#128: Dossier/Miner

Revealing my next 'Art Deco' project and my next Marvel one.

Aug 08, 2023

ALL THE LATEST

Hello again, welcome back for some more newsletterness. As usual; I’ve been doing stuff…

-Have started penciling PROJECT MINER, More on that below.

-Coloured a couple of covers, did a character design for Marvel and handed in a cover for Skybound. Took a couple more Marvel covers. Will soon be taking on covers for a Boom series, that will pretty much take the place of RIBBON QUEEN, which will wrap up for me next month. Need to jump on that next RIBBON QUEEN cover actually, now that I think of it.

-Artist Alex Lins has been handing in pages for our CRYPT OF SHADOWS short story and they look great. While aesthetically similar to my work, Alex tells stories in a very different way to me but I tried to leave things open for him so that he could have as much freedom as possible. I I hope he’s enjoying working on the pages. Here’s a peek.

He also admitted that he reads this newsletter, so hi Alex, and get back to work!

-One image that was released recently is a new MOON KNIGHT cover. My first time working on a MR KNIGHT cover for publication since I wrapped up the era/run that ended in …2016? This is a cover for WHITE WIDOW #1 as part of a ‘Knight’s End’ variant cover promotion.

-I have a couple of Marvel covers to do in the next month too, one of which will be my 250th Marvel cover! I don’t know why I keep counting these, maybe because it was such a challenge to get on covers back in the day.I don’t think I could imagine that I’d ever have this many Marvel covers under my belt. Pretty amazing, I don’t take these opportunities for granted.

-Ambassador Shalvey!? I was delighted to see myself featured in the recent hit X-MEN: HELLFIRE GALA event issue as a United Nations ambassador, representing Ireland. A brief, but momentous occasion. I couldn’t tell who drew the page [it was a multi-artist effort and I don’t have a copy of the issue yet] but must ask Gerry Duggan who did. I fear it may be digital but if not I’d like to get my hands on the original page.

-I’ll be appearing at Dublin Comic Con this weekend with ALIEN colourist Triona Farrell, where we’ll be discussing our careers over the past decade. Triona is sharp as hell and I like to blab, so it should be a good panel. Thanks to Limit Break for the invite.

-I saw [and immediately pledged to] Andrew Maclean’s Kickstarter for a new graphic novella, SNARLDRAGON. Some may know him from the excellent HEAD LOPPER, this is a more all ages affair with a lovely monotone look, ye should all check it out

-Also on Kickstarter, my friend Gustaffo Vargas has launched a new Kickstarrter, collecting more of his wild Peruvian Cyberpunk tales in ANTICUHO, another project ye should all check out.

-Finally, here’s an advance peek for ye. I’ve seen this cover has been solicited for Issue One of the new CARNAGE series by Torunn Gronbekk and Pere Perez. Art isn’t out anywhere yet, so don’t share this online!

Went pretty hard on this, channeling my maximum Bagely, all my symbiote slickness, and my best carnage-y colouring. Hope ye like, and again… shhhh!

OLD DOG x ART DECO

I started my ART DECO Kickstarter page to have a place where I could make side projects that weren’t necessarily comic narratives, to use the crowdfunding model to make projects that were less commercial to the direct market, etc. I’ve only used it once so far, but from inception it’s always been building to this. I’ve teased it for a while now but I can finally reveal I’ll soon be launching the new ART DECO Kickstarter project…

The OLD DOG DOSSIER!

This will be a book in the vein of the TIME BEFORE TIME Process Edition we put together a couple of years ago, but more comprehensive: a bigger, 120 page book. As a lot of you Decolytes are fans of the process stuff I post here when I can, it’s something I think a lot of ye would like. There’ll be various rewards: I’ve been busy making things like new bookmarks and art [see below] for some other cool stuff. I should have stuff to tease in the next newsletter [I don’t have the launch page ready for you all juuuuust yet, but I’ll have it ready for you in the next newsletter] which I’ll show JUST before launch.

Old Dog sketches for the Dossier project. May ink one on Twitch later today.

Not much OLD DOG news to share outside of the Kickstarter stuff but that’s secret for now.

The OLD DOG [REDACT ONE] trade is all done, just waiting to approve the final files for print. I’m letting my brain percolate for a bit before i land on which idea to move with for the next installment. IN the meantime, I hope ye are pre-ordering [sound off in the comments so I know who deserves my love!] Links below!

Links to buy: Amazon UK/ Amazon US/ Forbidden Planet London [w/ bookplate]/ OK Comics [w/bookplate]/ Barnes & Noble/ Target

ALIEN

I’ve pencilled my first section of ~~PROJECT MINER~~ which has been revealed to be …ALIEN! Here’s the first page…

As announced by Marvel last week, myself and Andrea Broccardo have a new Alien series launching in November. This new story is called DESCENDANT and while #1 is the start of a new story, it will have ties to the current arc [and upcoming annual]. In a slight change [and as mentioned above], I’m also drawing a section of this arc which I’m really enjoying.

In part, it was a necessity to have another artist on this story arc so that Andrea’s arms didn’t fall off, but I also had a backstory in mind so it works on both a practical and creative level. I was looking to draw something that wasn’t as involved as OLD DOG has been and sure, since I’m already working on the book, I volunteered to draw the section. I saw I could just draw pages I had to write already… I kinda get to have my cake and eat it this way; I get to have the fun of drawing some ALIEN without having to draw the whole thing. I’m very glad our editor Sarah Brunstad was up for it as it’s fun to dig my hands into the property a bit more and I like that it’s still myself and Andrea, like with THAW. I’m drawing a flashback that will run through the series. Ruth Redmond will be the colourist [though I’m colouring my own pages], with covers by Javier Fernandez.

ALIEN [DESCENDANT] #1 cover

Issue 5 is all done [Andrea has started inking #1 as I’ve handed in my pencils for approval]! Marvel sent me the PDF for the final issue of the arc. I can’t believe this first arc has come together so fast… I mean it feels fast. I see the trade has also been solicited for November [same month as the new #1!] with what I think is the best Dike Ruan cover of the series.

ALIEN: THAW TPB

Danny Earls is absolutely killing it on inks for October’s annual. I previously posted the pencils for this opening spread but man, soak in theses inks!

Ruth Redmond is colouring this annual too, doing a phenomenal job, but I wanted to show off Danny’s inks for this week. He,s showing little peeks over on his Twitter/X too, go have a look.

TIME BEFORE TIME

VOL 4 IS OUT NOW!

I hope ye all pick it up, it’s really stunning from back to front with stunning Jorge Coelho pages. I know I’m a broken record with this, but I cannot believe we have FOUR TBT books. Just one more to go! On that front, Issue 27 is all wrapped, Geoffo is still working away on Issue 28, though he’s nearing the end.

Image have announced a month-wide variant cover promotion to celebrate THE WALKING DEAD’s 20th anniversary, much like the SPAWN anniversary a few months back. As part of it, I drew this below TIME BEFORE TIME/WALKING DEAD crossover cover and had a lot of fun doing it.

This was a little weird for me to draw, as I drew it after the cover for the final issue… so technically this is my final TBT cover. Regarding that final issue, I can now show ye the final variant cover…

Wait… is that…? YES, co-creator and original artist of TIME BEFORE TIME Joe Palmer returns for our final issue, along with this haunting cover. Myself and Rory always wanted Joe to come back for the final issue. It just felt right, and all his beautiful pages are all in so he’s delivering us to the finish line, safely as ever. Would love to show some pages ahead of time, but they’re all spoiler-y, and it means that the book really is ending, and I don’t think I’ve fully processed that yet.