Just a quick update for anyone in Dublin this weekend: Saturday (the 8th of July) is Small Press Day!
I’ll be exhibiting some of my comics along with Kerrie Smith from 11AM until 6PM, in the Fumbally Exchange (5 Dame Lane, Dublin 2) and because this is a celebration of Small Press Comics, we’ve decided to put out a couple of unmissable Small Press Day Deals! (Have I said Small Press Day enough? Do I sound like a TV salesman yet?)
At our table we’ll be exhibiting the award-winning Girls Like You, the not-award-winning Black White and Grey, and the excellent Alterna Comics IF Anthology from 2016! And for the day that’s in it, we’re going to be selling each of these collections for just €10, any two book for €15, or, if like me you just can’t walk away from a ridiculous bargain, we’ll sell you all three book for just €20!
With art by the excellent Eoin Marron, colours from the always exciting Triona Farrell and letters by the tireless Kerrie Smith, the Hero is a 4 page comic that asks the question, what makes a hero.
When we sat down to discuss our first collaboration Eoin and I had the very loose idea to make a short comic with a twist. Beyond that, Eoin knew he wanted to see the comic in colour and his first choice for colourist was Tree. Somewhere between agreeing to work together and approaching Tree to lend us her pallet, I started obsessing over the role of the “hero” versus the “protagonist” and got an image stuck in my head of a classic superhero being held captive/interrogated by a paramilitary group.
What Makes a Hero?
After bouncing ideas around for a little while, we settled on fast paced action piece that would allow us to examine the idea of the hero while building to a twist we could both really enjoy. I won’t go in to too much detail right now, but you should check out the comic to find out more!
In a strange twist all its own, the Hero was fully illustrated, coloured and lettered before we were made aware that the IF Anthology was looking for submissions for superhero stories. This presented us with a very real problem; the IF Anthology is printed in black and white, while the Hero was always intended to be presented in full colour. This was more than a little heartbreaking. Tree’s colours are excellent and deserve to be highlighted, but the IF Anthology seemed like the perfect home for the Hero. Although we agonised over the decision to pitch to Alterna and risk losing a key part of our story in the end we agreed to use Tree’s grey scale shading to bring the inks to life, and trust me they really do come to life! Still, one day soon we’ll get the full colour edition out there!
Tree’s Colours
Tree’s Grey Scale
The IF Anthology features the work of 96 creators over 40 unique and challenging stories and includes the Irish made stories,”Gravity” by writer and letterer Kerrie Smith and artist Hannah Deacon, “We Can Be Heroes” by writer Darrin O’Toole, artist Barry Keegan and letterer Dee Cunniffe, and of course, “the Hero” which you’ve been reading all about.
Hugo Boylan 