The last week has been somewhat good for ‘media’ ‘appearances’ of your truly. Last Saturday there was an article in the Irish Times on the homegrown Irish comics scene. I got a couple of choice quotes, and they even called Last bus “a small press gem”. Awesome. I’m going to use that in all my self promotional garbage from now on. Seriously though, it’s a very well researched and written story, check it out here.
I was also interviewed by the ever delightful Liam Geraghty for the Comic Cast. If you can get past the first ten minutes of faltering answers, half finished sentences, ums, ahs, yeah and … um yyeeaahh all set to a backdrop of nail hammering and Jeff Buckley ambience I think I may have made some sense. Never knew I could think aloud so incoherently when I try to describe my work.
Anyway, Last Bus issue two is now available in my online shop. If you live in Dublin, pick it up in Story on Crow Corner, Sub City, The Winding Stair or Forbidden Planet.
Off to Bristol on Saturday morning, volcano permitting. Will have a new mini comic version of an old story , an illustrated postcard set (which is related to the image above), alongside brand new editions of In The Aquarium, Stop Gap, and both issues of Last Bus.
A man I met on a train recently said that pylons are a blight on the landscape. But they carry electricity around and bring it to the cites where we live. I guess people want both unspoilt countryside and fully lit cities. I quite like pylons though.
I recently took part in Chris Judge’s Spring Illustration Course which was a lovely experience all round. Met some really nice talented people and picked up a lot of tips. We were set several assignments the results of which I will be posting up over the coming weeks. Here’s one, a mock editorial based on the idea of male grooming in the modern Irish male. I forsook my normal approach of cleaning up my line-work and colouring in photoshop for diving right in with watercolours. Bit messier, perhaps but I was pretty happy with the results.
I’ve not really been posting to this blog at all recently, as you may have noticed. There are a few reasons for this – firstly all my time in January was consumed mainly with a web design job that would be of zero interest to most people who actually follow this.
The second, more significant, reason is that I’ve been putting off posting about the new Last Bus because I scrapped the story and a bunch of pages that I had worked on at the end of last year and didn’t want to jinx my progress until I was happy with the script and had a decent amount of work completed. I’m halfway through the new issue, which I started at the beginning of February and I’m very pleased with its progress. Look out for a late March release. The picture at the top of the post is a couple of frames from the main story.
I’ll also be giving this blog and my illustration website an overhaul in early March. Integrate them more closely.
Finally, late last week I got alerted to this article about foreign comics on Paul Gravett’s website. My minicomic, In The Aquarium got nominated, alongside John Robbin’s (really, really excellent)The Monkey Head Complaint, as one of the best comics published in Ireland in 2009. Thanks a million to Paddy Brown for the mention!
Working on some pieces for two exhibitions due next week. Here’s the inked version for “What I Always Wanted”. As usual my link to the theme is somewhat tenuous and cryptic.
It’s kind of a bit weird and daunting working on a larger scale than I’d normally be used to and also not having the luxury of the computer to fix all my sloppy mistakes. Ah well I’m enjoying it, next: to do the colours.
Phils amazing poster for the exhibition is below.
With both Thought Bubble and Independents Day coming up this weekend, I’ve been working on a little mini comic to have at the conventions as I have no new longer comics ready to go. Although I technically finished all the drawing and scanning yesterday, it still has to be assembled into it’s teeny tiny little booklet form. Anyway here are a couple of snippets from “Each Morning My Heart Fills With Joy At The Prospects Of The New Day”. I’ll take some photos of the finished minicomics when I have them printed and folded tomorrow.
More images below the cut.
Here are a couple of pages from the next Last Bus that I’ve been inking yesterday and today. Still a lot of cleaning up to be done, but though I might give you a sneak preview of how the comic is progressing.
