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DECLARATIONS
A biweekly newsletter by artist/writer Declan Shalvey.
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First of all, thanks to everyone who picked up IMMORTAL HULK: FLATLINE. I can't get over the level of positive reaction to the book. More on that below.
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Well I finished the first chapter of PROJECT GRAVITY. Spent the last week colouring it while dealing with all the aforementioned Hulk feedback and an announcement last Friday. As I mentioned in the last Declarations, this is a big project and I'm glad to have this first part done. I think it's looking good. Finished off my old Commissions list and did a couple of covers, one of which for PROJECT WHITE CIRCLE.
I'm looking to pencil a short WHITE CIRCLE story this week while doing some technical work on PROJECT GRAVITY while I wait on more script on that. Once I get it, I'll be juming right in.
I think I finally have another idea for a future Paddywhackery story. A mini-series, most likely, rather than an OGN. Don't really have the time to got into it for a while, but think I've cracked the basic concept.
I said I'd like to maybe do a Paddywhackery one shot this year... I don't see how I'd have the time and I don't have a story yet but I can feel something hatching at the back of my mind. One thought I had was I'd probably go visit the location of where I write that story... but that's not possible with us being on lockdown, so maybe it's best I don't have that story yet.
Anyway, last week was a big week, so let's get into it.
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I don't have any copies yet, but I can't wait to see it in print! Thanks so much to Wil Moss for offering me the project and to both him and Sarah Brunstad for working with me through the whole process.
My mum got her copy and said she really liked it, so that's something.
She's not the only one, it seems. I've been blown away with how well the issue has been recieved, feedback has been amazing. And the reviews! They're all been glowing, I'm amazed. Here's a few if you want to check them out
AIPT, Comic Watch, CBR, Comicbook.com
I also did an interview with CXF about the one-shot.
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As I suggested in the last newsletter, I did indeed run a competition for someone to win a signed copy of the issue, along with this above Hulk bust. I'm picking the winner once this newsletter is posted, congratulations to them, whoever they will be!
Now that the issue is actually out, I can show you this; my layouts and colourscript for the whole one-shot...
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I spent quite a while on all this, normally I would just do these in black and white, but since I was colouring the story, I used my layouts as a 'rough cut' for how I would colour the book. I spent some time thinking about the colour storytelling ahead of time, work out some ideas in the layouts so I didn't become paralyzed when working on the final pages. I'm borrowing the term 'colour script' from animation as it feels like an apt way to describe the process.
If you look at the issue and compare, you can see I pretty much stuck to the plan (I remember changing up a couple of panels in the page 24/25 spread), while clearly going in and fleshing things out a lot more, in both drawing and colouring.
I might go into more detail about the process in a future post, but since I have that big process piece in PanelxPanel already, I don't want to be milking this to death in the newsletter. We'll see.
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NOTICE! All the original art for IMMORTAL HULK: FLATLINE is now available to buy! Pages went live yesterday, at the time of writing this (Monday night) half the pages are already sold so if you're interested, click below and get a page asap!
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Even more big news from last week...
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Finally announced over at IGN! Previously referred to here as' PROJECT PASSENGER', I have a new ongoing series at Image comics with the much lauded (by me!) team from WRITE IT IN BLOOD, a book that is in fact out tomorrow! So, if you want to get an idea of how good TBT will be, you should pick up WIIB as a teaser of some kind.
Saying that, WRITE IT IN BLOOD is a very different book to TIME BEFORE TIME... there are elements of crime, but with a multiple time-spanning backdrop. From the PR:
"Time Before Time is set in a world where a criminal organization known only as The Syndicate rules a very special kind of underground market. Their agents can use time travel to smuggle people back in time to start a new life. The series follows two of these agents, Tatsuo and Oscar, as they attempt to break free and steal their boss' time machine for themselves. Naturally, that plan is easier said than done."
I'm co-writing the series with Rory McConville, it's illustrated by Joe Palmer, coloured by Chris O'Halloran and lettered by Hassan Otsmane-Elhaou. Design by Sasha Head and edited by Heather Antos.
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TIME BEFORE TIME art by Joe Palmer, colours by Chris O'Halloran
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After having written two Irish crime OGNs I wanted to try to write something in a different format... I wanted to try writing a monthly book, as I enjoyed the experience on Deadpool Vs Old Man Logan. I've known Rory from various cons over the years, he used to send me some short stories here and there, and he always struck me as a smart writer. I was delighted to see him break in at 2000AD a few years ago and was doing some great stories there. As a fan, I wanted to see what he'd do with a larger canvas to work from. We got chatting at Thought Bubble a few years ago and I asked if he'd be interested in maybe working together, so this has been an opportunity to try both those things, and it's been great.
I've no idea what compelled me to ask Rory in the first place. I had a lot on work-wise so I wasn't looking for another project. I knew I didn't have the bandwidth to write a whole book on my own at the time, but I thought maybe we could manage it together, which seems to have been the case. I definitely wanted to help Rory get some attention in the US market.
As it turned out, in the time it took us to actually work out what we were doing, Rory went and did WRITE IT IN BLOOD with one Joe Palmer and co. As you know from reading this newsletter, I had a bit of input with putting WIIB together and thought they made a great book. When Rory and I were ready to start TBT, we figured that the WIIB team were such a great team to work with, and did amazing work, we should keep them working together!
That's when Heather Antos came in. Heather was the editor on Bog Bodies and has a ton of experience on monthly comics from her time at Marvel and currently Valiant and has been a huge help keeping the train on the tracks.
I had been determined to design the book myself, but I'm not the most productive or organised in doing so. Sasha Head was a great sounding board when I was putting BOG BODIES together so I reached out to see if she'd be interested in taking over. I'm very glad I did and 1) it's clear the workload would have made my brain implode, but 2) she's had so many great and innovated ideas that I just never would have come up with.
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Amazing B cover for TIME BEFORE TIME 1 by John Paul Leon
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I think we have a really great book on our hands, and with 4(nearly 5) issues fully done, it's very easy to be able to read them all and feel confident in the quality in the book.
Joe's handing in the final page of #5 today. We'll have some promo stuff to work on, then we'll take a break. We've written the book so that we can move right onto #6 but we've no idea if sales will warrant that, we will have to talk to Image about it. So please, do tell your local retailer that you want a copy. There's the A cover by me (MAR210037), and the B cover by John Paul Leon (MAR210038). The stronger the initial pre-orders, the sooner we'll know we can get cracking on Arc 2.
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TIME BEFORE TIME #2 A cover by myself. I'm providing A covers for the whole series
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This is the last of my 2020 commissions. I'll be starting on the new list next week.
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Always love drawing Daredevil. Below was another fun one, a jam piece with some other Irish pros. I did Deadpool, the others are by Will Sliney, Stephen Mooney, PJ Holden, Nate Stockman, Ruairi Coleman and Nick Roche.
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February 24th
WRITE IT IN BLOOD TP (C)
March 17th
CAPTAIN AMERICA ANNIVERSARY TRIBUTE #1
May 12th
TIME BEFORE TIME #1 CVR A SHALVEY (W,C)
TIME BEFORE TIME #1 CVR B LEON (W,C)
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Okay, that's all from me this week. I'll be back again in a couple of weeks. Feel free to share the subscribe link between now and then.
Dec.
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