When we drew up the inaugural wish list of speakers for OFFSET I knew the first person I wanted to invite was Dave McKean. So it was a great thrill and honour when he said ‘YES’. We have uploaded the video of his presentation which is available for your enjoyment. So…enjoy.

Dave McKean has illustrated many award winning comics and books, including the incredible covers for the entire award-winning Sandman comic series, The Big Fat Duck Cookbook (Heston Blumenthal), What’s Welsh For Zen (John Cale), Varjak Paw (SF Said), The Savage (David Almond), Arkham Asylum (Grant Morrison), The Homecoming (Ray Bradbury), Wizard and Glass (Stephen King), The Graveyard Book, Wolves in the Walls, Coraline, Mr. Punch, Signal to Noise and Crazy Hair (all by Neil Gaiman).

Oliver Jeffers makes art. From figurative painting and installation to illustration and picture-book making, his work has been exhibited and published in New York, Dublin, London, Sydney, Washington DC, Belfast and elsewhere. His picture books, including Lost and Found, The Incredible Book Eating Boy, and most recently, The Great Paper Caper. Oliver was brought up in Northern Ireland and now lives and works in Brooklyn (hence the mustache!).

Enjoy this talk from OFFSET last year and don’t miss out this year by getting your ticket now!

Mail Me Art: Medium Without a Message is the follow-up to the successful 2008 Mail Me Art: Going Postal. With over 700 new pieces of mail art ‘Medium Without a Message’ is an amazing collection of envelopes and boxes from around the world decorated by some of today’s most talented illustrators and artists. What makes the work special is that every single piece of art was sent through the postal system, exposed and on view as regular mail. At the end of this month all of the work will be on display at the London Mail Me Art exhibition.

From Darren:
How can you help support the project and become part of it? Well… The running costs for the project are currently at around £6000($9120). We’re hoping to recoup most of that by selling the new book and we’re also hoping to make the artists lots of money by selling their work at the exhibition! We’ve just finished the book and we got as many of the mail artists into the book as possible in some way or another! So please help us recoup some of the costs by making a pledge and supporting the project! In return for a pledge we’re sending people copies of the new book. We’ve also got some really cool artwork up for grabs from the likes of Dan May & Jon Burgerman! Please check out the site for more details – http://mailmeart.com/going-postal/pledge/

It’s with a sad heart that I read the news yesterday of the passing of Harvey Pekar. When I picked up a bundle of Harvey’s American Splendor comics is a tiny little 2nd hand shop in Cork some 18years ago I never thought that they would lead me on a path to publishing my own comics and to a career as an illustrator. But they did. I found his story telling simple and profound and it really opened my eyes to comics being a medium for personal expression.

I had the great honour and pleasure to meet Harvey a number of years ago in kilkenny at a special screening of the movie version of American Splendor and if you will permit me I’d like to publish a photo of the that moment.

His work had a profound effect on my life and I will always be grateful for that. He is a comics legend, his death a loss to his professional colleagues and most importantly his family and friends. Rest in peace Harvey!

One of Harvey’s many brilliant appearances on Letterman.

Really loving the retro styling of these re-imagined classic comics from Steven Finch.



Robert Hughes has long been one of the only art critics I can stomach without throwing the magazine/book/TV out the window (apart from a brief flirtation with Clement Greenberg when I was in college, but I was young!). His landmark book “Shock of the New” is one of the best appraisals of modern art while his “Culture for Complaint” is essential reading if you want to understand the Red/Blue divide in US politics and how the 80’s art world became the battleground for the culture wars that still rage today. He has just completed a new documentary on the deconstruction and destruction of art in our commercially driven age. It’s scathing, it’s depressing, and it’s undeniably true. It’s the best two hours of television on the subject of art that I’ve ever seen. Here is the complete program in 12 parts.

Illustrator Steve McCarthy will showcase works as part of his first solo show in the Little Ghost Gallery, Kilkenny from June 18th. Looks interesting.

Heineken are running a competition to celebrate their new Your Heineken promotion.

Your Heineken Your City People from around the country are invited to take inspiration from the great cities of Ireland and express what the city means to them by designing their own, city inspired, Heineken bottle. The winning designer will then be given their very own part of Dublin, Cork or Galway, to recreate their design on a landmark building in one of the three major cities.

The winning design will be voted for by the public.

What is ‘Your Heineken’? ‘Your Heineken’ let’s beer fans personalise the very bottle that contains their favourite beer. Using the outline of the iconic green bottle as a template, Heineken enthusiasts can fill their bottle with designs, pictures and messages, creating their very own Heineken bottle, delivered straight to their door.

Log onto facebook.com/Heineken to design your own creation or browse the entries and vote for your favourite.

We are delighted to say that following last years successful conference OFFSET is back and its even bigger and better! This year OFFSET is taking place from 1-3 October in the amazing Grand Canal Theatre. The full and very diverse line up is now online at www.iloveoffset.com but notable inclusions from the world of Illustration are Gary Baseman, Nate Williams, Emily Forgot, Tomer Hanuka, Alan Clarke, Martin Haake and art director and author of many, many books on illustration – Steven Heller.

Images after the bump…

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Steve Doogan is a Scottish artist/illustrator/IGI member living in Dublin. Over the past twelve years he has created illustrations for editorial, design and advertising, while keeping up a strong practice in travel sketching, portraits and printmaking – mainly etching and linocuts. He is also a keen follower and semi-retired practitioner of pranks and hoaxes.

Steve will be talking about his career on Thursday at OFFSHOOT Edition 3.

Presenting on the night:

NIALL O’BRIEN – PHOTOGRAPHER/FILM MAKER

RENATE HENSCHKE – FASHION DESIGNER/ARTIST

STEVE DOOGAN – ARTIST/ILLUSTRATOR

WILL ST LEGER - ARTIST/ACTIVIST

Tickets are 8 euro and available online here.

This is the last edition before September and your LAST chance to win tickets of OFFSET2010. That’s right we will be offering everyone who attends OFFSHOOT03 a chance to win one of two tickets to this Autumn’s OFFSET2010 at the amazing Grand Canal Theatre (1-3 Oct).

Also we will be announcing the first details of our main stage line up for OFFSET2010 too, so very exciting…