#120

It's always Sunny in Paris

Declan Shalvey

Apr 18, 2023

ALL THE LATEST

I’m currently holed up at Stephen Mooney’s house recovering from my trip to Paris and rushing from the airport to see Always Sunny live in Dublin, which was a blast.

Mooney’s blasting 80s hits in his studio, so it’s hard to finish this email…

Paris was great! I was surprised how busy I was just signing. Everyone was so nice and complimentary. Had a drunken conversation with Olivier Coipel about drawing penises at some point …spent a lot of time with Rachael Stott who I’ve known for years but never really had a chance to hang. She had me laughing all weekend, she’s a legend, not to mention a tremendous artist.

I took a few headshots that I was eventually able to get to, all below.

-I got a brilliant opportunity from Marvel a couple of weeks go. A chance to work with an amazing writer on a short, what a dream… but had to turn it down. It would have completely messed up the schedule for #6 of OLD DOG and the schedule for the series has been messed up enough already. Wasn’t worth the cost. Still hurts though!

-Having gotten a lot of art pages done recently, that means a lot of writing need to be done now. I’m currently working on fleshing out of #5 of OLD DOG as I’ll need to start drawing it very soon, and need to have a couple of Alien scripts in over the next handful of weeks.

-I’ll be back in the studio in a couple of days, where I’ll have to dive into said issue of OLD DOG [and a Marvel cover that needs to be done ASAP]. So, a lot of work ahead of me, but have a couple of breaks planned after it so will have some downtime in June. After that, I’m not exactly sure what I’ll do. I’ll start writing the next arc of OLD DOG, I just think I might need a break, I’m thinking it might be best to do a short work for hire gig before before signing up on that rollercoaster again. I’ll have to spend some time working out the trade anyway, so that’ll give me time to consider my options.

-I can’t show anything but I finally saw some prep work on the SAVAGE TOWN animated series. Again, can’t say any more than that, but it’s very very cool to see the development process.

ALIEN

ALIEN #1 is out next week! As a treat, here’s the artwork for the very first page, by Andrea Broccardo and Triona Farrell!

I’m deep in the weeds with Alien writing right now, it’s a lot, but I’m really enjoying it. This is such a cool arena to tell compelling stories. Andrea keeps sending in great page after great page. He’s currently wrapping up #3 and I have #4 ready for him. I hope everyone checks out the new series next week, and let me know what you think. And sure while I’m showing unseen art, here’s Dike Ruan’s amaaaaaaaazing cover for #4, with colours by Matt Wilson.

OLD DOG

OLD DOG #5 is all done! I finished the colours just before I left for Paris [I mean like, just under an hour before] and Clayton Cowles has just handed in the lettering this morning. I am really, really happy with how the issue has come together. Yes, I know I say that all the time but this one is a bit of a left turn and was nervous it wouldn’t work but …I think I pulled it off.

Just need to get moving with wrapping the next script asap so I can get drawing again.

Want to see some new/exclusive art? Well get a load of this! My cover for #6 of OLD DOG, the final issue of this first arc.

Now, marvel at this spectacular B variant cover by Greg Hinkle

And finally, a C variant by Philip Barrett, my collaborator on SAVAGE TOWN

Thanks to both for making the time to do these.

The FOC for #4 has passed, so I’ll just have to see if the orders have held up after the hiatus. Fingers crossed!

TIME BEFORE TIME

More new art! My cover for #25

And the variant cover by Eoin Marron!

We just wrapped #23, the end of our 4th arc. I am SO sad to lose Jorge Coelho on the book, this issue is just EPIC and he just crushed it, along with the usual O’Halloran/Otsmane-Elhaou excellence. Rory and myself just wrapped the script for #28, with that done there’s just one more to go… *sniff*

With that in mind, I’d like to reveal the artist for our final arc, artist of FUTURE STATE: GOTHAM, Geoffo! I’ve been a fan of Geoffo’s for a long time, his Webtoons story The Promise really helped me work out my approach to the X-MEN UNLIMITED project. Hot off his DC work he was gracious enough to join us on our final TBT stint and has already handed in beautiful pages, looking forward to showing them off. Here’s the poster he did for Paris Fan Fest which be both just attended where we finally got to meet in person.