Launch Recite Me assistive technology
An illustration of a yellow bird wearing a blue shirt and a grey cap, sitting in a red booth. A speech bubble reads, “I’ll tell you, Mike, this bird shit is fucking me up. Like, real life fucked up shit.”

Meet the football coach who's also a doctor – and a bird – Coach Bird M.D.

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Date
4 March 2015

Oi graphic designers! What do you get up to in your spare time? Spot of kerning is it? Take the kids down to the font foundry and do a type casting workshop yeah? Well you’re really letting the side down. Nick Vokey’s a graphic designer who’s worked for The New Yorker and MIT Technology Review and in HIS spare time he makes comics about a medical doctor who coaches a local pee-wee football team and has been turned into a bird by a wizard. He’s a foul-mouthed bastard of a bird but incredibly funny indeed. Have a look at Nick’s comics and then reassess the way you use your weekends. You too could be making an hilarious bird-themed odyssey of graphic art. (This also applies to anyone who isn’t a graphic designer).

A comic strip titled “Coach Bird, M.D.” by Nick Vokey. A yellow bird wearing a blue coach’s outfit and cap lectures a group of young soccer players. The bird tells a player named Jeremy that neither they nor the assistant coach like him. He explains that while he cannot kick Jeremy off the team, he can tell the principal and parents about Jeremy and Jackson “masturbating the Home Ec chickens out by the woodshed.”
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Nick Vokey: Coach Bird M.D.

A comic strip titled “Coach Bird M.D.” featuring a yellow bird person wearing a blue sports coach outfit and a cap. The panels alternate between the coach shouting at players on a football pitch and a pensive person in a blue shirt sharing a melancholic internal monologue.
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Nick Vokey: Coach Bird M.D.

A comic strip featuring a yellow bird person wearing a blue shirt and cap, sitting in a booth at a diner with another person. The bird speaks in speech bubbles about the struggles of being a bird, including laying eggs and wanting a frittata. A server eventually tells them they are not allowed to vape, to which the bird replies, “First, this is a cigarette, genius. Second, I’m a doctor.”
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Nick Vokey: Coach Bird M.D.

A comic strip featuring a yellow bird character wearing a blue shirt and cap. The bird imagines a future where they are a legendary figure, while the reality shows them coaching a group of children on a football pitch.
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Nick Vokey: Coach Bird M.D.

A comic strip featuring a conversation between a bartender and a customer named “Coach Bird M.D.”. The customer, a person wearing a brown suit and bow tie, talks at length about their medical career and personal life.
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Nick Vokey: Coach Bird M.D.

A comic strip titled “Coach Bird Md.” follows a recording session where a person in a blue shirt is being coached by a bird-like figure. A woman enters the studio with snacks and offers unsolicited production advice.
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Nick Vokey: Coach Bird M.D.

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About the Author

James Cartwright

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James started out as an intern in 2011 and came back in summer of 2012 to work online and latterly as Print Editor, before leaving in May 2015.

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