Up-and-coming comic book writer Gary Maloney reveals his plot to introduce ‘an Irish tinge’ to the lucrative genre
A RISING comic writer whose work is about to go global is on a mission to create ‘a uniquely Irish take’ on the genre.
Gary Maloney has teamed up with Mad Cave Studios to produce a new comic When The Blood Has Dried, which is released internationally this week.
The Dublin-based Cork native, who also works as a barrister, described his latest work as a ‘high fantasy/spaghetti western mashup set in a rural village like one you’d find in Ireland’.
And he revealed this is part of a deliberate drive to infuse Irish culture into the genre.
‘It’s just mostly about bringing that Irish tinge to fantasy stories because a lot of the traditional fantasy is influenced by British tradition,’ Mr Maloney said.
‘I wanted to try to give a unique Irish take on this genre informed by our own kind of cultural hangups.’
Buoyed by recent Oscar successes, the Irish film industry is experiencing something of a golden age with Irish-produced movies such as Poor Things and actors like Cillian Murphy and Barry Keoghan being catapulted to A-list stardom.
Similarly, Ireland is moving centre stage in the comic world, with established industry heavyweights such as Marvel illustrator Will Sliney and DC Comics artists Cian Tormey using Irish names and locations in their work for major studios.
And now Mr Maloney is bringing a uniquely Irish twist to his fantasy tale, which is set in the fictional town of Carraig an Bhun, ‘on the edge of the Southern Territories’.
The story centres around a ‘blowin’, Meabh of Cklonia, who takes over a local pub called The Lough Inn, in an attempt to find ‘a semblance of peace after a lifetime of adventuring’.
Referring to the obvious nods to Irish culture, Mr Maloney said: ‘That was part of it as well, me trying to capture that kind of spirit of a town.
‘Like in the town’s literal meaning, Carraig an Bhun, we’re using a lot of the language and stuff of Ireland, but it translates roughly or you could translate it essentially as rock bottom.’
Mr Maloney – who says he works as a ‘lawyer by day and writer by night’ – attracted the attention of major comic studios after his debut work, Mixtape, was named Best Irish Anthology by Irish Comics News in 2018.
His latest work was co-created by his frequent collaborator Daniel Romero, who provided the artwork for the story.
He recalls: ‘Back when I was doing Mixtape, which is the first collection of short stories that I published through Limit Break Comics, he [Danny] was one of the very first collaborators I ever worked on comics with.
‘We did a three-page short story back then and we always, you know, liked working with each other. We kind of hit it off very early on and said, if we were going to be doing more comics and try to, you know, branch off from small press and to try to get our books published in the mainstream comic markets, we really wanted to pitch stories together and to work on stories together.’
‘I wanted to give a unique Irish take’