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A biweekly newsletter by artist/writer Declan Shalvey

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#121

Mighty [Xeno]Morphin' Time!

Declan Shalvey

May 2, 2023

ALL THE LATEST

ALIEN #1 was released last week! I still can’t believe I’m writing an ALIEN series, but there it is in print. More on that below. While pre-Paris was all about getting OLD DOG #5 finished, the last couple of weeks has predominantly been about getting a lot of ALIEN done. More on that to come. I have the script for the next OLD DOG finished, and am hopping back on it now, to wrap up this chapter of the series.

-I got four covers done in the last week. TIME BEFORE TIME, a cover for a BOOM series and a couple of Marvel covers. Two need to be coloured still though, so gotta work those into my schedule soon, to clear my plate for OLD DOG #6.

-RIBBON QUEEN, a new series by Garth Ennis and Jacen Burrows was recently announced by AWA. I’m doing the covers for the series, something I’ve hinted at in previous Declarations. It’s a genuinely chilling and compelling series, a really cool story to be doing covers for and of course, is a huge honour for me as a massive Garth Ennis fan. Here’s the first cover.

There’s also this special black and white/virgin cover available …which is pretty class, if I do say so myself. Which I do.

-I have TWO signings confirmed over the next couple of months. The first, at Forbidden Planet Glasgow, in Scotland on May 22nd and at Comic Stores in Malaga, Spain on June 2nd. Hope to see ye there!

-Friend of the Substack Renton Hawkey has launched a kickstarter for his TOWER OF DEATH one-shot, finally bringing his RONIN DIGITAL EXPRESS to print.

I believe the print edition & extras is US only (boo!) but you can still get the digital version for 8 bucks. Pledge here!

-I’ve noticed a real surge in subscribers in the past month [there was already some subscriber growth since switching to Substack, but more specifically in the last few weeks]. I’m not sure what the reason is, but just wanted to say thanks to anyone who’s been spreading the word. Anyone else who wants to can do so by clicking below.

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-Lastly, more info on the upcoming THUNDERBOLTS omnibus that contains my first year or so of Marvel work, having debuted at the publisher with the 2 part Shadowland crossover story. This title was a joy to draw, really gave me a lot of fun stuff to draw, pushing me as a storyteller. Working with Jeff Parker was a delight, always making the process fun, with great inventive ideas and entertaining superhero stories. Treat yourself to this book, out in December I believe, so get that Christmas present ordered early! Order coder MAY230980

ALIEN

“THAW” has begun. This 30 page beauty has hopefully sold you on the series. I consciously made the choice to hold off on the Xenomorph action for this first issue, to really establish the world and the characters. If you’re looking for some gore and violence I assure you; it’s coming. Reviews have been pretty good!

“Declan Shalvey and Andrea Broccardo infuse Alien #1 with the spirit and bone-chilling terror of the first film. This issue is far more in line with the original film than many other series. The creative team gets it here. By delaying the gratification of Xenomorph shenanigans for as long as possible, they are fraying the nerves and setting up the unseen elements of horror. And that may well be more terrifying than anything committed to the page.”

-CBR

“Writer Declan Shalvey is quick to establish these new characters in a satisfying way, making this feel totally new from any other recent Alien comic series.”

-Comicbook.com

Me and an ALIEN prop suit from the Musée du Cinéma showcase at Paris Fan Fest

“Alien #1 captures everything that the franchise uses to be iconic. 5/5” But Why Tho

“You can feel the cold air and ice just looking at the pages which plays off of the white and gray of the world. What’s presented is great in the design as it feels like a setting that’s both scientific and lived in. There’s something rather practical about what we see and it fits nicely with the aesthetic that has been set up for the world of Alien.the issue delivers a pace that adds little on top of little to deliver a solid and tight opening.”

-Graphic Policy

Myself and Andrea have been chuffed with the response. On that note, how good is Andrea Broccardo?! All the costumes, the environments etc… so authentically Alien. There are times when writing this book when I feel like it’s a book I’d like to draw, then I think of all the reference and technical stuff and see Andrea pull it off so well and then I realise I am fine being juuuust the writer on this thing. Though, I have recently gotten to draw something…

But back to Andrea. While I did sneak in a couple of preview pages for you loyal Decolytes, here are the official preview pages released by Marvel.

I hadn’t seen anyone talk to Andrea about the book yet so as an exclusive I decided we should have a little chat about the series between ourselves right here. So everyone welcome ALIEN artist Andrea Broccardo…

DEC: Andrea, I know you’re a long time Alien fan, and was actually campaigning at one point to be the artist on this book. What was it like to get the gig, and has the experience lived up to your expectations?
ANDREA: Hey Dec! A big “HI” to all of the readers of our chat! Yep, you’re right, when I was trying to enter inside the comic books market I always had some Alien test pages to show to the editors and one of the achievement in my comic book artist career was to work on an Alien series, so you can imagine how I felt when Marvel Editor Sarah Brunstad contacted me for work on a new Alien series that wasn’t announced yet!
The work is great. I love to have the total freedom to create the characters, to create the base, the technology and all of the stuff that you could see inside the book. I always draw these things for fun and I can’t believe that now I’m doing it for work!
At the beginning, I have to admit, I had a bit of anxiety. I love this franchise a lot, so I want everything to be made good on my pages and I redrawn and changed a lot of things, especially in the first pages. But after some pages, I took the right confidence with the characters, the setting and things went smoothly. I think that our team get on very well, there's great communication between us and everyone is proactive on the creation of the story.
DEC: It’s so great that the book you’ve always wanted to do is the book you’re actually working on now. Doesn’t always happen, even when you’re lucky enough to break in at Marvel! Glad you’re a fan of the Dark Horse stuff too as that’s the vibe I wanted to lean towards on the book.
I saw on a video chat we did with Sarah that you had a lot of Alien merchandise. I didn’t realise you were such a huuuuge fan before we started. I can see your love of the franchise from all the attention to detail in your work. It’s been such an advantage for you to have such specific knowledge of the world, all the costumes and environments feel so faithful to the films. How big an ALIEN fan are you?
ANDREA: I've been an Alien fan since when I was a kid, the first movie is definitely one of my top 5 favorite movies of all time and I’m a super fan of the old comic books by Dark Horse, especially the first 3 series. I collect a lot of stuff about the Alien franchise. I have the studio full of Alien figures, comics, books, role play games, video games, cards and many many other things!
DEC: Nice to know all the Alien stuff you’ve been getting over the years has paid all down the line! I’ve done a couple of ALIEN covers and since I’m not as familiar with all the details as you, I had to spend ages looking up accurate references and make sure I didn’t get anything wrong. To me, the Xenomorphs LOOK fun to draw, but they’re actually pretty hard to get right, to make them believable as real creatures. Do you have a favourite reference model? And what is your approach to drawing them as well as you do?
ANDREA: NECA made awesome action figures of the Alien franchise, they released all of the Xenomorphs that we saw in the movies and a large part of the human characters, so when I have to draw a character from Alien world is very very useful to have a lot of that merchandise in my home. I have a Big Chap Xenomorph (the alien drone from the first movie) that is over 60cm tall with extraordinary detail levels that I use as reference when I have to draw the Xenomorph on the pages.
The difficulty that I usually have, when I approach to draw a Xeno is not the massive techno-organic body, like anyone could expect, but is to find the correct pose that make it feral, threatening and dangerous as hell. But luckily the figures that I use as reference have movable joints that are very useful to nail the correct pose!
But, one question for me, Dec. I know that you’re a great Alien fan too, so what was your first encounter with the Xenomorph and how is hard or easy to write an Alien story?
DEC: Honestly, I’m nowhere near as much of a fan as you are! I say Alien 4 in the cinema when it came out and liked it okay, but didn’t love it and wasn’t in a rush to see more. I was too scared to see previous films when younger, so it took me a while to see the original film and the sequel. It wasn’t until my 20s when my girlfriend t the time sat me down to watch Alien. A friend sat me down to watch Aliens. Actually, I might have seen Aliens first..? I can’t remember.
It’s a little intimidating to write an Alien story as people of my generation LOVE the original films. Frankly at this stage, it’s a franchise with more bad films than good, so I felt it was important to take those first two films and distill an approach to the world that stayed within those ground rules. I felt it was important to resist the urge to show the Xenomorph too slowly, and let us get to know the main characters while building tension and when we see the Xenomorph, it stays scary.
ANDREA: Have you a specific reference that you used as inspiration for the setting of our story and for the characters that are inside it?
DEC: Well, I wanted to but the creature in an environment that was different to anything we’ve seen in the films, while keeping some touchstones from the films. I can’t remember why it hit me, maybe it was when I was thinking of the 80s aesthetic of the early films, but John Carpenter’s The Thing came to mind as a visual touchstone outside of the established Alien franchise. As for the characters, that came from a chat between myself and out editor Sarah Brunstad, about how Aliens ended in an interesting place; a family. And how it would have been interesting to see that dynamic within the franchise, so I really went with that. Between Batya and Zasha, I wanted to channel a little Ripley into the book. Of the main characters, do you have a favourite to draw? On top of that, being an ALIEN fan, is there something in that world you’d really like to draw?
ANDREA: The Thing by John Carpenter is definitely another movie that is in my personal top 10 of my favorite movies, so combining Alien and The Thing sounds like a dream to me!
I love to draw Zasha, when I developed her design I was thinking of a teenager with big expressive eyes, a clean, innocent face, a young girl that fall in a nightmare and totally worried for her parents and she’s definitely the character that I appreciate more to draw. Another one is Wendell, oh Wendell! When I had to create this slimy Weyland-Yutani employee I was looking for a design that show how sneaky and ambiguous he could be and I needed a face that had to be perfect to show these characteristics. On tv, that night, was broadcasting the first Die Hard Movie ( another one movie that I Love) and Hans Gruber by the awesome Alan Rickman was simply perfect and exactly what I was looking for. Obviously we can’t use exactly the Alan Rickman likeness but I would like to draw something really similar and close to that character. And every time that I have to draw him on the pages, I love to make him sinister and slimy dangerous, like the Carter Burke played by Paul Reiser in the Aliens movie.
DEC: Wendell is definitely the Burke-esque stand-in for our story. But sleazier.
ANDREA: About a character that I would love to draw, well, I’d love to draw a Xenomorph Queen, maybe in her Egg Chamber. The Queen Design by James Cameron and Stan Winston is something beautiful, sinister and scary as hell, so definitely, let me draw a double splash page with a Queen, please!
DEC: I’ll consider it! I drew her for a cover and while it was difficult, was also very fun. I don’t know how you can draw these things over and over, they’re hard to draw!
ANDREA: Another character that I would love to draw is the Predator! I know, he’s not properly from the Alien world, but there are many comic book stories that crossed paths or the Yautia with the Xenos. The best ( it would be another achievement in my comic artist career) would be an Aliens vs Predator story. Man, I could cry for joy if Marvel asked me to draw something like that!
Let’s ask Marvel to create this magic, Dec!
I’ve already suggested it! Ed Brisson, the writer on the excellent PREDATOR series is a friend and past collaborator (he wrote the Punisher vs Barracuda series I did that never came out). I love the idea of writing an AvP series together but that call is well above our pay grade.
ANDREA: Coming back to talk about the writing step, how is it to work with 20th Century Studios? I worked on a lot of Star Wars Titles for Marvel and Lucasfilm crew is very present on every step of the creation of the comic books, story, art, colors, lettering, is it the same with 20th Century? They gave you freedom when you had to develop the story?
DEC: Honestly yeah, there was a lot of freedom in the overall story. There are some points and characters I wasn’t allowed near but they were very cool for me to introduce things. There are some specifics they are particular about, which I appreciate, as the lore of Alien is wide and deep. The overall story I wanted to tell though, was pretty open. Any edits I had to make weren’t too big a deal regarding the core of the story. The concern is always more about if there would be changes that affect the art as I’m conscious of how delays can really screw up an artists’ schedule. I think Sarah our editor has been really great to keep all that in mind and ironed out any potential problems.

This chat went on longer, but to avoid this newsletter getting too long, I decided to split it up into two parts. Check the next Declarations for Part Two. And as an added treat, here’s an inked tease for #2.

If you haven’t checked out the series, as I said, Issue 1 is out right now! It’s a bumper 30 page series opener, with pitch perfect colours by Triona Farrell (If you liked the above interview, let me know in the comments and I can do one with her too, maybe) who added soooo much mood and atmosphere to Andrea’s inks. Props to my long term collab-bro Clayton Cowles on letters, and hats off to the series designer Jay Bowen, who did a really cool thing with inverting the approach to the design spread for this icy-set arc.

And last but not least, thank you to editor Sarah Brunstad for offering me the gig, but also being an excellent collaborator. She’s been guiding me though the process, working with the licensor to make the whole process smooth. She’s given me the room and encouragement to come up with a story I felt would be compelling, and has given me an open door to help build the look of the book, to match what I felt it should be.

And to wrap this long section up, check out this savage Dave Johnson variant cover for ALIEN #2!

[Note: Love what he did with that moon and second moon haloing the Xeno and title. The man remains the best in the business]

OLD DOG

Digging into this now! The issue is written, I’m working on layouts at the moment, but I have to start pencilling this week to stay on track

As I’m wrapping up this arc, I’m mulling over ‘What’s next?’ I will be taking a break on OLD DOG to recharge but I’ve also had an idea of switching thing up for the next arc. Excited to try it but yeah, just need a breather when this issue is done, and then take care of all the trade stuff, as well as preparing a related Art Deco project.

TIME BEFORE TIME

Cleared #23 for the printer last night. Again, just bowled over by Jorge Coelho’s final issue on the book. You can’t miss this, seriously. Below is the only non-spoilery page of the issue, with Chris O’Halloran colours, of course.