If you're a Scottish football fan who's spent any time on Twitter in recent months, you can't have missed it. Although that sentence could easily refer to the BBC Sportsound tweet asking "Can Kris Boyd remember the names of his eight dogs?", I am in fact referring to Fitba Tweets, the brainchild of cartoonist and occasional stand up comic Keith Wallace.
Scottish football is a world ripe for parody, and while you can find one-liners, columns, gifs and memes on the subject, there was until recently a gap in the market for the sort of humorous, satirical drawings that the brilliant David Squires creates for English football. In retrospect, it seems ridiculous that an environment populated by such colourful characters wasn't already being turned into cartoons, but Fitba Tweets (@fitbatweets) has stepped up and filled that gap in style.
An episode of The Simpsons takes up to 8 months to complete, while the team behind South Park need only 6 days. Few would choose The Simpsons over South Park in 2018, and one of the keys to the latter's continued success and relevance is their ability to react quickly to topical events. Whether it be a stunning strike, controversial red card or raging statement, Fitba Tweets invariably responds quickly while maintaining his high standards.
I spoke to Keith about the cowardly lion of Tynecastle, Scottish football's greatest characters, other projects and plans for the future.
I was watching Hearts v Celtic and there was the Naismith tackle on Jonny Hayes and the kick and the abuse standing over him, which really hacked me off. I filmed it from the telly on my phone and posted it on my Twitter. I didn't expect any reaction as my Twitter is pretty quiet, but the video started to get thousands of views and a load of really abusive comments. It was pretty unpleasant and I deleted the tweet. It got me thinking about how to get my point of view across without the negativity.
I've been drawing cartoons mainly for fun for a couple of years, and I drew a fairly quick cartoon with Naismith dressed as the cowardly lion from The Wizard of Oz. I think it might have got one like. I had an old spare Twitter account and played about with some names, and 'Fitbatweets' just seemed to make sense. Then I just drew three or four a night, posted them and tagged @Oldfirmfacts1 and a few other names in Scottish fitba. A few retweets seemed to set the ball rolling and it's just grown and grown since then.
Did you expect it to take off to the extent that it has?
Not at all. My own Twitter has had about 300 followers for years and I didn't think this would be any different. When it got to 1,000 followers that was like dreamland. Now I have to pinch myself to believe it.
Knowing that there are fitba fans out there who like what I do is the big thing for me. I read every comment and genuinely appreciate every laughing emoji, retweet and like that I get. In terms of cartoons, The Scottish Fitba Purge is my absolute favourite. I'd like to keep adding to that over time. Turn it into a tapestry to sit in the National Gallery.
Have you had any negative responses and, if so, how have you dealt with them?
I think this is the advantage of the cartoon format. Post a photo or a comment and folk will tear into you on Twitter. It's harder for people to get upset by a cartoon eh. I did have one where Leigh Griffiths scored in the cup against St Johnstone, and in the cartoon he headed it straight rather than down. Somebody commented it was headed down and that got under my skin. Partly because I'd spotted it myself late that evening and was annoyed with myself, but also what's the point of even posting a comment like that? With any other comments that are about a game or a team itself I tend not to get dragged into a debate. Let the cartoons do the talking for me.
Although I've got some dodgy names for some players and there are some frequent targets, there's no malicious intent at all. It's about having a laugh and celebrating our game really. It's a unique product and the powers that be seem to forget that. The cartoons are full of profanities and I don't apologise for that. It's important that it's authentic to the way I see the game.
Tom Gauld, Modern Toss, Mitch Hedberg, David Squires, Viz, The Far Side, Dilbert, Red Meat, Poorly Drawn Lines, Tom Chitty and Dagsson. A special mention for John Callahan. The movie of his biography is out this month starring Joaquin Phoenix as John, and he's worth looking up.
Do you have a favourite person to draw?
There's no doubt drawing Fitbatweets has given me an appreciation of the positives and negatives in each team, and I can be far more objective than I was before when watching a game. There are definitely some recurring characters that I like to feature - Naismith, Griffiths, Boyata, Lafferty, Stevie May, Broony, Levein, Neil McCann, Sammon and Main. I like Morelos because he's so expressive and unpredictable, as well as clearly being a bigger talent than we might have expected. And Willie Collum. The Willie Collum Show is one of my favourites. Right now there are more characters in Scottish fitba than there have been for a good few years I think. We need our heroes and villains and numpties, and there are plenty about just now.
You have a really quick turnaround with your drawings. Let's say Jack Hendry scores an own goal against Portugal on Sunday - how do you react?
Burst out laughing first of all. If there's a game on I'll have my iPad and pen with me poised and ready to draw. I'll irritate the rest of the house by rewinding the telly and pausing it at the moment just before the goal. Make sure I get the strips right, especially the goalie and the ref, and capture the position of the key players involved. Then it's about finding the right words that fit the moment. How are the players reacting and, importantly, what noise did the ball make? Was it a dink or a melt? In this case it would probably be a flub. Then it's a case of saving it, sizing it for Twitter and posting. The power of technology eh.
You don't just cover Scottish football. What else do you draw?
On Fitbatweets I've dabbled with English football, NFL and the Ryder Cup. They aren't as easy to get humour from though, so I'll only do that very occasionally. I do cartoons about business and work life in big corporates, and cartoons about the little things in life that fascinate me. Anything from vampires trying to take selfies to specially shaped recycling bins for Toblerone boxes.
What next for Fitba Tweets?
I'm just going to keep doing what I'm doing, and keep it light-hearted, fun and authentic. I hope people will continue to enjoy what I do and keep spreading the word. I don't want to do anything to it that stops it being fun to do. 10k followers would be unreal. I don't know if it will grow to that, but you never know. There's so much happening in our game that you really have to post on the day it happens or the story gets out of date quickly. Things like prints and merchandise could come along at some point. I'm doing the odd multi-panel cartoon so there might be something in that too. I'll do as much as time allows really.
If you're not already following Keith, find him at @Fitbatweets (and his non-football drawings at @mrkeithwallace). He's even more entertaining than Kris Boyd remembering dogs.