Sminky Posters!

I’ve been itching to show off this set of posters I made for Sminky Animation, a.k.a. Andrew James, advertising his upcoming First Birthday Bash at the Fastnet Short Film Festival 2013.

There are 6 posters in total (be sure to click through the set if viewing this on my Tumblr blog), each representing a different letter of the name SMINKY. The posters are designed to work on their own as promotional tools, but the cool part is—when joined together in sequence—they create one massive Sminky-themed board game that you can play with your friends (regular or animal, that’s up to you).

Mr. Smink has even been kind enough to provide downloadable player icons and dice on his website, so visit www.sminkyanimation.com/birthdaybash, input the code partytime and get playing! Oh, you will also need to locate and “borrow” each of the 6 posters from locations around Cork City, so good luck with that.

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This project was a blast to work on, especially as I was a big fan of Sminky to begin with. (Seriously, the extent to which these silly catchphrases have infiltrated my day-to-day life is ludicrous.) I think we managed to reference almost every short here, either graphically or in the text of the board game instructions … and yes, I got to watch them all again and call it work!

If you haven’t experienced Sminky yet, I suggest you start here, then try here, here, and here.

That’s right, that’s right, that’s right…

DISCORDIA Graphic Novel Launch

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On Wednesday last I attended the launch of DISCORDIA, a graphic novel created by local Cork teenagers for which I was the art director / art workshop coordinator. The launch took place at Cork City Library as part of a series of events celebrating Teen Day.

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The book was officially launched by Cork-born comics artist Will Sliney, who bravely—or foolishly—shared the podium with myself and story editor / writing workshop coordinator John W Sexton. Following a great speech, some photos, and some tea & biscuits, the writers and artists involved in the book had the opportunity to attend a “masterclass” with Will, in which he presented his work past and current, which includes Marvel’s Fearless Defenders and his own comic Celtic Warrior: The Legend of Cú Chulainn.

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Will spoke about his creative process, gave handy tips and tricks on drawing comics, and detailed how he has made a career as a top-tier comics artist. He also allowed the assembled teenagers to ask plenty of questions and look for feedback on their own work.

It was a fantastic event, and big thanks must go to Cork City Library for organizing the whole thing, and to Will for delivering such an interesting and inspiring presentation. Colin from Irish Comic News was in attendance on the day, and has written a nice account of the event which also gets into the history of the project itself.

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I’m thrilled with how DISCORDIA has turned out—it is a credit to the serious talent and dedication of all the Cork teenagers involved. If you would like to delve deeper into its pages you can download the PDF or view it in-browser below.

Here’s a photo of my questionable Black Panther-style salute during my speech. Don’t ask me…

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Photo © www.irishcomicnews.com

Melvil Dewey Because it’s World Book Day (or possibly that was in March … in any case, it’s definitely the start of World Book Fest here in Cork) here’s a drawing of Melvil Dewey, all-round swell guy (if you ignore the philandering and anti-Semitism?) and inventor of the eponymous book classification system still in use today. File under 611.35 for Bad Ass. (Or purchase a print here if that is the kind of thing that is your thing.)
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Melvil Dewey

Because it’s World Book Day (or possibly that was in March … in any case, it’s definitely the start of World Book Fest here in Cork) here’s a drawing of Melvil Dewey, all-round swell guy (if you ignore the philandering and anti-Semitism?) and inventor of the eponymous book classification system still in use today.

File under 611.35 for Bad Ass.

(Or purchase a print here if that is the kind of thing that is your thing.)

DISCORDIA Promotional Poster Poster for the launch of DISCORDIA, the graphic novel compilation created by teenagers at Cork City Library, which I blogged about yesterday. I was fairly obsessed with Dave McKean in college—I still adore his work of course—and desperately tried to ape his style in every project we received, whether they suited it or not. Though my work is largely cartoon / kid-friendly stuff these days, I like to take these annual graphic novel cover projects as a chance to pay homage (okay, okay, rip off) the master. More rusty cogs anyone?
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DISCORDIA Promotional Poster

Poster for the launch of DISCORDIA, the graphic novel compilation created by teenagers at Cork City Library, which I blogged about yesterday.

I was fairly obsessed with Dave McKean in college—I still adore his work of course—and desperately tried to ape his style in every project we received, whether they suited it or not. Though my work is largely cartoon / kid-friendly stuff these days, I like to take these annual graphic novel cover projects as a chance to pay homage (okay, okay, rip off) the master.

More rusty cogs anyone?

DISCORDIA Graphic Novel

This is the cover I created for DISCORDIA, a graphic novel compilation written and illustrated by local Cork teenagers in workshops at Cork City Library earlier this year. The workshops were facilitated by myself and writer John W Sexton.

DISCORDIA is the Latin translation of Eris, the Greek goddess of discord (disagreement, chaos and strife). This ties into a lot of the themes of the stories in the book, and was selected from a massive pool of possible titles during the workshops themselves. The concept is represented on the cover with beautiful long-exposure photography by one of the teen participants.

The book will be launched by Cork comic artist Will Sliney next Wednesday 24th April, as part of Cork World Book Fest.