We were very pleased to see the return of Ireland’s best comics & illustration podcast ‘The Comic Cast’.

The return episode has reviews of Chris Judge’s new book ‘The Brave Beast’ as well as a chat with the creators of amazing new design game ‘The Extraordinaires’ which features the work of Steve Simpson, Matt Griffin, Steve McCarthy, Niamh Sharkey and Chris Judge, as well as BrenB & Neal McCullough…

They also take a trip over to London to talk to the good folk of amazing comic publishers ‘NoBrow’…

You can stream it here, or subscribe with iTunes.

Welcome back fellas!

This is David McClelland’s most recent fictional audio/visual short story, imagining what Pope Benedict XVI’s last day as Pope may be like.

View Papa’s last day – mini comic on David’s website…

Comic book artist Philip Barrett has done a comix take on our very own Liam Geraghty‘s report for Culture File (RTÉ Lyric fm, weekdays, 6.40pm) about the rarely told story of when Hitchcock came to the playwright Sean O’Casey’s place for dinner. You can listen to the piece here. The show is running a competition where you can win the original art for the piece just by either following @CultureFilePod and RT-ing this tweet or by LIKE-ing the Culture File Facebook page and sharing their comix post.

Professional Irish comic book artists Declan Shalvey (Marvel’s Thunderbolts, 28 Days Later) and Stephen Mooney (Angel, Half Past Danger) talk about their experiences in the comic book industry – everything from creator owned work to the importance of social media in getting your name out there – on the latest episode of the Comic Cast. Listen here.

Above image: front cover to issue 1 of Half Past Danger by Stephen Mooney

In 2011, Illustrators Ireland member David McClelland was commissioned to create a series of short comics based upon the songs from the debut album of ‘The Uncontested’.

Each comic / song depicts a character living in a fictional town.

He also created a website to host the comics:

“Before I started on the artwork for the comics, I determined that the internet was going the best medium to present and promote the stories in their musical and visual format. Therefore, in addition to the comics, I created a website to personify The Uncontested and present the stories in a format that uses preset scrolling to pace and guide the reader through the stories.”

See some ,more examples of the work over on the Illustrators Ireland blog…

Cartoonist Paul Hornschemeier has written a great post on what he uses when he’s working. Everything from paper to pencils. You can read it here.

Madefire Inc. is a new company who is trying to push the boundaries of e-books. They are here to revolutionize the way stories are told. To start with, their narrative flow on a page challenges all conventions. Is this really the future of storytelling?

You can download the app and get a few samples of their “motion books” here.

Sometimes I love when the internet sets those late night inspiration bear traps. Your galloping through the dark forest of random blogs and accidentally take another path &  then ‘SNAP!’ Somethings grabbed your leg & your knocked to the ground. Thats exactly what happened when  my eyes walked into Luke Pearons studio, online that Is. I was reading about other artists studio set ups looking for ways to better mine as Its so small and compact. Through a random Google search I stumbled upon the picture below. This stumbling happened at about 2am and I was a little ruffled by this. It kind of felt like I was looking at me looking back at…me. The studio, the books even the fecking Sigur Ros poster were the same. The guy was even wearing my expression. This was all very strange. Who the hell was this guy. He would turn out to be one of my new favourite Illustrators. This Is Luke Pearson.

Luke Pearson Is a UK based illustrator & comic Book artist. He has worked a lot with Nobrow Press, Channel 4, Playstation and Wired Magazine to name a few. But Its not the great client list that makes Luke stand out, nor Is It his studio decor but It is his crisp illustration layout and style that grabs you from the first glance. From the one page spreads below or his graphic novels Luke has developed a style thats very reminiscent of other greats In the same field. I get the feel of Chris Ware, David Mazzucchelli as well as the simple personal humour of Jeffery Brown ( all of which will be making appearances  here on Scamp).

A great many years ago I was browsing in a shop called Yellow Rat Bastard in New York. At the time I wasn’t really into comic books at all and I certainly didn’t even know comic books about everyday life even existed, when I picked up a copy of Adrian Tomine‘s Summer Blonde. I brought it back to my hotel and read it cover to cover. It’s so often difficult to pin point exactly when a love for a particularly medium or genre takes hold of you but this was it for me. Tomine’s art – those clear black line drawings - mesmerized me and have done ever since. So I’m ecstatic to learn that Tomine has a new collection out this month entitled ‘New York Drawings - a decade of covers, comics, illustrations, and sketches from the pages of  The New Yorker and beyond‘.

I love Hunt Emerson’s work. He was the one who introduced me to the works of Coleridge, Casanova or D.H. Lawrence when I was a teenager.

His brush work, his witty depictions of every scene and his masterful storytelling, makes the reading of his comics an absolute delight.

Now he has embarked in probably the most challenging graphic novel adaptation there is: the first book of Dante’s Divine Comedy.

The book is published mid-October by Knockabout and you can preorder it directly from Hunt Emerson (and get it signed by him too!) or send him an email.

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