Solicits are now up for the second issue of my Thunderbolts issue, above cover by the colourist of the book Frank Martin Jr. If you want to get either issues, get onto your local comic shop straight away, cuz if they don't know people want it, then they won't order enough copies.

THUNDERBOLTS #149
Written by JEFF PARKER
Penciled by DECLAN SHALVEY
Cover by FRANK MARTIN
A SHADOWLAND TIE-IN! Luke Cage’s squad of fierce felons face the nature of true evil when they uncover secrets of the ancient order known as The Hand beneath Hell's Kitchen! Will a group of people rarely known for doing the right thing choose a higher path—or will they add to the power of the ninja cult? Meanwhile, as Cage fights to help his friend Daredevil up on the streets, he realizes that he picked a bad time to trust his skeleton crew of criminal operatives on an unsupervised mission! So come on, all you DD fans, pick up this issue and find out why Aint It Cool News raves: “very fun...I love this cast...this one is definitely going back on my pull list."
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$2.99

Dec.

SOLICITATIONS FOR THUNDERBOLTS #148

























The solicitations for my first issue of THUNDERBOLTS are out. Please do check with your local comic shop to make sure they get a copy in. Since it's likely I'll only ever get to do these 2 issues of a Marvel comic, they'll obviously become collectors items!


THUNDERBOLTS #148
Written by JEFF PARKER
Penciled by DECLAN SHALVEY
Cover by MARKO DJURDJEVIC
The Thunderbolts crossover with Shadowland begins here! Luke Cage heads into Hell’s Kitchen to pull his old friend back from the brink of madness. And if swarming ninjas aren’t enough, he's become aware of other forces that will make his task even harder. Going against the Warden and the government itself, Cage sends the T-Bolts in to level the playing field. But without his direct guidance, will this squad of killers and criminals make the situation even worse? Find out in the book IGN.com calls "Impressive...not to be missed."
32 PGS./Rated T+ ...$2.99

[Note: I high-lighed my name there cuz the actual solicitation still lists Kev Walker as the artist]

Dec.

SUMMER EDITION 2010

























Next Saturday I'll have a table at Summer Edition 2010.

I went to the first event last year, and it was a great auld day. Since I'm back in Ireland I thought I should make the most of it and get a table this year. I'll be doing sketches, selling various comics/books I've done, and sure I might show a sneak peek of the Thunderbolts pages I'm currently working on.

There's LOTS of interesting artists participating; check the list of exhibitors here.

So make sure you come by Filmbase, Temple Bar in Dublin town on the 24th of July between 11 and 5pm. It's FREE-in for godsake!

Dec.

COMIC RELATED INTERVIEW (ISSUE 12)

























My final '28 Words Later' interview with David O' Leary has recently gone online. I've really enjoyed these interviews; every month I was able to get some feedback on the book and was able to see what an unbiased reader was or wasn't picking up on. So, thank Dave! And thanks to everyone who was reading each month.

You can read it here.

Actually; i just realised I totally forgot to post about last month's interview for issue 11. D'Oh!
Here is.

Dec.

JUSTICE... LIKE LIGHTNING!

























The internet has been awash with Shalveyness for the last few days. As announced on Newsarama this week, i'm drawing a 2 issue story arc on THUNDERBOLTS for Marvel Comics.

...........sorry, I just had to read that sentence again to be sure.

Did some interviews for Newsarama, Marvel.com and iFanboy. Click to check them out and see all of the preliminary sketches i've done.

The 2 issues in question are part of a crossover with the 'Shadowland' story in DAREDEVIL. Anyone who regularly reads this blog knows that i'm a huge Daredevil fan, so getting to draw something that's part of DD's world is amazing to me. That, and I actually have the first few issue of Thunderbolts at home. Once i get back i'm gonna dig them out. It's crazy to thing that i have #1 of a book and yet will have drawn #148 and #149. Mad.

Well, here goes nothin'......

Dec.

That is all.

Dec.

28 DAYS LATER #12 PREVIEW ONLINE







So yeah, the preview of #12 of 28 Days Later is online. Now is a good a time as any to say that this is my final issue on the series. This is definitely the best issue i've drawn and it was a great way to close out my run on the book.

Dec.

28 MINUTES LATER













Hey there, here's a podcast interview that myself and writer Michael Alan Nelson did for Comic Related's 'Related Recap'. It's a joint interview we did at the BOOM! Studios table at Heroes con a couple of weeks ago. Click here to listen.

Dec.

WASTELAND

























Was asked by the good folks at Oni Press to contribute a piece for Wasteland: The Apocalyptic Edition Volume 2 by current Daredevil co-scribe Antony Johnson and Christopher Mitten. You can order it right here.

The above piece will accompany a prose section at the end of the book. I tried something a little different this time. Normally, i'd draw a foreground figure in black but went worth the opposite this time. I had to draw some dogs so i drew in multiple versions of Sasha, the dog we have at the house in New York. I'm gonna miss her when I come home.

Dec.

HEROES COVENTION 2010











This June 4th-6th i'll be attending the HEROES con in Charlotte, North Carolina. Everyone has been harping on about how great it is so i'm really hoping it'll live up to my expectations.

A huge part of the HEROES convention is the auction for The Heroes Initiative, a charity dedicated to helping comic book creators in need. Myself and the other Comic Twartists have done pieces for the auction, so hopefully mine will raise some money. We'll also have a panel on Friday. Come check it out. Details below...

COMIC TWART!!
Room 209
The comictwart.com site has become one of the more popular sites online for fresh weekly comic art. Join “twartists” Tom Fowler, Chris Samnee, Francesco Francavilla, Ron Salas, Declan Shalvey, and Andy Kuhn, with moderator Chris Sims of Comics Alliance , for a discussion and multi-sketch demonstration. All sketches to be donated to the HeroesCon Art Auction!

All weekend i'll be signing/sketching at the BOOM! Studios booth, Booths 514, 516 and 613. If you buy a copy of the 28 Days Later hardcover i'll do a small free sketch in the book, however i'll also be doing commissions all weekend upon request for 50$. As an added incentive, i've made 30 original sketch-badges (exclusive to HEROES con; so you won't be able to get them anywhere else) for anyone who buys artwork (original pages or sketches). You can see some of them here.

Hope to see some of ye there.

Dec.

CUCHULAIN





























Got a nice surprise online during the week, when i saw a sketch i did at C2E2 in Chicago about a month ago that had been coloured (quite nicely i might add) by one Kyle Latino. He was good enough to send on a scan of the original, along with a hi-res version of his colours too.

Thanks Kyle!

Dec.

EAGLE AWARD NOMINATION








Hey, guess what; i've been nominated for Favourite Newcomer Artist in this year's Eagle Awards. *Very* surprising; i wasn't even fishing for it this year.

Won't get it as i'm competing with the artist of Phonogram (Jamie McKelvie) and of Ultimate Spiderman (David LaFuente), but i'm chuffed to be nominated. Great seeing Irelans represented, with old school-chum John Cullen nominated in the same category, and both Mike Lynch and Rí-Rá getting nominations too. Do go vote for your favourite at the Eagle Awards website.

Dec.

C2E2 SKETCH





















I nearly forgot about this one. Did this sketch at the C2E2 convention in Chicago last month for Kate at BOOM! Studios who took care of myself and Will over the weekend. Drew her as an Infected. She's a Batman fan too, i'll take any opportunity to draw Batman so stuck him in there too.

Dec

COMIC RELATED INTERVIEW (ISSUE 10)




















My monthly '28 Words Later' interviews with David O' Leary from Comic Related continue, this month talking about 28 Days Later #10 . Check it out here.

Dec.

28 DAYS LATER #10 PREVIEW ONLINE







































28 Days Later #10 will be out State-side this Wednesday; Thursday in Ireland and the UK. Issue 10 is the first part of Hot Zone, my third story-arc on the book. It's been a blast to draw so far and i hope ye all check it out. You can see the full preview here.

Dec.

28 DAYS LATER #13 COVER

Here's a cover i did recently; for issue 13.




















Really happy that i got to do a decent; design-y cover that still pertains to the interior story. It ended up being really close to my original layout, i think...





















This is the first time i did my thumbnail/layout digitally and it turned out pretty well; i did mess around with it a lot; i had to be sure to leave one corner pretty bare so that the logo would be clear and readable, so there was a lot of selecting and moving the image around until i was happy with it. I think it was Mooney who suggested i do a wash on the 2 characters to separate them from the car bonnet. I threw in a bit of mis-registered halftone too, just to make it a little more interesting and also as i missed the chance to use that effect in the previous cover.

Hope ye like,

Dec.

Here's a Black Widow sketch i did at the Albany comic con on Sunday. Thanks a million to Andrew Hanna for sending on this scan of it.

Dec.

C2E2; The Chicago Comic Con

Last weekend was C2E2 in Chicago; a con i was very much looking forward to attending. both myself and will Sliney flew out from out current abode in New York and had a bloody fantastic weekend. I got to meet a lot of my fellow contributors to the Comic Twart blog, and both myself and Will got to spend most of the weekend with the crew at BOOM! Studios. They were all absolutely lovely people and it was a pleasure to meet (and drink... and eat double-dish pizza with...) all of them.

The show was actually comfortably spacious in it's layout. Will and myself took a REALLY nerdy photo (which i'm sure he'll share soon) and i got some great sketchbooks from the likes of Chris samnee, Eric Canete and Guy Davis.








































Above is a photo of myself sketching at the BOOM! booth with the lovely Jo; the boss' wife. Tried to get fresh with her but she was havin' none of it.

Below is a photo of myself and 28 Days Later writer Michael Alan Nelson. It was great to finally meet him and talk about what has happened in the book and what is coming (hope no one overheard us). We even got to work out an upcoming scene in a future issue; actually collaborating rather than me just taking a script and drawing it. Michael was such a lovely guy and it was an absolute pleasure to spend the weekend at the BOOM! booth with him.

















There was just too many happenings over the weekend for me to cover here, but safe to say i'd like to thank everyone who came to the BOOM! Studios panel and picked up a copy of 28 Days Later (I did a sketch in every copy), all the crew at BOOM! Studios for treating myself and Will so well, all the artists i met(Twartists included) who were so complimentary about my work (appreciate it so much), Mike Norton for dinner and a drive on Sunday evening and of course; the Samnees (Chris and Laura) for sharing a table with me for a spell. They soon learned to regret it.

Dec.

28 DAYS LATER #12 COVER [PROCESS]

Hello there; time for another process post on the auld Dec-blog... aw man, i totally should have called this 'The Dec-Blog'. Ah well.




















I was handing in cover ideas to my editor at BOOM! Studios, one of which being the above. Issue 12 called for a 'Someone WILL die' vibe, so i thought this would be the perfect chance to go with this (very rough) idea. I wanted to do a really bold, graphic, stylized cover... actually, i've been trying that approach with all the covers so far, but this was me trying to be a little braver in approach.





















Here's the fully inked piece. from the layout you can tell i was planning on changing the black line art to red, but once i tried, it just didn't work. It didn't 'pop' like i wanted it do. If anything, it looked too flat. So with a bold composition, i tried a bold colour scheme....




















I showed it to a couple of the Micks for some feedback. It was suggested i colour the arm in the foreground with solid colour but i was pretty keen on going in this direction...

...except my editor wasn't as keen. He asked if i could colour it 'more traditionally,' which is fair enough. So, i had to try do that, yet keep it bold, otherwise what was the point of doing it in the first place? So, to keep it consistent with the previous covers (ie a black/white/grey/red colour scheme), i added greytone to Selena's arm, and coloured the blood in bold red...




















And here we have it; the final cover. I do still prefer the original colour version, but i do think this version totally works. I saw the cover online today, and was a bit surprised to see the 28 Days Later logo so big on the cover. Then again, it was a bold composition, and the logo looks big and bold, so as a cover, i think it really stands out. You can see it here.

So that is my heroic story. I got to say 'bold' a lot. Hope ye like the cover. I really do; to editorial's credit, i didn't think a cover this minimalistic would get approved; you can tell from a lot of comic covers that some editors thing you should fill a cover with lots of characters and lots of colour. Here i got to push my 'less is more' cover approach. That may be why this is my favourite of covers i've done so far.

Dec.

MAGNETO SKETCH




















Tuesday means it's Tuesdec on the Micks blog. Did a little Magneto this week. I'm on a mad X-Men related drawing buzz. You can see the coloured piece here.

Dec.