NEXT month sees the inaugural Cork Comic Expo take place at Mahon Point shopping centre. Organised by Cork illustrator Will Sliney, who last year became the first Irish artist to be offered a full-time contract from the leading comics brand Marvel, it will see a number of the country’s top comic book artists and enthusiasts gather for the first event of such a scale in the southern city.

Recent years have seen a number of Irish comic artists and writers make inroads into the comic industry. Hailing from Ballycotton, Sliney proved that one could make it in the business while still being based in Ireland.

There is also another strata, the vibrant small press scene. Dublin had long been a hotbed of independently produced and DIY comic activity but in the past year or so a nascent scene has mushroomed in Cork, which has seen a growing number of local publications emerge.

Four-years-ago, The Big Bang, a comic shop based in Dundrum, organised the first Dublin International Comic Expo (DICE). For those who were establishing themselves in comics DICE offered a space to meet high profile figures in the business and talk shop. For the many who were setting off on the road to create their own comics it gave an opportunity to have their work appraised and connected them to the broader Irish comics community.

ECLECTIC MICKS

It was a different experience 10 years ago for Sliney. Back then he saved up to fly to the daddy of comics conventions, the San Diego Comic Con. Taking his portfolio with him he offered his work for inspection to some of the biggest names in the business. The criticism they offered him was tough but Sliney listened to their advice and learned from it.

Along the way, Sliney’s path crossed with other Irish comic creators. Through word-of-mouth he met Clare illustrator Declan Shalvey. Then he encountered Dublin artists Stephen Mooney and Stephen Thompson. The group expanded and formed the online sketch blog Eclectic Micks.

“We kind of formed our own online community and that kind of became a nice focus for the Irish industry at its very start,” recalls Sliney.

An image by Damien Duncan from The Cork Sci-fi Comic that will be launched around Cork Comic Expo.

By this point some of the members had work published in some of the bigger American comic book companies but none had broken into the big two of Marvel and DC. In 2013, DICE brought over the Marvel talent scout CB Cebulski.

The company had been tracking Sliney’s progress and when the Cork man offered him his latest portfolio for perusal at the event, Cebulski nodded his approval and offered him work. As someone who had always set his heart on drawing Spider-Man, Marvel’s iconic web-slinging superhero, working on the offshoot series Spider-Man 2099 was a dream come through.

Sliney is well aware of the dedication and work needed to climb the ladder. He is also somebody with a reputation for being generous with his time when it comes to helping aspiring artists, and he was a natural choice for The Big Bang to approach about organising a comic convention in Cork.

“They knew the support that I had down here anyway,” he says. “They actually get tonnes of orders for their shop from Cork as well.”

The shop had assisted in organising a signing for the launch of Marvel UK’s The Knights of Pendragon, which Sliney worked on, in a Cork city centre pub in January last year and they were impressed by the numbers that came for it.

Sliney approached Mahon Point and was delighted when they offered facilities to use. Through his contacts, Sliney was also able to get some of the top names in Irish comics, all giving their time for free.

Taking place in the main central aisle space of Mahon Point, the Expo is an opportunity for comics fans to meet creators, get books and comics signed and perhaps come away with a sketch of a favoured character. As a nod to Sliney’s work on the Star Wars Phantom Menace and Clone Wars comics, Irish Star Wars costuming club Emerald Garrison will be present to add to the atmosphere.

GROWING INTEREST

Having seen at first hand the interest that has grown for comics over the past two years, Sliney anticipates the first Cork Comic Expo will be a successful one.

He says: “There is an interest in it now. And especially because not only is there a mixture of all of these new creators and people wanting to get into the creative side, all of these characters have never been more popular. So you’re going to get a mixture of the collector fan and the creator fan and then you will have all of the kids that love superheroes.

“And that’s why putting it on somewhere like Mahon Point is much more accessible for that young kid side of it. Because of his profile and his association with Spider-Man, there is no doubt that that many will be getting in line to chat with the genial Cork man and get a sketch from him.

But the other guests will also be of keen interest to comic fans. Mooney has worked on DC’s Batman title, writer Dave Hendrick has just released Granuaile: Queen of Storm for Ireland’s O’Brien Press, Galway’s Maura McHugh has worked for American publisher Dark Horse, Wexford’s Nick Roche is known for his Transformers work and Tomm Moore has achieved fame as an Oscar-nominated film animator.

Fans of the galaxy’s greatest comic will delight in the presence of Judge Dredd artist PJ Holden.

“I always felt like the token northerner, like they had to meet a quota,” quips the most senior of the Eclectic Micks. “They’re all a few years younger, hang out together, have the same cultural touchstones, mostly US superheroes, where I’d be more Judge Dredd and 2000AD.

“And in Belfast, having a Catholic dad and a Protestant mum and being a child of the troubles there was always a tendency to shy away from any group that wanted me to join it. I am very much the Northern Ireland to their Republic of Comic Artists.”

In strife-torn Belfast, Holden’s love of comics posed a greater danger to him than what was happening on the streets around him. Especially in the school he attended.

“After walking into class one day with Captain Britain, with a big Union Jack on it, in an all-boys Catholic school in Northern Ireland I kinda made the sensible move well, the arguably sensible move, to stop reading comics altogether,” he deadpans.

JUDGE DREDD’S HEAD

Just as Sliney was focused on the House of Marvel, Holden was set on the Tharg Towers, home of 2000AD’s green-skinned editor.

“2000AD was the alpha and the omega for me,” he says. “I looked at my art folders and I would see every single page of rough paper had a little drawing of Dredd’s head on it. It was just my go-to character.”

Holden sent a number of sketches of the fearsome future lawman Judge Dredd to a 2000AD fanzine and through that he got in touch with Scottish 2000AD writer Gordon Rennie and together they worked on some small press strips.

Eventually Holden showed his work to the weekly comic’s then editor Andy Diggle who promised him some work. Holden immediately contacted Rennie and assured the Belfast man he’d request him for his next Dredd script.“I nearly exploded with excitement,” says Holden at the memory.

KEEP DRAWING

Over the best part of four decades 2000AD has provided an outlet for some of the most talented artists in the business, but few can claim the iconic Dredd as a first published work for the weekly.

Holden has gone on to work with many other characters and titles. Looking ahead to the Cork Comic Expo he has the following advice to budding artists.

“I don’t think someone wakes up on Monday and thinks ‘Hmm… I think I’ll be a comic artist’. Every artist I’ve ever met has stories of them drawing comics on their kitchen tables in their mum’s house. Though equally, they all have stories of wanting to give up. Keep drawing. More importantly, keep finishing projects. Every time you finish a project you learn far more from it than if you just sat drawing the same thing over and over again.”

Sliney echoes this.

“My favourite thing for comic book conventions is for people who want to get into it to show their artwork. Every single person at the table will be happy to look at artwork to give someone advice to help them improve their stuff. Because that’s what I did, that’s what everyone who broke into it did.”

The Cork Comic Expo is at Mahon Point on Saturday, April 25. Admission is free. Updates on the event can be found via https://twitter.com/WillSliney

FROM KELLS TO VAMPIRE KINGS: some of the comic book heroes on their way to Mahon Point

TOMM MOORE

Tomm Moore is best known as the double Academy Award nominee for his animated features The Secret of Kells and Song of The Sea but he is also a comics creator. A member of the Eclectic Micks blog, Moore co-founded the Cartoon Saloon animation studio in Kilkenny in 1998. In 2001 and 2003 he drew two Irish language graphic novels An Sclábhaí (The Slave) and An Teachtaire (The Messenger), respectively, with comics and children’s books writer Colmán Ó Raghallaigh. A graphic novel version of The Secret of Kells has been published in French.

DAVE HENDRICK

Dave Hendrick was an organiser of the Dublin City Comic Con, an event that preceded Dublin International Comic Expo. A writer, Hendrick collaborated with Will Sliney on the 2009 webcomic The Symptoms, about a zombie-fighting rock band. In 2011, he published Short Sharp Schlock, a collection of weird tales. Last month saw the publication of his portrait of the fearless pirate queen Grace O’Malley by the O’Brien Press. With art from cartoonist Luca Pizzari, Granuaile: Queen Of Storms is a mature piece of work, blending psychological nuance with bloody action.

STEPHEN MOONEY

Having started out making comics in Dublin, Stephen Mooney began working for American publishing giant IDW Publishing in 2006 for a suite of TV spin-off titles such as The A-Team, Joss Whedon’s Angel and CSI as well as a The Mummy movie spin-off.

Perhaps something of the latter fed into his first creator-owned work Half Past Danger, an Indiana Jones style romp featuring Nazis, dinosaurs and sultry dames. He recently moved to DC Comics to work on Grayson, a development on the world of a character best know as Bruce Wayne’s ward.

NICK ROCHE

One of Nick Roche’s earliest jobs was illustrating a Dave Hendrick scripted small press project called The Nixer but then the Wexford man got picked up by IDW to do Transformers and has enjoyed a fruitful association with the line. He was picked up by Marvel to do a Deaths Head II scripted by Andy Lanning and has recently done the madcap Monster Motors with writer Brian Lynch, also for IDW. Roche has also done Doctor Who.

His most recent commission was the album cover art and lead single promo video for The Darkness band.

TURNCOAT PRESS

Cork comic creators, Turncoat Press, who last year published a local anthology titled I’m Awake, I’m Alive, will be releasing two new comics this year, the first of which is a science-fiction comic featuring four short stories by Cork-based artists and writers.

Theirs won’t be the only one. In the wake of the Cork Horror Comic, the Cork Comic Creators group are also publishing one, which will be for sale at the Expo. Art editor Alan Corbett will have his sequel to his children’s book The Ghosts of Shandon out this year, titled The Vampire King of Munster.

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