Writer looking for artist

Been in touch with a guy called Ian Royle, who's a Belfast-based writer looking for an artist. His story is in the vein of Tolkien or David Gemmell, and in terms of art style he's after something akin to Kick-Ass or Batman. Anybody fancy that? Contact him via Gumtree.

Cormac (1946-2011)

Just found out that Brian Moore, aka Cormac, passed away on 12 March after a short illness. I met him  in January at the Steve Bell talk at the Black Box, and he was booked in for a round table discussion on the Belfast People's Comic for a documentary Andy Luke is making with NVTV, but he couldn't make it, probably due to his illness.

He's best known for drawing the "Notes" cartoon for the Sinn Féin paper An Phoblacht for more than a quarter of a century. I have to admit the subject matter of much of his work makes me profoundly uncomfortable. He was part of the faction of the Belfast republican movement led by Gerry Adams that ultimately led to the IRA ceasefire, but prior to that was quite comfortable with "armed struggle". However, when I met him he was a very funny and personable chap, and, most importantly, he made a significant and influential contribution to our medium in our city.

He started out self-publishing in the small press - ten issues of Resistance Comics between 1975 and 1978 (CAIN have a pdf of issue 4 to dowload), which featured his self-caricature Paddy O'Looney of the Irish section of the sixth intergalactic revolutionary movement, and Red Biddy, who sounds like an Irish Millie Tant. He also drew for the Belfast People's Comic. In 1976 he was hired by Danny Morrison to draw for Republican News, which merged into An Phoblacht a few years later, and he carried on until early 2004. Here's a link to an archive of his later strips for the paper, and here's one from 2000 that shouldn't discomfit anyone (okay, me) politically:

He also drew for British socialist magazines, and scripted "Dog Collars", a regular strip lampooning the clergy drawn by Ian Knox, for Fortnight magazine in the 1980s, played, sang and wrote songs for a republican band called The Men of No Property, and wrote plays. RIP Brian.

New PJ Holden series in the Megazine

Belfast's own PJ Holden announces on his blog that he's got a new series, Numbercruncher, co-created with writer Simon Spurrier, starting in the Judge Dredd Megazine issue 306 in the new year. It's about a dead mathematician trying to game the process of reincarnation to be reunited with the woman he loves, and a bailiff sent by the Karmic Accountancy to stop him. Here's a preview at Si's blog, and some promotional art from the Megazine:

Steve Bell at the Out To Lunch Arts Festival

At lunchtime on Friday 7 January, as part of the Out To Lunch Arts Festival, the Guardian's political cartoonist Steve Bell will appearing be at the Black Box. It's £5.50, lunch included, and you can book online. He's the guy who drew John Major with his underpants outside his trousers, George Bush as a chimp, reduced Tony Blair to a man staring eye and a grin, and he's about the only decent thing in the Guardian these days. Here's an absolute gem from back when Bush's first election was still being sorted out...

Dave McElfatrick in the Washington Post

Cyanide and Happiness's Dave McElfatrick, whose campaign to get a Visa to the States I've previously blogged about, is interviewed in the Washington Post today...

24 Hour Comics Day - the aftermath

24 Hour Comics Day is over for another year, and by Wednesday I still barely have enough of a brain to blog about it, so here's a link to Andy Luke's report on the event - go and read that. Many thanks go to Catalyst Arts for hosting the event - Mark, Charlie and Nathan who made their own comics, and especially Kat who didn't but helped out above and beyond, indefatigably providing us with food and caffeinated drinks.

Stephen Downey (Cancertown, Torchwood) has already managed to get his comic online, and it's really cool.

More to come as they go online. I'll link to the results of the Dublin event too as they come in. Meanwhile, the Forgotten Pelmet have given us a bit of coverage.

John McCrea in Strip Magazine

You may remember back in the summer we announced that Strip Magazine, a new newsstand comic anthology that's planned for next year, would feature a strip by Belfast artist PJ Holden. Today, Bleeding Cool break the news that John McCrea's doing a strip for them too - it's called Warpaint, it's written by Phil Hester, and as far as I can tell it's about a homeless girl and a trickster god taking on monstrous elemental forces, with the fate of the world at stake.

Update: Dave McElfatrick gets his Visa

You'll remember we posted last month that there was a petition to get Dave McElfatrick a Visa to the states to work on animations with his Cyanide and Happiness co-creators. I'm sure you'll be glad to know he's got it!

PJ in 2000AD

Pick up this week's 2000AD (prog 1699), because the Judge Dredd strip is drawn by Belfast's PJ Holden!

New on the Irish Comics Wiki: Belfast artist John Campbell (1883-1962)

There's a new article of Belfast interest on the Irish Comics Wiki, on John Campbell (1883-1962), an illustrator and theatre designer of the Irish Revival who also drew political cartoons and caricatures for magazines like Nomad's Weekly and newspapers like Bulmer Hobson's The Republic. Here's one of his illustrations from a book of Irish folktales.

Stephen Downey on Torchwood

Pick up the new issue of Torchwood Magazine on Thursday - 'cause our own Stephen Downey's drawing the comic strip! Here's his blog post all about it.

The return of Seán Doran

Back in the early 1990s, when I first started thinking of doing my own comics, the Belfast comics scene was basically Malachy Coney and Seán Doran, who created the outrageous gay superhero strip Major Power and Spunky, starting out as a locally-published photocopied small press booklet and going on to be published by Fantagraphics' Eros imprint in America in about 1994. Mal's still about, and working on the long-awaited second issue of Good Craic Comics, but Seán's been living in London and working in illustration and computer animation in recent years. But he's back, at least for a while, and has added an archive of his old comics to his website.

So far he's posted his 1991 Star Wars parody Bug Wars, and the Major Power spin-off Quiteaguy, whose main character will be oddly familiar to anyone who shops at the Belfast Forbidden Planet, which features possibly the most outrageous device to break your fall from a high building in comics history, and which might not be entirely safe for work. There are empty pages for other comics, including Major Power, Catholic Lad, Nick Elephant and Misfits, which hopefully he'll be uploading before too long.

All we need now is for him to draw some new comics...

Exhibition by Belfast artists

Local artists Dale Mawhinney (Drawn Out) and Andy Brown (The Dead) have an exhibition opening on 24 August at La Boca restaurant on Fountain Street, at 7pm, before the open mic music night. There's a Facebook group.

Here's an example of what Dale does:

And one by Andy:

Guest artists on Japandex

Martin Eden, creator of gay superhero comic Spandex, is running a special Japandex month on his blog, where guest artists offer Japanese interpretations of his characters. Local artists who've had a go include Stephen Downey, Andrew Croskery, David Withers, Jay Faulkner and Bridgeen Gillespie. Here's Stephen's and Bridgeen's.

(Via Stephen Downey)