declan shalvey

The weekend is here! Put down your paperwork, throw your stationery out of the window, and do a victory spin in your office chair, because it’s time to catch up on that greatest of all media: comics! What’s been going on this week? There’s so much comics that there’s no way anybody can keep up with all of it — so Weekender is here to catch you up on some of the stories you may have missed, and some of the best writing about comics from the past few days.

Music and comics. Like chocolate and peanut butter, they're two great tastes that taste undeniably great together. Until 14th May, London's Orbital Comics store is celebrating the union of the two art forms with the 'Cover Versions' exhibition. As part of the event, 14 comic artists have created new cover art for some their favorite albums. If you've ever wanted to see Christian Ward covering Radiohead's Kid A, or a mash-up of The Beatles' Abbey Road with Morrison's New X-Men --- and if you didn't previously know you needed these in your life, you do now --- then look no further.

Created in 1964 by Bill Everett and Stan Lee --- with substantial input from Jack Kirby and Wally Wood --- Daredevil has been brought to life on the page by an extraordinary roster of comics greats, including Gene Colan, David Mazzucchelli, Frank Miller, Alex Maleev, and, in recent years, Chris Samnee, Paolo Rivera, and Marcos Martin. The striking red suit that he's worn since his seventh appearance is one of the best costumes in comics, and creates an irresistible contrast against the grime of Hell's Kitchen. For this special gallery, we've picked out some of our favorite Daredevil pin-ups and images to pay tribute to ol' hornhead.

Image held the latest in its series of one-day Image Expo events in San Francisco on Thursday, putting a spotlight on a slate of new titles for 2015, and introducing some new creators to the Image family. In concert with the expo, Image also released a new Humble Indie Bundle that includes an Image Expo Preview book containing art from the newly announced titles, plus some forthcoming books that were previously announced. Titles featured in the preview include Savior by Brian Holguin, Todd McFarlane, and Clayton Crain; Injection, by Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey, and Jordie Bellaire; No Mercy, by Alex De Campi, Carla Speed McNeil, and Jenn Manley Lee; Island, by Brandon Graham and a whole host of artists; RunLoveKill, by Eric Canete, Jonathan Tsuei, Leonardo Olea, and Manu Fernandez; and Starve, by Brian Wood and Danijel Zezelj; the book also includes a one-page ad for Marjorie Liu's new book with Sana Takeda, Monstress, and an ad for the second season of Pretty Deadly, by Kelly Sue DeConnick and Emma Rios.

Marvel’s recent relaunch of Moon Knight saw the white-clad vigilante pare things down to a bare minimum as he stalked the streets by night, taking down gangs, gunmen, and anything else that posed a threat to innocent people. In the hands of Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire, the character was reinvented, stepping away from past characterizations to form a new identity. Across just six issues the creative team stamped a brand on the book that may mark how people approach the character and concept from here onward. From The Dead collects the entirety of Ellis, Shalvey and Bellaire's run on the book. It features a series of deft action sequences, and builds a convincing new world for Moon Knight to walk in, though Ellis's sparse and low-key scripts effectively cede the floor to the artists, allowing penciller Shalvey to create that world and colorist Bellaire to establish the tone. The series is a methodically structured exercise in comics storytelling, with Shalvey excelling in his depiction of a run-down, black and white world of straggling criminals.

Around here, New York Comic-Con marks the end of convention season, capping off a long summer of announcements, reveals, and other assorted fun. As such, it's also one of the last big places for fans to get amazing sketches and commission pieces from artists, who tend to cap off the season with some truly amazing art. For Declan Shalvey, producing amazing art is pretty much just a standard operating procedure. Books like Moon Knight, Deadpool and Venom have shown fans how great he is at sequential art, but the sketches he produced at cons are every bit as next-level as his pages. Seriously: There's a Batman he drew that is one of the best Batman sketches I've ever seen. Check out our favorites, gathered from Shalvey's Twitter feed, and then visit his website to see more beautiful art and inquire about getting an original piece of your own.

A lot of people fell in love with Rocket Raccoon this summer thanks to the movie Guardians of the Galaxy, so this seems like a great time to pick up some art featuring the movie's angry anthropomorphic star -- and to help out his co-creator Bill Mantlo at the same time. Mantlo was severely injured when he was hit by a car in 1992, and has needed constant and costly care ever since. The prominence of Rocket Raccoon in Guardians brought welcome attention to Mantlo's condition, and comic artists have stepped up -- in conjunction with Multiversity Comics -- to help fund his care with online auctions of original art featuring Rocket and other Mantlo creations (yes, including ROM Spaceknight). All proceeds will go to the Mantlo family.

One of the best things about digital comics is that you can read them online pretty much anywhere, but sometimes, every now and then, you want to read them in print. Whether it's the extra features that inevitably come with a printed collection, the texture of paper or just the comforting reminder that physical objects exist and you are therefore not alone and isolated in a formless void, printed webcomics have a lot to offer today's discerning reader, and Dark Horse is stepping up to give you three of the most exciting collections of the year. Set for release next spring, Eisner winning digital comic Bandette and the webcomic Polar: Eye For An Eye are returning to Dark Horse for the book trade customers, but the third, Murder Book is a newcomer, and it looks awesome.

Each week, ComicsAlliance’s Chris Sims and Matt Wilson host the War Rocket Ajax podcast, their online audio venue for interviews with comics creators, reviews of the books of the week, and whatever else they want to talk about. ComicsAlliance is offering clips of the comics-specific segments of the show several days before the full podcast goes up at WarRocketAjax.com on Mondays. This week, Chris and Matt start off by gushing about Grayson #2 by Tim Seeley, Tom King, and Mikel Janin. Then, they do pretty much the opposite to Genius #1 by Marc Bernardin, Adam Freeman and Afua Richardson. Then, it's back to gushing about Moon Knight #6 by Warren Ellis, Declan Shalvey and Jordie Bellaire!

We make a regular practice at ComicsAlliance of spotlighting particular artists or specific bodies of work, as well as the special qualities of comic book storytelling, but because cartoonists, illustrators and their fans share countless numbers of great pinups, fan art and other illustrations on sites like Flickr, Tumblr, DeviantArt and seemingly infinite art blogs that we’ve created Best Art Ever (This Week), a weekly depository for just some of the pieces of especially compelling artwork that we come across in our regular travels across the Web. Some of it’s new, some of it’s old, some of it’s created by working professionals, some of it’s created by future stars, some of it’s created by talented fans, awnd some of it’s endearingly silly. All of it is awesome.