Comic creator Mal Earl hasn’t let retirement from his day job slow him down from creating comics – and, if anything, he’s speeded up!
Busy working on a variety of projects, available through his own Gweni Press imprint, the inventive writer-artist, perhaps best known for his work on David Lloyd’s digital comics anthology Aces Weekly, soon to be released as a print collection, has just republished his Pieces of Colour art book on Lulu, for those who missed it when it initially came out.
A 96-page, 8.5 x 11 inch colour extravaganza, which includes some art for mature readers, Pieces of Colour covers the years 1996 to 2011, during the period, Mal explains, he first tried to master digital colours on a desktop computer with a mouse.
“Some of the later pieces had advanced to a Wacom Bamboo tablet, but all of them together provide a visual map of my progress through a learning curve!
“The book fills the gap between my early days producing xeroxed zine comics (a companion volume of these reprints to follow soon) and my final dive into serious graphic mark making, around 2010, and contains the reprint of my 21 page Gwendolyn comic.
“Together with the Aces volume, these three books will provide a pretty full overview of my art from 1992 through to the current day and everything that’s coming from Gweni Press in 2025.”
Lured back into the fields of art, comics and illustration in 2012, Mal Earl has stacked up an impressive list of work in the subsequent years. His personal projects have included designs based on the graphic sensibilities of Weimar Period Berlin, and a print series capturing the mood and excitement of the Jazz greats.
His comics work has appeared in publications alongside such luminaries as Bill Scienkiewicz, David Lloyd, Glenn Fabry, Marc Hempel and Shaky Kane, and he has been a regular contributor to David Lloyd’s online comic anthology, Aces Weekly, with his creator-owned serials, “Bullhawk”, “Scars”, “The Bridge” and “JIGSAW”.
• Pieces of Colour by Mal Earl is available here from Lulu
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John is the founder of downthetubes, launched in 1998. He is a comics and magazine editor, writer, and Press Officer for the Lakes International Comic Art Festival. He also runs Crucible Comic Press.
Working in British comics publishing since the 1980s, his credits include editor of titles such as Doctor Who Magazine and Overkill for Marvel UK, Babylon 5 Magazine, Star Trek Magazine, and its successor, Star Trek Explorer, and more. He also edited the comics anthology STRIP Magazine and edited several audio comics for ROK Comics; and has edited several comic collections and graphic novels, including volumes of “Charley’s War” and “Dan Dare”, and Hancock: The Lad Himself, by Stephen Walsh and Keith Page.
He’s the writer of comics such as Pilgrim: Secrets and Lies for B7 Comics; “Crucible”, a creator-owned project with 2000AD artist Smuzz; and “Death Duty” and “Skow Dogs”, with Dave Hailwood.
Categories: Art and Illustration, British Comics, British Comics - Collections, Comic Art, Comics, downthetubes Comics News, downthetubes News, Other Worlds
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