Short Sharp Shocks is here!

Hey folks!

After several months of running round, pricing printers, being nice to comic shop owners, having computer headaches (and a bit of drawing thrown in too!), my new comic, Short Sharp Shocks is ready to go!
Its a collection of short strips all written & drawn by me (mainly cause my ego didn't leave enough room for anyone else's name on the cover). I could go on and on (and on) about how good it is, but if you had any sense you wouldn't take my word for it would you? No.
So instead you can read a review of it by David O' Leary of comicrelated.com

"SHORT SHARP SHOCKS # 1
Story by: Ger Hankey
Art by: Ger Hankey
Letters by: Ger Hankey
Cover by: Ger Hankey
Publisher: Self Published
Reviewed By: David O' Leary

This is the first issue of a self published title from the artist of the much lauded Celtic Knights which, I think was the best Irish comic in recent memory. I know that there is a new artist coming on board for issue two in American Tim Dumas and I also heard through the grapevine that original series artist Ger Hankey was working on some creator owned material. Until I received this book, I hadn't seen anything about it and was actually looking forward to reading it.

The thing about self publishing books is that all the risk is on you. If the material is poor, you're sunk. If the material is golden, you are sitting on something that can pay the bills. The last completely one creator published book I read was Dublin City Comics from Alan Nolan last year which I really liked and noted as much in the review. I would like to see more of this type of stance and honestly brave move from a person to self publish in these uncertain times. Those who do such a thing deserve to have their work looked at by many people and as such I have no hesitation in recommending this book.

The format of this book is four short stories in the vein of 2000AD. The first story is a silent strip charting the travails of a bin-bot named Binbo whose only job in life is to collect rubbish. One day he comes across a flyer for a holiday on a beach and he likes the idea only to be laughed out of his boss's office. He comes across the idea of strapping two planks of wood to himself and jumping off a roof and flying to his dream holiday. He barely makes it. He crashes on the beach and after realising that he has no money has to go to work. I liked this strip a lot. The parallels to WALL-E are there but there is enough an original personality and premise to make this first story a winner.

The second story is Mighty Morgan: Ruler Of The Earth. This was brilliant. You couldn't help but hear the narration in your own head in the voice of the guy who spoke over the action in the original Batman TV series. The was a cool witty dialogue in the script and this strip worked well in that the art and script melded beautifully to tell the story in unison. This would have been a cool comic by itself.

The third story was nourish in tone and called Hybrid. It told the story of a hero who has a power that made me laugh out loud, but in a cool way. Hybrid's power is that s/he is a genetically engineered hero who can change gender at the drop of a hat. Like the story says itself; "just consider of the engineering that must have gone into the costume." Great stuff.

The final story stars Blackstuff, who is the official mascot of Transformers Ireland Online. It tells the story of Blackstuff who is confronted by a version of Transformers bully. Blackstuff takes care of him in the only way an Irish person can. He gets the bully blind drunk. Another moment that made me smile.

I was very happy with the quality of the book. Ger's art has never been in question and until now his writing was an unknown quantity. I'm happy to report that it is just as good. This would be a great buy as it is a fun book that I would hope to see more of. If there are going to be more issues of this book in the future I would wholeheartedly endorse it. You just don't get enough of these books nowadays. A great first issue"

The comic is going to be launched on the 5th of June at the 2D festival in Derry, then the following week (12th June) at the Point Village comics event. After that, I'll be doing the rounds of the comic shops and trying to get it on as many shelves as possible. I'll post up details of where it's being sold as soon as I know! If, however, you have no patience and a few spare bob on your credit card or paypal account, you can buy it now on Indyplanet

So thats all for now, hope you enjoy the comic. It's been great catching up with you all, we have to do it again soon!

Giant Irish Robots are coming!

Hello all,
Since Im back to regularly drawing Celtic Knights again, I thought I may as well keep the blog updated too. And no Aprils fools jokes, I promise!!
Well, things on the Knights front are progressing nicely, I have enough art ready for a preview. We are just working out the best way to distribute it and it should be ready to go, whetting your appetites for the next installment of the advenutres of Junker & company. Watch this space!

In other news, I've entered a competition to design a mascot for Transformers Ireland Online. My entry is below (Blackstuff, No.7) Please pop over and have a look at the entries, and vote for me!

Voting for a winner is by email.

If you would like to vote for me to win, then simply send an Email to tfirelandonline@gmail.com
and enter the number 7 in the subject box, 7 is the number of my submission for the contest.
Voting ends on April 15th 2009

Thanks & talk soon!

Ger

Holy neglected blog, Batman!

Would you believe its almost a quarter of the way through 2009 already?!? And this is my first post of the year! So, eh, happy new year everyone!
So what have I been up to? Well its been busy, I'll say that much. After taking a bit of a break and not doing any drawing at all in December (well, almost none!), most of January was too busy to do anything much either. We went to Hazels sisters wedding in Wales at the end of the month. It was lovely, a great weekend and a really nice place, but organising two adults & six kids to go anywhere takes a serious amount of preparation, so I couldn't really sit around drawing while Hazel did it all. So I got out of her way mostly. I'm nice like that.
So between getting back and now I have been a very busy chap, as you might imagine. First off, I had my latest Transfomers Mosaic, "Where the spark is" finished & published. I'm actually surprised at how quick it got out into the world, as these things usually have a few months of a waiting list ahead of them. Its possible that the fact it was written by Josh van Reyk, writer of the upcoming "Spotlight: Jazz" and one of the organisers of the Mosaic project, might have something to do with it. But hey, who's complaining? Check it out below.
Next on the list was a commission for some pictures of some Irish Mixed Martial Arts (MMA) stars, for which I was handsomely rewarded with a shiny new website! So now there are even more place for me to bug you all on the internet! Its www.gerhankey.com, if you want to have a gander.
Oh yeah, Celtic Knights, almost forgot about that!! (Kidding, Stephen, honest!) Sales of Issue 1 have been going great guns, thanks everyone who bought it. If you feel the need to buy another copy, just in case your first one spontaneously combusts or something, by all means do. Its better to be safe than sorry!
Stephen has been inundated with people asking him when the next issue will be out, as well as some slightly stranger questions, like whats Rubinettes bra size and does Junker have a Dublin 4 accent?!? I'll leave you to field those ones, Stephen...
As for when Issue 2 wil be out, the answer is.... sometime this year! Its going well at the minute, but I'm happy enough with the quality that I don't want to rush it to meet a deadline. Plus, I have to let paying work take piority. What I will say is that we will have a preview ready for the Bristol & Derry conventions in May & June respectively, so keep an eye out if you are going.
Thats enough of me for now, I'll leave you with a few bits I've done over the last while to keep you all quiet till the next time I post.
September, if past form is anything to go by!!

Busy busy busy busy.....

Well, the big news this week is that Dublin City Comic Con has been officially announced. Its on the 22nd/23rd of November in the Park Inn Hotel in Smithfield Square, Dublin. You can check out the details at www.dublincitycomiccon.com . We have our table booked, so we will be selling the Celtic Knights comic, sketches, other artwork I have and maybe a kidney if the price is right!!
Stephen, the writer of Celtic Knights, is also working on a new comic for his character Rosemary Herbb with artist Barry McGowan. I got to see some of the stuff he did for it and it looks fantstic. You can check out his work here. We are doing covers for each others comics (its not to make you buy more stuff, honest!!) and both will be on sale at the con. If you cant make it there, don't worry - its going on sale in comic shops too so you can pick one up when you are in Christmas shopping. And I will be giving you all gentle reminders when the time comes....



As for me, I've had a bit of a crazy week on all fronts. It all started on a bouncy castle... (don't ask)

I've been putting the finishing touches to my Transformers: Mosaic piece and a two-page strip I did for the Boards.ie free comic book day zine, as well as motoring along with Celtic Knights. I'm hoping to have a preview of the sequential art ready for it for next week, but in the meantime, heres a bit from the Boards.ie comic, and another Transformers Mosaic piece which should see the light of day in the not too distant future.


Till next week!!

Three weeks in and I've already run out of witty titles.....

OK, a couple of different projects to show you this week. I'll have the usual Celtic Knights preview, but first something a bit different.

Some of you may know that I am involved in a project called Transformers: Mosaic. Basically, a bunch of talented fan artists have gotten together to produce a series of one-page comics about everybodys favourite giant Transforming robots. So far I have been involved in a couple which you can see here. (All the other ones can be seen here). Some of them have even managed to get printed in the official Transformers comics. None of mine though.... yet.

So currently I have two more in the works; one based on the old Marvel comics I used to read when I was a kid (its amazing the standard of art they used to carve on to those stone tablets, all the same...) and one based on the new Transformers Animated cartoon, which, by the way, is an excellent reason to start getting up on a Saturday morning again!

This is a preview of the latter one, written & drawn by me and coloured by the very talented Linda Song. The comic is called "Public Relations" and I'll post the whole thing up when the TF: Mosaic boys let me.

I know last week I said I would post up a preview of the comic for the Boards.ie free comic book day project, but the truth is I've been too lazy to bother taking the scanner out this week. If you are lucky I'll update this post with it later. Probably won't though...

So another Celtic Knights preview for you now. This is the final design sketch I did for the group, and its of Rapid. He's a super-fast hero and probably the most typically Dublin of the Knights (just say his name in a northsider accent and you'll see what I mean!!). Aswell as the 'tache and the runners, he also has the typical Dublin mammy. Stephen has a few good bits in the comics for her, but I'm not going to spoil it for you...

Right, thats your lot for now. See you next week!!