Rí-Rá Coimicí Gael mock up issue 1

Hi there. Getting busy now with the anthology comic. The cover has been kindly drawn by Bob Byrne. Cheers man for your time and Muireann Lalor laid out the mock up for the cover. I just said I would post it here for you all to look at it and see what you think. If there are any mistakes they will be altered. Also it won't cost €2.95 to buy it will be €2.50. Glór in Ennis are having a launch for Seachtain na Gaeilge and we have a table booked there for 27th of February so I guess we are going to be going hell for leather to get it out for then. I just love the look of this.

Lady talking on phone

Some people are just plain odd. I was in town today just gawking around the place seeing what there was to see and happened to venture into a card shop. A lady in her mid-thirties was there. She happened to be talking to the shop assistant at the counter. I have no idea why I was there to be honest, cards are not my thing. However, there I was looking at cards of varying degrees of sappiness all provided by mostly the big guns of card world, Hallmark, Gibson, Carlton and so on.

Anyway, the lady was looking for filo-fax refills for her, um, filo-fax I imagine. The assistant being the professional that she was pointed out that they were in the corner above the padded envelopes and that they were running low on them, as there was rush on the yokes since the start of the new year. She practically skipped her merry way to the stone age version of an iPod, iPhone or whatever it is people use now to file away notes, dates and appointments that couldn't be forgotten on pain of death.

I had moved on from sappy cards and I was looking through some rather amusing ones. I had found a quite nice example for ladies birthdays that involved being able to touch one's toes without having to bend over any longer. She came back again to the young woman behind the counter and as she was about to pay for the item she thrust at the assistant it occurred to her that she needed a New Years card. The cards she sought happened to be beside me. I glanced down at them. I shuddered slightly at the thought of being on the receiving end of a New Years card, then went back to another card about projectile vomiting and drinking but not in that order.

The assistant pointed over at me and said much the same as she said about the New Years cards as she had about the filo-fax refills. There was a mad rush on them seeing as the New Year is nearly not new any longer. The lady twittered with delight. She gushed thanks at the assistant, turned and made her way towards me where she stared at the wall trying to find the New Years cards.

I looked up from the card I was holding with an image of a young man bent over facing away from a cake with hundreds of candles alight on top, his rump level with the candles and a look of concentration on his face (the title of the card said 'Puff up your cheeks and...' you can guess the rest). She nodded at me then went back to staring at the wall blind as a bat. I looked directly at the cards then back to her. She stared a little bit longer still not seeing anything and caught my eye again.

She knew I knew where the cards were but like all people who were in a situation like that she wasn't going to ask me to point them out. We continued our little dance for a moment or two longer before I returned to glancing at the New Years cards as I put back the card I held. I glanced long enough so she could follow my eye line but she still didn't cop it. The assistant tried to help by acting like the guidance system for the amusement arcade claw machine that picked out teddy bears: 'Left! Left! No too far left! Right! Right! Up a bit!'

I gave in and put my finger on them. She laughed and thanked me. While my hand rested upon another card as witty as the previous one I had held in my paws she looked at the few 'Happy New Year' cards that they had left. Now at this point I don't really know what kind of card it was I was holding in my hand (I assume it was about some bodily function failing due to onset of old age) as her phone started ringing as she was glancing through the selection. I had taken in the cover but to the left of me on one knee I could hear a cold business like voice come from below. I was just opening the card but had gotten distracted by this icy voice coming from the lady who a few seconds before was like your one at the end credits of 'Little House on the Prairie' skipping through the fields except on happy pills.

My ears pricked up:

'I rejected her application for membership.'

(Obvious pause for person on other end of the line.)

'Yes. I filed it and sent out a letter to her this morning. The reason I left a message on your phone this morning is you know your one that came in this afternoon?'

(Pause)

'Yes. Well she also fits the criteria. Didn't you go to school with her?'

(Pause)

'Well then I will leave it up to you. You can vouch for her membership?'

(Pause)

'Okay then. Well you can tell her then. You handle that.'

She went on for a few more moments and I tried to zone out of the conversation but this flip in personality change was immense. Her voice sounded stony. I eventually looked at the punchline within the card and didn't get it at all. I had forgotten the opening line as well as the cover artwork. I flicked it back but again I was distracted.

'I am going putting Sharon on probation.'

(Pause)

'Yes. Just like David.'

(Slight pause)

'He missed his flight.'

And after that she agreed that the probation would stick. I didn't hear anything else as my mind started to race I felt for these people. I wanted to know what did Sharon do to deserve this. Did David deserve to be put on probation? Where was he flying from? It might not have been his fault. Was he held up by traffic? He could have been kidnapped or even had local militant nationalists take him prisoner. What was his job? What are they members of?

She had hung up. I was looking down at her and I couldn't ask. I wanted to. Good god I needed to know. She had that grin on again like the world was lollipops, candyfloss and kittens. She went back to the assistant laughed that (now I found) chilling laugh following it up with very positive banter with the jaded assistant who looked like she was not enjoying this encounter at all. Overly positive people can be exhausting.

When she left out the door the assistant sighed like it was a relief. She looked in my direction and smiled the knowing smile of someone who sees all kinds of mad mental cases come in to her. I smiled back with an answering nod and shrugged too for effect.

'Assassin or life coach.' I said.

This went over her head as that jaded look came back on her face and I realised I just joined the ranks of the mental cases.

'She's probably one or the other.' I tried again.

This time the assistant found something better to be doing and picked up some cardboard that when pressed became a box. She went rooting behind the desk, stood up ripping back some parceling tape, looked in my direction with an expression that now said, 'Are you still here?'

I made my exit.

Irish Discworld Convention 2009

Hi there. Well the New Year is nearly upon us and hopefully ye all will have a good one. There is a lot to look forward to in the next twelve months but one of the things I am looking forward to most of all is the upcoming Irish Discworld Convention which will be on next November in the Fall's Hotel in Ennistymon.

I have been a Terry Pratchett fan for almost ten years now and this is something I think will be big next year. The first I heard of the convention was when two ladies kept calling into my place of work telling me of how they were Mr. Pratchett's No. 1 and No. 2 Irish fan's (of which there is a massive debate I would say every evening in their household). Their names are Mary-Ellen and Nicola. They also told me they were in the Colour of Magic tv movie, attending the Discworld convention in Birmingham every year and had acquired a lot of Mr. Pratchett's memrobilia. The long and the short of it is they are nuts for the man in the hat with the incredible series of Discworld books. I do not even come close to their dedication but I do seriously love his stuff and he is one of the very few authors I will buy in hardback (about eight months before the paperback comes out).

These two ladies have set up Ireland's first Discworld Convention that will be on next November in Ennistymon, in the Fall's Hotel. For those of you who don't know Ennistymon is in County Clare not very far from Ennis and I am doing what every person in the world is doing right now pointing you to Wikipedia for info on the town: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ennistymon or you might want to check out the official town site: http://www.ennistymon.net/

Now that you know all about Ennistymon check out the website they have set up regarding this I am sure that it will be updated soon: http://www.idwcon.org/ Email them as I am sure they would like to know what you think about all this. Also give the Fall's Hotel a tinkle as they mightn't know what exactly is happening yet but they would have information as to when it is on and what rooms are available. They also have a forum you can check out here: http://community.livejournal.com/idwcon_2009 and they have updates on guests there as well as other info.

Now there will be guests and I have been informed that the man himself (health permitting) will be there too. So it's something that we can not afford to miss as this is something that never happens in Ireland really not to mention the fact that the convention is probably one of the few that has ever happened outside of Dublin. For those of you abroad Shannon airport is about 40 minutes (less maybe) drive away so there is no excuse. Tell your mates. Inform your librarian. Bring your Luggage! Send the info by clacks! It doesn't matter Irish fans of Discworld is getting it's first Discworld Convention bloody brilliant.

Books I am Enjoying Part 1

At work I have a big pile of 'to be bought' stuff and I think it's time I looked over my collection of books that needs whittling down. You see I have just started adding more to the pile and cartoonists/comic publishers are starting to do those omnibus editions that are really class but take up so much space. I love 'em though!

I just bought the 'Complete K Chronicles' which is by American cartoonist Keith Knight which is brilliant. He created this weekly semi-autobiographical comic strip that has been featured in several publications and online http://www.kchronicles.com/ his home site to name one. I used to check out his stuff every few months online but now I have this massive edition Dark Horse put together that I can take almost everywhere with me. Ryanair flights probably won't let it on as carry-on but I don't care it's friggin' hilarious.

I have a funny feeling I won't be whittling down my book pile anytime soon but I might just add books I like to this every now and again.

Stuff I've done in the past!!!

Well I suppose I better use this bit to show what I've been doing over the past number of years. Um, here goes. At nineteen I worked for the Evening Echo in Cork for six months while in art college drawing full page strips based on people's jokes that they sent in on a weekly basis. We had two problems with that.

1) People didn't send in any jokes (I still managed to get jokes from sources and put fake names and addresses to them for six months).

2) I was nineteen which meant I was a silly boy.

Anyway here are two such beauties by a nineteen year old just making the deadlines and probably scribbled together in about an hour:

I was let go from said position and ploughed through art college till I left. I did get a few odd jobs here and there like this one from the French News an English language magazine based in the south of France. They wanted a stereo typical French man. Really they did!

A year after leaving art college I applied to every newspaper in Ireland there was to apply to. Then every magazine. They all said no so I got a notion I could do religious cartoons and sent them to the Irish Catholic our weekly catholic newspaper here in Ireland. What was done as a bit of craic and with no notion of getting a yes turned out to be a position that kept me scribbling for a year and a half.

After that I managed to get a small job with the Clare People one of the newspapers here in County Clare where I was told to read Arlene Harris's column about motherhood and provide her column with a strip (or illustration but we made it a strip in the end). I also was sometimes called upon to do illustrations for feature articles.

Then I managed to get a small job with a monthly commercial fishing magazine doing a short-lived strip called Crew Cuts. I am first to admit the puns I used probably scuttled the strip (get it!! Do you see what I did there!!!).

I also managed to get a job with the Irish language newspaper Lá doing panel gag cartoons. The panel was called 'Agus Sin Sin' which in English was called 'And That's That.'

After that I went backpacking in Canada and came back a year later back where I started with no illustration work but had a short story on BBC Radio 4 for 15 minutes which was nice. Then I started submitting to Phoenix Magazine which is almost like Private Eye in the United Kingdom.

Lately though I have been mostly doing work for the Irish Times and their supplements designing characters and drawing colouring in pics of scenes for their Art in the Classroom supplement which has been fun.

But the main thing that excites me is the fact that we are bringing out an Irish language comic anthology in the next few months with help from Forás na Gaeilge. We have a great bunch of people involved like Bob Byrne, Declan Shalvey, Ian Whelan, Alan Nolan, Mike Lynch, Ian Cullen, Stephen Downey, a few other Irish cartoonists and two French comic strips translated for the first time into Irish. We also have a a very talented graphic designer on board called Muireann Lalor and Malachaí Mac Amhlaoibh is our brilliant Irish translator. We also have confirmed that we will be assisted by Gabriel Rosenstock who is one of Ireland's top writers 'as gaeilge.' I have started a company called Coimicí Gael and we have put together an eight page sample for people to look at. I drew the cover but the layout was by Muireann (who did a great job on designing the whole thing).

And that's me in a nutshell really as far as the cartoonist side of things goes. There have been other projects but these are the main things I have been involved in.

Hiya

Well it seems that nearly everyone these days has a blog and here is mine. I will fingers crossed be posting work and stuff I'm doing or stuff that has been put together by meself. God, I'm actually a bit nervous about this. Anyway hopefully over the next few weeks I will be updating this on a regular basis. That's enough from me. Move on! Nothing more to see here!