on well-known comics such as Dennis and Gnasher, Oor Wullie and The Broons.
He said: “We wanted to keep it a secret for a while.
“Some of the artists we approached were very busy and in high demand, but when they found out it was a Still Game comic book, they immediately agreed.
“Not every TV show lends itself to comic book adaptation, but Still Game was perfect.
“It’s the most ambitious project I’ve ever worked on, and also the most creative. We’ve already started work on the second book.”
The book will be released on Monday 16 September and can be pre-ordered from stillgamestuff.co.uk.
