Brian Boru exhibition

Hi Micks ,

Just a shout out about an exhibition I'm working on with Ross Stewart and Alice Dieudonne.

Below is our old friend King Brian Boru , final illo by Ross with the rough below by me.

Even though I'm in the last crunchy stages of Song of the Sea it is worth carving out time for this exhibition , as I've been wanting to do something around Brian's epic story for years and years now.

We are making big 7 foot illustrations telling the story of Brians life and it opens in about a month!

The illustrations will hang in the long room in Trinity College library that they referenced in the Star Wars prequels - just upstairs from the Book of Kells and The Book of Armagh.

Bad Suit

Old-timey guy, drawn with Manga Studio and coloured with Photoshop.

Gorgon

I think this was supposed to be Gorgon, from an old, unfinished Inhumans sample.

Zombie Warrior

I was going through old sketchbooks, and I found this zombie warrior sketch from more than twelve years ago. His face seems to have fared much worse than his body for some reason...

Ninth Assassin designs

These were the final two assassin designs I submitted for the 'Darth Vader and The Ninth Assassin' series. They went with the second one in the end.

The Manhattan Projects

I read the first three volumes of Jonathan Hickman and Nick Pitarra's 'The Manhattan Projects' recently. It's excellent stuff with a really bold look thanks to Pitarra and a very strong colour design by Jordie Bellaire (a little of which I tried to use in this shot). This is their alternate-universe version of Nazi rocket scientist Wernher von Braun.

Fantastic Four Vs. Super-Skrull

This is a commission I got through my association with John Byrne from Greg Goldstein at IDW back in August 2012. Mr Byrne doesn't care for colorholds (tinting the lineart), so it made for an interesting gig. This is the first time it's being seen in public.

Dept of Monsterology

Well holy Moses its a Micks post, in support of PJ's new book.

Paul Bolgers Hound

Paul Bolger is a filmmaker, animator and illustrator based in Co.Kilkenny who has been planning a version of the Cuchulainn myth for as long as I've known him and quite a few years before that.

It looks to be a fantastic comic and film, please vote for it on this Guinness Arts Grant site to help him achieve the funding needed....

Here is the voting link  - 

www.arthurguinnessprojects.com/arts/hound-1

ICN have run a little article too and also put up some final art for people to see here - 

http://www.irishcomicnews.com/2013/07/vote-for-hound-on-guiness-arts-projects/

Half Past Deadline

So, Mr. Mooney's excellent first issue of Half Past Danger is out today. I hope you'll all buy many, many copies. I know I will! (not really, he better give me a free one) Anyway here's my not-at-all finished piece in honour of this happy day.

Dial T For Tomorrowness

Tomorrow's the day. Here's a photo from the Big Bang comic shop in Dundrum, Dublin showing the first issue's arrival with their deliveries. I still haven't seen an actual copy myself, but from all accounts it looks pretty decent!

All I can do now is wait to see how it's received. The past 20 months have flown by so fast, it's crazy. Thankfully the book seems to have taken on some real momentum, and is garnering an awful lot of good will. I'm honestly truly grateful and humbled by that fact.

So. Roll on tomorrow...

BONUS!

Here's my fearless EIC Chris Ryall holding up a couple of copies of the second issue. I still haven't seen issue 1!

Nick Roche - Issue 5 Variant Cover

Today's entry comes from the fabulously talented (and flamboyant) Nickelback Roche. Nick was at IDW way back even before I was, and blazed the Irish skidmarks therein. A master of all things Transformable, Nick always shows a whole different set of chops when unleashed on some honest-to-goodness human characters, like the HPD cast.  (Or are they..? They are.)

Nick has been pulling double-duty on HPD so far, along with being one of an elite-ish cadre of variant cover artists, he's been helping out a lot on the scripting front with numerous proof-reads and many excellent suggestions. I stole a couple of his lines verbatim for my pitch for the book. You're welcome, Nick.

It'd be hugely remiss of me not to point out the amazing Josh Burcham's colour work on this piece; as usual he took what Nick did and sprinkled gold dust over it. Josh coloured my favourite Nick-related TF project to date, Last Stand of The Wreckers, and I urge anybody that hasn't read that book by this point to find that sucker and eyehale it.


And yes, to those wondering, I DID ask Nick would he add a teeny Grimlock to the T-Rex portion of the cover, maybe peeking out of the jungle.

He, and Hasbro's lawyers, graciously declined.

Big Bang Exclusive - HPD Launch Print

This is the print that'll be handed out Free with the first 100 copies of HPD issue 1 sold at the launch night in The Big bang store in Dundrum on Wednesday next from 6:00pm. Well, the first 99, since I plan on stealing one for myself.

I'm told the original art should be hanging on a wall somewhere in there too, so keep at least one eye open.

Can't wait for the launch party that night; seems like there'll be loads of Ireland's best and brightest joining us, and promises to be great fun altogether.

I'll also be signing copies of the first issue on the following Saturday the 25th, in Sub City Comics on Exchequer Street in town, from 2-4 in the afternoon, for those that can't make it out to the launch on Wednesday. Hopefully I'll see ye all at one or the other!

It's PJ!!

PJ Holden doesn't grace these digi-pages nearly as much as we'd like anymore (that said, the rest've us aren't exactly regular contributors these days...), but he still remains very much a founding member of the Micks. Gone are the days where he'd draw several great images for each theme, then not be able to decide on one, then re-draw it again, then lose the hi-res when the sketchbook is due out, then draw it again...

He's got one interesting attention span. Plus he's got amazing bloody talent. One of the most naturally-gifted of our gang for my money, PJ produces the goods week-in, week-out in the pages of 2000AD and the upcoming, fantastic-looking MONSTEROLOGY.