I drew a two page strip for an Irish language kids comics named Rí Rá sometime around last Christmas and just got my copies in the post this past weekend. The comic is a great looking little package with a host of Irish and European talent creating short strips for the anthology.
I can hold a simple conversation in Irish but I wouldn't consider myself fluent, so when I met Aidan Courtney at the Dublin Comic con last year and mentioned submitting something to him I brought on board an Irish language teaching friend of mine, Finnbar Christie. Since my style of art, even in this more cartoonish form, doesn't really suit slapstick humour, I came up with a simple plot and asked Finnbar to write a poem over my layouts. Aidan liked this idea, something different from the other strips and ties in nicely with the expansion of Irish literature which was one of the main goals of the comic.
I created the whole artwork, from linework to colours to letters, about 95% digitally in Photoshop. I think I drew one of the panels on page 2 by hand, but ended up changing it a lot in PS anyway.
Here is page one of my strip. If you want to find out what happens to our title character you'll have to buy the comic. Does he hate school? Will he like it? Will he get expelled for setting it on fire? OK that last option is the least likely considering the target audience is 8-14 year olds but hopefully you'll be able to follow most of the stories by just looking a the art even if you don't read Irish (and theres a glossary at the back if you want to pick some up).
And here's the cover art by the wonderful Bob Byrne.
I
'm not sure exactly where you'll find copies of Rí Rá. I know it's on its way to a lot of Irish bookstores and Libraries, including www.ennisbookshop.ie but if you want a copy you can contact coimicigael or Aidan direct.
Tomorrow is the end of my blog-a-rama nd come back then and I'll prob be back to the regular Wednesday and Sunday schedule after that.
