: #186: Whole lotta Dec from @DeclanShalvey
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DECLARATIONS #186: Whole lotta DecDec Recs! Cover Dec! Interview Dec! Black Friday Dec? Who am I?!
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. ALL THE LATESTBeen a busy couple of weeks in Shalvey manor. Not much in the way of drawing; more so with traveling to Thought Bubble [the journey there/back seems to be cursed for the Irish!]. Otherwise it’s been a hell of a lot of writing! My worklog
-With so much cover work done in the first week or so of the month, I’ve since been more concentrated on writing, mostly nailing down the whole outline for PROJECT CLASH [my next feature project] and getting a THUNDERCATS script in the bag. The outline required a few revisions so it took a while… I didn’t get another script done last week as a result. Ready to start writing this mini-series very soon though. -I suggested that I’d put together a process section for the recent GARGOYLES X FANTASTIC FOUR #1 cover. I had it mostly written but this newsletter was just getting too overloaded so I’m saving it for next time. -Had a great time at Thought Bubble last week, great to catch up with so many friends and collaborators like Simone D’Armini, Erica D’Urso, Stacey Lee, Nick Roche, Lauren Knight, Eoin Marron, Will Morris, DaNi, Rossi Gifford, Jock, Will Robson, Lee Garbett and more. The Art Deco sketchbooks sold like hotcakes, sold a bunch of Old Dog books too. At that show there’s so much talent in one place, two days isn’t enough to see even a fraction of it. Did my best to swing by tables to say hi to people. Saw some promising portfolios too, speaking of which, Broken Frontier put out a piece on the subject that I was asked to contribute to [link]. Highlight of the weekend was getting Erica’s sketchbook where she drew this amazing Mr. Knight for me.
I got to bounce stuff off fellow creators, which is my favourite part of comic conventions. Had lovely dinners with Ram V, Evan Cagle, Ryan HNJMK, Caspar Wijngaard, Alex Paknadel, Kieron Gillen, Luigi Formisano and more. Met Luigi for the first time at the show and he gave me a copy of Vol 1 of NIGHTS, his book at Image Comics. I’ve only had a peek but it looks really lovely. Another great Thought Bubble show done so I’m all done with shows for the rest of the year. Next one being MegaCon in Dublin in January of 2026. -I ran a poll in the last Declarations asking what ye thought regarding the future of OLD DOG…
Well, that was a resounding answer! Okay, good to know. I did hear more specific feedback on this question, that people would prefer wait for me to do the whole book. Which if I’m being honest, is how I’d prefer do it [work towards that hardcover collection someday!] but at least my guilt is somewhat assuaged. I’ll be hearing back on PROJECT LAZARUS in the next month so then I’ll know if that will be my next feature project or if I’m going back to OLD DOG.
ART DECOHEADS UP! This Black Friday [Nov 28th] I’ll be releasing 20 ‘Mystery Art Boxes’ [limited to 20 boxes] on the Art Deco store. The original art contained in the boxes are pulled from various books I’ve worked on over the years, with some covers to boot. This is the only sale of the year I’m doing, no ‘Holiday Sales’ next month or anything like that. Now is your chance for a deal before X-Mas.
MYSTERY ART BOX Contents:
I’ll also be offering copies of the Art Deco sketchbook, with a sketch inside. Limited to 30 copies. Get them while supplies last. Black Friday sale will start 28th November at 1PM EST at www.declanshalvey.com/store. Take note! Finally after all that selling, here’s a great timelapse [by Jamie Wood] of my recent SPIDER-MAN commission 
COVER DECI have a lot of covers released in the last week, may as well highlight them here. DC Comics released my variant cover for GREEN LANTERN #32. As an old school Kyle Rayner fan I was so happy to be offered this… to do a big iconic shot of Kyle? Dream job stuff. The DC covers that have come my way this year have been a real treat.
IDW released my variant cover for TMNT #14. I worked really really hard on this one, was looking to do something way more moody, projecting a bit of the Mirage feel. Sometimes you do a piece that turns out juuuuust how you were hoping it would, and this is one of them. Turtle Power!
Dynamite Comics released my variant over for MUPPETS NOIR #1 featuring the glorious return of Roger Langridge to the Muppets! This was a surprising offer from editor Nate Cosby …I wasn’t sure I’d do a good job but I thought it’d be fun to try sometime outside my wheelhouse a little. This also seemed to get a lot of love [and surprise] online, which was great.
And lastly, I provided a cover for the comic sequel to Andrew Bowser’s Onyx the Fortuitous and the Talisman of Souls film. This miniseries is called FABLES OF THE FORTUITOUS, available now via Kickstarter.
On the subject of covers, I looked over my cover output for 2025 while putting together my cover list for the year …looks like I’m down about six covers published in 2025, compared to 2024. Thing is, I’m pretty sure I did about the same, I just have about some covers I did earlier in the year for books that haven’t been announced/released yet. I know this is silly, but I was looking at my count of Marvel covers to date. I just took one that when drawn, will be my 278th Marvel cover. Crazy. For some reason, I’m looking to hit 300 as some kind of personal target. I tend to get about one Marvel cover a month, so if all goes well I’ll hit that target in …2027? Or maybe I’ll never hit it, who knows?
DEC RECSI have a couple of creator owned projects by friends I’d like to plug. First up, is a new story by my old pal and co-creator of BOG BODIES Gavin Fullerton
TUATHA is a 48 page moody Celtic /Gothic tale all written, drawn and coloured by Gavin. I’ve described it as “Primal meets The Secret Of Kells.” Gav showed me this a long time ago so I’m delighted to finally see it released. TUATHA is available on the IDW app, on Google Play and Amazon.com Also, there’s a Kickstarter for a comic called DREAMHOUSE, a new project by Robert Wilson IV. I got to read an early version of the book that’s a relationship drama mixed with survival horror as well as some Lynchian surrealism to boot.
I think this is a really great way for a creator to just make something of their own and getting it out there to an audience. I highly recommend ye check out the campaign and know if ye support, it’ll really go a long way to help a creator to make a singular piece of work who clearly had a story they wanted to tell while not being reliant on whatever the current publishing habits are. Check it out. Support DREAMHOUSE on Kickstarter
INTERVIEW DECMy pal and recent NYCC room-mate Gary Moloney has his Marvel debut next week in MARVEL BLACK WHITE RED & GUTS #3, with artist Baldemar Rivas. I wanted to talk to him about it…  Gary, can you give us a basic backstory of your background and writing career? I’ve been working in comics in some shape or form for a long time now. I spent a few years in comics journalism using that time to study the craft of making comics and developing my own sense of what worked in a comic. I began self-publishing my own small press comics regularly in 2017 which led to my co-founding Limit Break Comics with Paul Carroll and Gareth Luby. It was by producing short stories and anthologies through Limit Break that I met artist Daniel Romero. We would go on to pitch a creator-owned series called When the Blood has Dried to Mad Cave Studios’ open submission window in late 2022. We never expected to make it out of the slushpile but to our surprise Mike Marts, the EiC over at Mad Cave, reached out and offered us our first big break in comics. I’ve worked on a number of licensed projects since then, such as Flash Gordon and Warhammer, but earlier this year When the Blood has Dried found its way into the hands of CB Cebulski and I was offered my first writing gig at the House of Ideas.
What was it like, to get that email from an editor at Marvel Comics to say “hey, we want you to write something for us”? Gotta be one of the greatest ‘pinch me’ moments ever, right? Also, where were you when you got it? It was surreal then and it remains so now. Like a lot of writers, I have a dayjob and I’d just finished an exhausting day. Frustrated and tired, I paced about my office when the email popped up on my phone. Needless to say I nearly hit the roof and I’m sure my colleagues must have been quite concerned by the high-pitched noise I made. It took a while to register that it was actually happening though. I saw the title of the email. I saw it was from Devin Lewis: an editor whose work I admire. And I knew what it meant even before I opened it. But part of me wasn’t ready to accept it. Because this is the dream, right? I got into writing because I wanted to tell stories. I wasn’t particularly bothered about where I told those stories as long as they were cool and interesting. It would be lie though for me to say I didn’t want to write for Marvel at some point. That I didn’t see that as a major career goal but I treated it as something beyond my control. It’d be nice if it happened but I couldn’t make it happen on my own; there’s no submissions portal to apply through. I’d just have to make the best comics I could and hope they crossed the right desk. I’m just lucky that in this rare instance they did.
You and I are big Daredevil fans and I see you were able to work a little of that world into your story (which must have been a kick). Still, was it tough for you to take a character like Hit Monkey and find a story for him to tell? Listen, if this was the only chance I was going to get to play in the Marvel sandbox there was no way I wasn’t going to include some nod to ol’ Hornhead if I could get away with it. Luckily my editors, Devin and Drew (Baumgartner), were very open to that! I actually had some sense of who Hit-Monkey was prior to this assignment. I would have read the Daniel Way run on Deadpool which introduced him to the Marvel Universe back in the day and so I was aware he was this legendary assassin who only targeted other assassins. My prevailing memory was this “Killer of Killers” who even Wade Wilson feared. I didn’t know the character’s origin story and I wasn’t aware of his connection to the supernatural (being haunted by an infamous hitman) but I was able to get up to speed on that stuff fairly quickly once I got the brief. The toughest part of the process was the fact that Marvel: Black, White, & Blood and Guts is a horror anthology. I was told we could be bombastic and that we could be pulpy but fundamentally it had to be a horror story. Now, I’m no stranger to the genre, but Hit-Monkey doesn’t necessarily lend himself to horror at first glance. Mainly that’s because Hit-Monkey, while intelligent, isn’t anthropomorphized; he doesn’t speak in a language the reader understands. You only understanding him through the visuals. I struggled with that for a while but as I learned more about the character and his supernatural connections came into focus, it clicked. He’s literally and figuratively haunted by his past! So I leaned into that; writing Hit-Monkey as a ghost story and with villains like The Hand, who are all about resurrection and death magic, it fit together nicely from a thematic perspective.
You’ve worked with a lot of good artists, but not many at the level of Baldemar. Is there anything you learned from him as you saw him make your words into pictures? I am a convert to the Church of Baldemar Rivas. He’s insanely talented and so committed to his craft. This would have been one of the first times I had an artist assigned to work on a story rather than someone I picked myself and would have an existing relationship with. Comics scripts are often described as love letters to the artist but here I as writing to a stranger and I had to navigate that. From the process itself though, Baldemar’s work is so dynamic. He’s got that manga influence in the way he choreographs fight scenes. There would be times where he’d change the suggested page layout, adding or dropping a panel, and I learned to get out of his way, editing dialogue accordingly. I may think visually when writing but he’s likely to know more about structuring a page. I’m better now at pacing and composing action scenes having worked with Baldemar.
There’s lots of writing advice out there by many veterans but you’re right on the cusp of that leap from the indie world into the professional publisher world. Is there anything advice you would give to writers more on these career margins? The old wisdom is that if you want a career in comics then you have to make comics. The idea being you do your own thing and then you have a calling card to give to editors/publishers. For a while, social media was an excellent way to get your work seen and read by a lot of people. I think there was an assumption that producing work was enough and that opportunities at the bigger publishers would automatically follow. Too many fell into that trap and became disillusioned when no one came knocking. So much of this business comes down to luck and timing but there’s the luck that finds you and the luck that you make yourself. The latter is more important because it’s what you can control. You need to be putting stories out there and pitching where you can because every story/pitch completed makes you a better writer. Maybe some will get traction, but most likely they won’t and you have to keep going anyway. You have to keep putting yourself and your work out there. No one at Mad Cave had read my earlier work. They didn’t invite me to a pitch. They just had an open submissions window and I took my shot. But I was only in a position to capitalize on that opportunity because I had five years of small press comics behind me and I took those lessons into the pitch process with me. That series gets me an opportunity to write for Marvel and I take the lessons learned there into that project. You do the work not because it begets an opportunity but because it prepares you for when an opportunity does come along. And it will come along. You just have to play the long game. MARVEL BLACK WHITE RED & GUTS #3 is out December 3rd
THUNDERCATSIssue 21 is out tomorrow! Here’s a preview!  THUNDERCATS #21 preview pages Sooooooo excited to have Lion-O back in the fold. Drew Moss has just wrapped on Issue 22. Love what he did with this moody opening page.
I’ve written Issue 23 which is a fun ‘Panthro in space’ issue which lays some road for what’s coming down the line for THUNDERCATS. Working on something a bit different for Issue 24, does this make any sense?
No? Yeah, fair enough.
In my frantic rush to get ready for Thought Bubble I forgot to plug the latest Thunderverse offering; PUMYRA #1! Written by my fellow Thunder-writer Ed Brisson with art by Alice Leclert. Alice helped us out with THUNDERCATS #18 so it was great to see her get her own spotlight here. The issue was released Nov 5th so you should still be able to track down a copy.
THUNDERCATS are being bundled, humbly.
Yes Dynamite are releasing a ‘ThunderCats & Friends’ Humble Bundle including our main THUNDERCATS series, THUNDERCATS LOST maxi-series, the CHEETARA mini-series and the APEX one-shot. It’s a great way to catch up on all the line ahead of what I can say will be a very big year next year. Get caught up now. Other classic TV related gems are included, like POWERPUFF GRLS, JOHNNY QUEST, SPACE GHOST and more.
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