Eclectic Guest – Declan Shalvey!

1) What was your first published work?
My first published work was HERO KILLERS, written by Andy Winter, who also published it under Moonface Press. It went on to win an Eagle Award for Favourite British Black and White Comic, which was a fantastic thing to happen with my very first comic.

2) Who or what inspires you?
I have a group of favourite artists, JP Leon, Goran Parlov, Sean Murphy, etc. I get very inspired when I look at other artist's pages and try and deconstruct their work and apply it to my own. I find a lot of movies and TV series inspiring. Playing some Mogwai in a dark room also gets my artistic gears turning.

3) What would be your dream job to illustrate?
Daredevil. Punisher. Uncanny X-Force. Something dark and compelling, at the risk of sounding pretentious (which I'm sure I do). The crazy thing is, I've had such a great year or so, and am now actually working for Marvel, that these 'dream' jobs are actually quite possible. I'd love to do a Vertigo book someday, something like Northlanders. These days I've had to draw lots of character I've always wanted to draw, and I'm constantly pinching myself to make sure I'm not dreaming.

4) Tell us a bit about the illustration you've sent?
This is a cover for a new series for Evil Ink called 'Key Of Z'. Nathan Fox is doing the covers for the series, but I was asked to do a variant for the first issue. Was a lot of fun. My girlfriend is a colourist and was good enough to colour it for me.

5) What can we expect to see from you next (what are you working on)?
I've just finished the Thunderbolts Point One issue, which was a hell of a lot of fun. Just getting started on issue 166 of T-Bolts now. More to come. Have the odd cover popping up here and there too.

6) If you hadn't become an artist what do you think you'd have ended up doing?
I'd like to think that I'd have concentrated on writing if I hadn't gone down the drawing route. When I was a kid I thought if I couldn't make it as an artist I'd join the Gardaí (Irish police force).

7) Where can we see more of your work (web links)?
Obviously, a lot of my work can be seen on the Eclectic Micks blog and my own blog at http://dshalv.blogspot.com. I also contribute to another group art blog called Comic Twart.