Stephen Collins

What’s wrong with texting? The Stephen Collins cartoon A voice from above …

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David Mitchell has this and makes good jokes about it. And he's alright so I think it's different somehow

Oh fuck me no. No no no no no no no

Oh wow. Not neurodivergent? I guess maybe not possible to know. But it's like Michael Owen and his 9 films he's seen cos he hates films. People with just no playground in the heart

It shows the weakness of the prosecution-first defence-second system that I still side with the prosecution. First impressions last, particularly when they are of utter horror

Closely related to the "never heard of them" crowd, under any celebrity news. Terrifying, terrifying whimsy-vacuums.

They're often found underneath anything whimsical posted by a media outlet, going "is this all you've got to report on 🙄" as if they've called back the war reporters to write about crisps

I think quite high up my list of terrifying people is those with no whimsy or irony in their souls. Not through neurodivergence, just... it's not there

God I love your podcast. Thank you 🙏

She puts bowls in OPEN SIDE UP that is just... what?? Who does that?

An ode to one of the lesser-known joys of spring: the Stephen Collins cartoon Is that blossom or a dog poo bag?

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It was one of the few moments where I thought I was overstepping the mark with my Kids Quiz neighbours 😂. I quite like the limitation it imposes as it stops me just pointlessly swearing which is a good discipline in comedy terms. But when it comes to serious adult topics... yeah it's a balance

*ps I do think it's important to make jokes about things which are demonstrably Not Funny, in the right way and circumstances

[Scene: exterior of Buckingham Palace. A voice comes from inside] Hello and welcome to the media training session! [Scene moves to Interior, a room in the palace. THE QUEEN stands before a screen, hosting a workforce MEDIA TRAINING session for the Royal Family, who are all seated on chairs.]
 THE QUEEN:  As you know we had to cut the PR budget, so I thought I’d do it myself Now then: today’s topic is a common PR danger: ‘Avoiding Association with Sex Traffickers’. So - Question 1. What is the best way to avoid association with sex traffickers?
 Is it: (a), Don’t associate with sex traffickers. (b) Travel 3,500 miles to stay in a sex trafficker’s house to tell them you don’t like them. (c) Something else? [The Royal family all raise hands, apart from Andrew] THE QUEEN: Ooh what a lot of hands! THE QUEEN: Andrew? ANDREW: Um
 ANDREW: Is it (c)… Release detailed records of your sweating history to Newsnight…? [The Queen stares at Andrew for a beat] THE QUEEN: [Same image as last panel, her face unchanged]: Let’s do the picture round. THE QUEEN: Which face says, “I had nothing to do with the sex trafficker?” [on the screen behind her are two faces labelled (a) and (b), one depicting a normal smiley face, the other depicting Andrew’s massively guilty expression from the BBC interview] [Ends]

From 2019, after the Emily Maitlis interview

(I share a page with something called ‘Kids Quiz' in the guardian, which is why we used the phrase ’sex trafficker’ here, and not ‘paedophile’. You can't really throw that word around on the Kids Quiz page)

a cartoon portrait of Andrew Windsor doing the Guiltiest Expression Ever in his Newsnight interview

SCENE: A PASSPORT CONTROL GATE, IN THE SKY, ON A CLOUD. THE PASSPORT CONTROL GATE HAS ‘CORPOREAL REALM’ WRITTEN ON IT. PASSPORT CONTROL OFFICIAL: Passport please, sir. OFFICIAL [LOOKING AT PASSPORT]: Ah - the famous Dr Jenner! EDWARD JENNER, A FLOATING GHOST IN EDWARDIAN GARB: Indeed, haha OFFICIAL: And what's the purpose of your visit to the corporeal realm, Dr Jenner? EDWARD JENNER: Haunting. OFFICIAL: Oh lovely. Anyone nice? EDWARD JENNER: Just a little tour of some anti-vaxxers. OFFICIAL: Wonderful. I hear Andrew Wakefield’s bedroom is just •perfect• at this time of year. EDWARD JENNER: It is! I spent last summer standing by his bed, calling him a c--. OFFICIAL: Lucky yooou… OFFICIAL [LOOKING AT DOCUMENTS]: Oh... oh dear... 
EDWARD JENNER: Is everything OK? OFFICIAL: I’m afraid your card says you haven’t had the required stupidity vaccination for your trip. EDWARD JENNER: Oh dear! 
OFFICIAL: It’s fine - we can do it here…
 Just read this anti-vax tweet by Jim Carrey
 EDWARD JENNER [reading a smartphone]: Egads! [Ends]

From 2019

[Scene is a domestic kitchen. Night time. The room is all blue apart from warm orange-pink light streaming in from a streetlight outside. In the center of the room stands a woman named BRANDI, standing in pyjamas looking contemplative, the light cast dramatically on her face. At the doorway, leaning against the frame, her partner JOEL stands has woken up and found her in the kitchen.] JOEL: Honey… what are you doing? BRANDI: Can’t sleep Guess I just like standing in the kitchen at 3am thinking about the supernatural threat we temporarily defeated last year. While saying that out loud in a manner which sounds casually ironic but is actually just blatant exposition. JOEL: Brandi… you're talking strange... BRANDI: Dammit Joel. It’s time you knew. You're a Netflix character. [Joel looks shocked] BRANDI: Everybody you know has been forced to speak to you in second screen dialogue. Second screen dialogue helps the people scrolling their phones in front of the TV to follow the - JOEL: Stop explaining, Brandi! [Hands on head, emotional expression, warm pink light cast on his face against the cool blue darkness of the room]. JOEL: So that's why my entire life has looked so glossy and... BRANDI: Yep... Warm/cool colour graded. [Cut to a TV show TITLE SCREEN]: SECOND SCREEN - A Netflix original - [Ends]

Television made easy … for phone scrollers. The Stephen Collins cartoon I feel like a dumbed down character – I can explain …

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Portrait in gouache on paper of a woman in a sunny allotment. the heads of her children are poking out of the ground and she is watering them with a watering can. To the sides stand her husband, her dog, and in the distance are her houses and car.

Portrait commissions now open for booking for 2026! Click through link in bio to enquire.

This is a recent one commissioned as a gift for an allotment-lover. That’s Sting in the tree. The family's past houses are in the background.

Oh and that's her adult kids in the ground she's growing! 🌱

😂

Partridge does it a lot. Just gesturing to a scene outside the scene, which is somehow funnier for the fact that you've been prompted to make it up on your own

and I know it's not comedy as such but it made me think how the stuff I love most in comedy is when something fires off a scene in your head a moment after you've heard it, in this case a barber saying "is that Joseph Stalin"

Reddit post accompanied by a photo of hot looking young Stalin with lovely hair: hey guys how do I get Stalin hair without showing the barber a picture of Joseph Stalin.

Just remembered this

Cartoon strip [Show DANIEL DAY LEWIS in a sit-down junket interview to promote a film] 1 DDL: In a way I suppose the process 2 DDL: of showing different stories to an audience Literally *through* yourself, almost as a kind of tool, 3 DDL: is very similar to that of being an actor. INTERVIEWER: Fascinating 4 DDL: And then of course when I was lucky enough to meet ViewMaster himself 5 DDL: Do you remember when I came to your attic? 6 [Silent panel of a MATTEL VIEWMASTER sitting on a chair next to him] 7 DDL: ViewMaster was kind enough to invite me into his attic 8 DDL: And I sat in his box with him, and studied his mannerisms INTERVIEWER: Such as… DDL: Sitting in a box. [About here we see a movie poster behind them that says VIEWMASTER starring DANIEL DAY-LEWIS - A Mattel film] 9 DDL: Did you ever feel you were getting… lost in the role? Oh it’s like a sickness, haha! 10 DDL: I remember going home to my wife one evening and demanding that she look into my “Viewing Holes” - that’s what I called my nipples 11 DDL: And I “showed” her this whole satirical story about Mattel, and the politics of ViewMaster…. 12 DDL: That was when we knew we had our story. INTERVIEWER: Incredible [Ends]

one from 2023

A family portrait painted by Stephen Collins. A family of four, two parents and female kids adult and teenage, all sitting on to- of things that are meaningful to them like cupcakes and teddies etc. the setting is a canyon in the USA and the sky is bright blue.

I'm opening up family portrait commissions again for 2026! Link in bio for enquiries.

This was a recent one. The client was great, with loads of fun ideas that worked well. They're all sitting on favourite cakes and teddies and plants and stuff, and the location is a canyon in the US.

Google's huge effort to make Shorts un-turnoffable was so unnecessary and is such a flagrant grab to dominate kids attention for all their waking hours. It's like they don't even pretend anymore

Ban phones all you like but as long as the kids devices have YouTube access, they've basically got TikTok on their homework computer. My kids find it really hard to avoid it, and it's literally un-turnoffable

Scene is a spoof TV news item. The NEWSREADER is talking to camera from behind the desk. NEWSREADER: Now, here to discuss the smartphone ban in schools… We have with us, YouTube Shorts. [Pull back to show an anthropomorphised version of the YOUTUBE SHORTS screen, sat in the interviewee's chair across from the newsreader] NEWSREADER: Good morning. YOUTUBE SHORTS: Hi NEWSREADER: You Tube Shorts, you work in education... YOUTUBE SHORTS: Yes. I work in schools across the country teaching Epic Dance Fail, Try Not To Cringe Challenge and Al Slop. NEWSREADER: And will the proposed phone ban limit your ability to do your job? YOUTUBE SHORTS: No. I'll still be on all school laptops because YouTube is vaguely educational and Google have made me impossible to turn off. NEWSREADER: So children are being asked to do their homework on... ...the most advanced distraction machine ever created? YOUTUBE SHORTS: Well- I think a more constructive way to frame that question might be: Can IShowSpeed jump over a moving Lamborghini? [The newsreader silently looks at the screen on YOUTUBE SHORTS's front, where a YouTuber jumps over a Lamborghini. This continues for an awkward beat] NEWSREADER: Woah. NEWSREADER [returning to awareness]: What were we talking about? YOUTUBE SHORTS [pointing at the next Short which has appeared on its own front]: Look at this fat dog. [ends]

I like the govt's plan to ban smartphones and social media in schools but nobody's mentioned the glaring hole in it

The comedy pause in having to click through to the broadcasting boob, while not expecting it to look exactly like a broadcasting boob, and then it looking very much like a broadcasting boob, really made me laugh

So, the smartphone ban in schools is going well … the Stephen Collins cartoon What are the implications of the smartphone ban for education?

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