#163: Back Declaring

Much like John Wick... yeah, I'm thinking I'm back.

Jan 07, 2025

Welcome to DECLARATIONS a bi-weekly newsletter by artist/writer Declan Shalvey.

This is a regular workblog featuring exclusive peeks at upcoming projects with advance releases of original art/merchandise.

Hello and Happy New Year from the misty* banks of the River Fergus. It’s bleedin’ cold.

*NOTE I wrote this last night, this morning the weather and view is gloriously sunny

Normally I put out a newsletter over my holiday break on Christmas Day, with a new Christmas card and a ‘present’ for Declarations readers. My apologies, I wasn’t able to so this year. I was under the gun with work, trying to slice out a couple of days for the holidays and suffered a personal loss. It also meant I didn’t return last week as planned but hey, I’m finally back at it. And this Declaration is a doozy.

RIP BUFFY

As part of my daily routine I write out a ‘to do’ list in my notes app on my phone everyday- for work that needs to be done on that specific day, etc. First thing on that list is ’Buffy’ as the first thing I do every day is check on my little cat. Feed her, clean up after her, give her a cuddle, etc. That routine is no more as unfortunately just over a month ago my pet of fourteen years took extremely ill all of a sudden and I was left with the tough decision to spare her any further suffering.

She was with me through all the ups and downs over the years. When I got her with my girlfriend at the time, she was a rescue in bad shape. I can take some solace in knowing I was able to take care of her and give her a long life of 17 years, full of love for the 13 years I had her. She went peacefully and I was with her the whole time, telling her I loved her and thanked her for being my best little girl. Grateful to have had so many years with her, over the last weeks I’ve taken solace in the knowledge that we both looked after each other for so long. It was just her time.

I can also take some comfort in knowing that she’ll live on as she was the inspiration for Calica in THUNDERCATS, who debuted earlier this year.

Though now as I write my ‘to do’ list, I’m reminded of her absence each morning as I don’t put her down on there. She’s gone now and I miss her every day.

Man I used to hate cats. It’s been a month and I’m tearing up again writing this. That little furball changed me forever.

Bye Buffy

ALL THE LATEST

Obviously, a lot has been going on since I last assaulted yere inboxes. Here’s my worklog…

Finished script for MYSTIQUE #5
Pencilled and inked 20 pages of MYSTIQUE #5
Pencilled, inked and coloured a TERMINATOR cover
Finished script for THUNDERCATS #12
Wrote script for THUNDERCATS #13
Wrote lettering draft for MYSTIQUE #5
Wrote half an issue of TERMINATOR

Today I’ll be pencilling/inking a cover for Marvel after I do some outline work on the next issues of THNDERCATS and TERMINATOR. Aiming to work on some cover roughs tonight, if I have the time.

-As for Christmas, I had an evening in Dublin for some Christmas pints with Stephen Mooney, Aoife Dooley, Gary Moloney and friends [with a cameo by Babs Tarr!].

I took off Christmas Eve eve off, Christmas Day and the day part of St Stephen’s Day. Otherwise it was a hard grind to wrap the final issue of MYSTIQUE. Once it was done, last weekend I popped down to Cork to see TIME BEFORE TIME alum Rory McConville and Chris O’Halloran for some catch-up pints.

-Marvel released solicitations for March, including my cover for WEAPON X-MEN #2, coloured by my old THUNDERBOLTS collab-bro Frank Martin. Also released was my cover for DAREDEVIL: UNLEASH HELL #2.

-Some convention news, I’ll be in Dublin in a couple of weeks for MegaConLive with good folks like Alex Paknadel, John Lees, Rachael Stott, Danny Earls and, uh… Stephen Mooney. Should be a fun weekend.

I’ll also be at The Pop Culture Festival in Athens, Greece on Jan 31st-Feb 3rd.

I’ve just signed on for a couple of conventions in the States during the summer, in two cities I’ve never been to before so looking forward to those.

2024 IN REVIEW

While 2024 ended on a bit of a bummer note for me personally, the year as a whole was a blizzard of fun and challenging work. I took on a lot this year, more than I was expecting to come my way and it’s been a trial of fire for sure. I’ve come out the other end of it though, with a lot of work I’m really proud of.

Looking back, it’s hard to believe 2024 was probably my most productive and commercially successful year in comics. I got to write everything I drew, write two new series, one of which was one of the top selling books of the year, certainly the biggest selling book for Dynamite. Not bad.

Turns out 2024 was also my busiest year of cover work EVER, with 63 published covers...

24 for Marvel
18 for Dynamite [15 x THUNDERCATS, 3 x TERMINATOR]
7 for IDW
6 for Image
5 for BOOM! Studios
2 for AWA
1 for MadCave Studios

Christ, even I can’t believe I did this much cover work. Clearly THUNDERCATS made up a significant amount of that, but still.

Was a big year for writing, and writing/drawing too as I…

Wrote/drew 3 full issues [MYSTIQUE]
Wrote and drew 2 shorts [OLD DOG, TMNT]
Wrote 10 issues of THUNDERCATS,
Wrote 3 issues of TERMINATOR
Wrote 3 short stories [2x OLD DOG, MOON KNIGHT]
BONUS! Coloured 6 pages of a Chris Sprouse story

Thanks to all my editors for the interest and support, not that any of them are likely to read this but I really do appreciate that all these people came to me for all these projects, be it for writing, drawing or covers. I’m gonna try list them here as best as I can remember…

Darren Shan, Emily Newcomen, Hernan Guarderas, Devin Lewis, Lauren Amaro, Wil Moss, Sarah Brunstad, Martin Biro, Mark Basso, Michael Basso and Mark Paniccia at Marvel, Heather Antos,for my creator owned work and along with Maggie Howell and Nic Marino at IDW, Elisabeth Brei at BOOM! Studios and of course Nate Cosby at Dynamite. That man’s putting my [non existent] kids through college.

I definitely want to thank Andrew Christman too for the significant support he’s been in the past year in effectively building up the ART DECO store as part of my website. He was the one who convinced me that I could run the art sales/product part of my business under my own banner. It’s been a game-changer for me. He has since done he same with others as part of his company Kinetic, and it’s been great working with them to facilitate the ART DECO side of things and keeping my energies on making actual comics.

And you know what? Thanks to YOU for subscribing and following my Declarations over the past year. A lot more of you have signed up in the past twelve months, and it’s great to know there’s a more dedicated audience who is interesting in what I do, how I do it and most importantly support it.

Thanks for reading Declarations! This post is public so feel free to share it.

AHEAD TO 2025

The year starts with me wrapping up MYSTIQUE, I just handed in my final pages. As of now, I don’t have a ‘prime project,’ ie a big project I’m writing/drawing. Feels strange.

I’m taking a sequential break for January, concentrating on scripts and covers and ideally developing a pitch. A little downtime if I can manage it, too. I need it, I haven’t taken any time for myself since Buffy died and I was already up to my eyeballs for longer than I should have been.

Last year had BIG project reveals [OLD DOG OPERATIONS, MYSTIQUE, THUNDERCATS, THUNDERCATS spinoffs, MOON KNIGHT, TMNT and TERMINATOR] but as of now, I don’t have any big reveals for the coming year. I have a couple of irons in the fire though and in Feb, I’m going to get working on the next OLD DOG special [that’ll be a full story by me, not another anthology]. After that… I’m not exactly sure what I’ll be doing. That thought used to terrify me. Now, I’m just a little… uncertain but at this stage of my career I know something will shake loose, which is an amazing thing to be able to rely on. It’s also great that if there’s no big project on the horizon, I’m always able to just make my own thing. I’m always able to say no to something tat I’m not interested in. What a gift that is.

“For now” I hear myself say as I type this.

At some stage this year I’ll be drawing a short for an anthology series that hasn’t been announced yet, written by another creator. I’ll call that PROJECT HUNTER for now.

I’m toying with the idea of writing/drawing a crowdfunded one-shot. I don’t think it’d be substantial enough for Image to put out, and I’m curious how a story would perform in that space, as opposed to the process books I’ve previously done. I dunno, we’ll see.

Writing-wise, I still have another year of THUNDERCATS ahead of me, and the remaining arc of TERMINATOR. It’ll be interesting to see what comes my way this year, if anything. Dammit, there I go again!

TOYS, HOT AGAIN

Just before the holidays I was delighted to see that Sideshow are releasing a Mr. Knight Hot Toy from the Disney+ MOON KNIGHT show. Gimme, I want it NOW.

Man, it looks great and no, they’re not likely to send me one.

You know who DID send me a toy based on something I designed…? The good folks at Marvel. They were kind enough to oblige me with two of their latest Marvel Unlimited Annual Plus Membership Kits, as they made my Moon Knight/Spider-Man mashup cover into a Marvel Legends figure for them. I asked for two so I could keep a figure in the box and another to, uh… definitely NOT play with…

Really though, I hugely appreciate Nick Lowe and Rickey Purdin for reaching out and making sure I got one. Doesn’t often happen so credit to those who do their best.

MYSTIQUE

Issue Three was released a couple of weeks ago, anyone read it…?

I didn’t see much reaction as the book came out on Christmas Day, so I imagine most people were off enjoying themselves. Bad timing for me, as I was eager to see what people thought of the issue, it being the reveal of a ‘secret crossover’ with SENTINELS that I had pitched to Marvel.

When I signed on for MYSTIQUE, I was aware of the SENTINELS concept and when I heard my friend Alex Paknadel [OLD DOG operator] and Justin Mason [collab-bro from ROGUES’ GALLERY] were doing the book, I was very excited. At some point, I pitched Alex and editor Darren Shan a ‘secret crossover’ where in an issue of MYSTIQUE we could reveal she was in another book, but you wouldn’t know unless you read my book. To me it would be a fun way to make the most of a shared universe without any convoluted trappings that can happen. You don’t have to have read both books, but it’s fun if you do. The guys were up for it and it went from there. I’m chuffed with how it came out. I got to draw Justin’s designs, plus Beast! Magneto! Colossus! Man this is a fun book.

So yeah, as of now I’m now all done with Raven. I got my lettering draft in yesterday so outside of final notes I'm all done. Feels strange, my initial pitch was just over a year ago, and I didn’t know for sure if the book was happening for a while… it ended up taking the bulk of my workload for a year yet it really flew by. Getting to do my own take on such an iconic Marvel character… an X-MEN character no less, has been a dream come true. Everyone was great to work with, having Clayton Cowles with me as ever, getting to collaborate with Matt Hollingsworth… a genuine colouring hero of mine… such a dream come true.

I have to praise editor Darren Shan too. Funnily enough, he was the first person to hire me to draw BATMAN, for a 2-pager when he was working at DC Comics. He’s been at Marvel for years and while I’ve always been friendly with him, we never really worked together [outside of a single cover] until this book. [A fact I have since brought up with him… one cover in years? What the hell?!]

But Darren was a brilliant partner on this project, a great sounding board to crack the story with, made great suggestions and pushed back where needed in order to make the book better. I remember meeting him for lunch in New York when I had written Issue One, and he sat down with me going over everything with a rough edit of the script he made suggesting how readjusting the issue could make it better. He made it easy for me to take a fresh look at it, giving me the option to shoot it down… gave it the time needed to fully flesh it out. Looking back at it now, he was right.

He was great for notes with covers too. I laugh thinking about the cover for Issue Three [which again, came out a couple of weeks ago] where I suggested a cover [the one we ended up using]. He made a very different suggestion that I complied with [even though I really wanted to do the original rough]. I liked the new rough okay, but much preferred the original. I’ll always appreciate Darren’s note upon seeing the new rough which was essentially “God no, that’s awful, go back to the first one.” It’s always great when you’re working with someone who’s suggesting changes to try make things better, not just changes for the sake of them. The above example shows that he knew to go with the better idea, whoever came up with it, and I really appreciate that. Same with how he would push back on me if he felt something didn’t work. He never did it in a way that left me feeling shut down. If there was a “no” it always came with a “but what about this…”.

He was really supportive of the ‘secret crossover’ idea I mentioned above and as readers will see by the end of the story, really pushed me to be bolder in places. My instinct was to put Mystique safely back in the box once I was done playing with her, but Darren opened the door for me to be a little braver than I thought I could be. Through whatever changes and edits made, I can firmly say I got to make the book I wanted, and tell the story I wanted to tell. That’s a good editor.

I know he’ll never read this, so I feel comfortable praising him here.

THUNDERCATS

Dynamite released the cover for THUNDERCATS Issue Fourteen. This was so much fun, I’ve waited a whole year to finally draw this version of Mumm Ra, who was one of my favourite toys as a kid.

I was originally going to do a big team shot of this cover, that I showed the roughs for in a previous Declarations. As it turned out, I needed to have a big team shot for the THUNDERCATS LOST debut issue, and the THUNDERCATS CLASSIC omnibus homage was also a big team shot, all three covers being due around the same time. My ‘CATS editor Nate Cosby was gracious enough to cut me a break and let me go with a solo character cover for this Issue Fourteen, it lightened the load a little. As I started working on it, I remembered my initial plan actually was to draw a proper Mumm Ra shot for this cover, so everything came up Milhouse.

I’m getting started writing this issue which is the climax of this first year on THUNDERCATS. It’s a big milestone for me, so no pressure!

Drew Moss is about to work on Issue Thirteen which by my count will make him the longest artist collaborator I’ve worked with, nudging out Joe Palmer on TIME BEFORE TIME and Andrea Broccardo on ALIEN. Plenty more to come with him too!

TERMINATOR

As signaled above, I’m rolling up my sleeves regarding scripts this month, mainly on TERMINATOR. While I really love the done-in-one nature of the book, bouncing around events in the late 20th Century have required a lot of real world research which has made them a lot more work intensive. The second arc will be lighter on that material though, so I’m hoping to essentially wrap most of the scripts this month, finishing in February.

TERMINATOR Issue Three is out on the 22nd with art by Lorenzo Re, a wonderful Italian artist. Wanted to show ye these pages as he really hit the tone I was looking for. Wonderful colours to boost the atmosphere by Colin Craker here too.

TERMINATOR #4 artwork by Lorenzo Re, colours by Colin Craker

Man, look at that splash page.

Some very flattering pieces were published about the series on Screenrant over the month, one being “The Terminator Movies Are Great, But We've Got 8 Reasons Why Its New Comic Is Even Better” and “Terminator Has Great Stories, But Its Dark New Run Is the Prequel the Movie Fans Wish For” I can tell the writers are really loving the series with op-eds like these, which is great to see, especially in this age of low online engagement.

Artist Joe Mulvey is working on Issue Five at the moment, moving heaven and earth to get it done under a tight deadline.

Here’s a peek at my cover for Issue Seven, which will be a World war II-set issue. I just finished it last weekend, so it’s actually my first cover of 2025.

ART DECO

For the first original art drop of 2025 we're bringing you more MYSTIQUE! Issue Three hit stands over the holidays and the pages will be available for sale to the general public starting Wednesday, 1/8 at 1PM EST.

But as always, we're giving you early access- starting now! Joining the interior pages for both issues 2 and 3 are a trio of new Marvel covers- DAREDEVIL : UNLEASH HELL #2, WEAPON X-MEN #2 [from above] and of course MYSTIQUE #3. My first two covers for the series have already sold, so now's a great chance to grab one if you're in the market.