Tuesday, May 28, 2013

T-Shirts/Prints

To all the people asking about the availability of HPD shirts and prints; stay tuned. I'm actively working  on making them available online, I just need to make sure all of my deadlines are met first. Won't be long. And thanks so much for all the interest!

Who'd have thought I'd have bloody merchandise some day... strange times! Good times.


Me and the missus sporting some dapper threads.

Tuesday, May 21, 2013

HPD Issue 1 Preview

Here's a ten-page preview of the first issue; due in stores tomorrow. The issue is 27 story-pages in length, plus back-up material, and no ads. Variant cover by the mighty Tommy Lee Edwards!
Please do check it out!
















Dial T For Tomorrowness


Tomorrow's the day. Here's a photo from the Big Bang comic shop in Dundrum, Dublin showing the first issue's arrival with their deliveries. I still haven't seen an actual copy myself, but from all accounts it looks pretty decent! 



All I can do now is wait to see how it's received. The past 20 months have flown by so fast, it's crazy. Thankfully the book seems to have taken on some real momentum, and is garnering an awful lot of good will. I'm honestly truly grateful and humbled by that fact.

So. Roll on tomorrow...

BONUS!

Here's my fearless EIC Chris Ryall holding up a couple of copies of the second issue. I still haven't seen issue 1!

Sunday, May 19, 2013

Nick Roche Issue 5 Variant Cover



The variant cover for issue 5 comes from the fabulously talented (and flamboyant) Nickelback Roche. Nick was at IDW way back even before I was, and blazed the Irish skidmarks therein. A master of all things Transformable, Nick always shows a whole different set of chops when unleashed on some honest-to-goodness human characters, like the HPD cast.  (Or are they..? They are.)

Nick has been pulling double-duty on HPD so far, along with being one of an elite-ish cadre of variant cover artists, he's been helping out a lot on the scripting front with numerous proof-reads and many excellent suggestions. I stole a couple of his lines verbatim for my pitch for the book. You're welcome, Nick.

It'd be hugely remiss of me not to point out the amazing Josh Burcham's colour work on this piece; as usual he took what Nick did and sprinkled gold dust over it. Josh coloured my favourite Nick-related TF project to date, Last Stand of The Wreckers, and I urge anybody that hasn't read that book by this point to find that sucker and eyehale it.


And yes, to those wonderiung, I DID ask Nick would he add a teeny Grimlock to the T-Rex portion of the cover, maybe peeking out of the jungle.

He, and Hasbro's lawyers, graciously declined.


Tuesday, May 14, 2013

Tomm Moore

Here's the first new piece from the Buildup Week, which will also be used as a cover or a pinup for the series. It's by the amazing Tomm Moore, Oscar-nominated Animation Director of Cartoon Saloon in Kilkenny, Ireland, and a good mate of mine since college.

It's so good, it's possibly my favourite image for the whole series so far.  I love it.


Eclectic Micks Buildup Week

There's a week-long build up to next week's launch of the first issue over on the Eclectic Micks (an Irish comic-art collective that I'm part of) blog. There'll be some new and unseen stuff, as well as some previously seen pieces from this blog. All to help build the anticipation for the upcoming release.

Take a look here.


Monday, May 13, 2013

Issue 5 Cover

Here's the regular cover art for the fifth issue; first the inked version and then the coloured version, both by me.

I'll stick up the amazing NICK ROCHE variant in the coming days..!




Friday, May 10, 2013

State of The Nation

Been a while since I updated, as things have been even busier than normal of late. Few points of interest:

USA Today ran a really great article about the book a couple of days ago featuring quotes and artwork from me. It's the last big interview I did to promote the first issue, and it's one of my favourites; they did a great job. Read it here.

Next; the fabulous Big Bang Comics here in Dublin, Ireland have organised a fancy launch party for the first issue on May the 22nd, the same day the book hits shelves. Should be a great night; if ye're in or around Dublin that evening please do come and join us! The store is in the Dundrum Shopping Centre, and the signing will run from six to eight or so in-store, and then drinks in the directly adjacent First Floor Bar in Harvey Nichols afterwards. The Big Bang have organised the whole bar just for us, so there'll be plenty of room for all the typical shenanigans. Fellow Irish pros (and HPD cover artists) Declan Shalvey and Nick Roche will also be there. As an added bonus, there'll be limited edition HPD prints with artwork exclusive to the store up for grabs for the first 100 customers, so get there in decent time!



And lastly, and the thing I'm most excited about... IDW just informed me of the order numbers for issue 1, and they're good. Better even than I hoped would be possible. Thank you so much to everybody who pre-ordered the book, and also to all of the retailers who really supported me and the project by taking a punt on it.
I hope ye all really enjoy it! I can say with relative certainty that the issues get better as they go, so please stick around for issue 2!

Cheers!
Stephen