A Quote by Declan Shalvey

There's a page in #2 where I did one of the most interesting pages I've ever drawn. I had to think, "This is a big, blockbuster comic book." You're prepared to be more fan service-y or bombastic. Yet I did one of the most challenging pages I've ever drawn, and it was incredibly satisfying to do that on a project like this [All-Star Batman].
Simon's walls were covered in what looked like pages ripped from a comic book, but when I squinted, I realized they were hand drawn. Some were black-and-white, but most were in full color, everything from character sketches to splash panels to full pages, done in a style that wasn't quite manga, wasn't quite comic book.
I was working in this very bombastic style. I didn't really know about style. I didn't think about it: I did what I was interested in, what I was attracted to, what I was drawn to. I was drawn to color, and I was drawn to humor, and I was drawn to sexuality and spontaneity. It was all really intuitive. I never really thought, "Well this is the style...
I think we can leave mullets back in the '80's. Don't you? I'm really not a big fan of them. I did like the permed hair that I had in it. That was great, and I think that we should always have '80's music, forever and ever and ever. I'm a big fan.
When I think, where did I laugh the most, where did I eat the most, where did I just feel good all the time, I would say making the Bond movie 'Die Another Day.' To be part of such an iconic franchise and to travel to exotic places - that was the most fun I ever had.
I think a book that is over 400 pages should be split in two. I don't know that there's anything that interesting that can go on for 700 pages. I think that is a little bit indulgent.
The most challenging work and the best work I've ever done was in a thing I did for PBS called 'Lemon Sky', a play by Lanford Wilson. I think it's the rawest, most complex work that I've had to do, and the thing I'm most proud of.
I'm so used to artists saying to me, "Listen, I'm going to have five pages done next week," and then three weeks later I'm phoning them, begging them for two pages. And Stuart [Immonen]is a guy who will promise you five pages and deliver six pages, and the six pages are even better than you could have ever imagined.
The most challenging project I've ever done, I think, is every single thing I've ever tried to do. It's never easy.
The way people reacted to me in dressing rooms and so on was incredibly aggressive. They know every record and they seem to think they should nudge me or bump into me as they go past. It was this incredible performance that used to amuse me. In the early days, people were drawn towards us like they'd be drawn towards a car smash...There is a definite relationship between that fanaticism and the fan that, as a performer, you expose more of yourself, of the undercurrents of your personality. Most rock personalities subdue that or choose not to explore it.
The first comic book I ever bought, I was in third grade. It was 'Avengers,' I think, #240. I grew up in Kansas City. And I walked into a 7-11. I had seen, like, 'The Hulk' TV series. I knew about comic book heroes. I knew about it, but I hadn't actually had a physical comic in my hands until that time. And it was a big deal for me.
If you look closely, there is no book more visual than Three Trapped Tigers, in that it is filled with blank pages, dark pages, it has stars made of words, the famous magical cube made of numbers, and there is even a page which is a mirror.
I had tried writing novels for many years, and they always escaped me. For a long time, I thought, 'It's just not in me to write a novel. It's not something I'm able to do.' It seemed like everything I wrote naturally ended at the bottom of page three. A picture book, three pages; an essay, three pages.
When I'm writing a comic book, I'm thinking about a character that I'm going to be drawing on the page. I've never drawn a character to look like who I want to cast in a movie because I don't think that way. I'm a real monomaniac. I do one thing at a time.
I never was a big comic book fan. Obviously I'd heard them growing up from my friends who did read them, but I never was a big comic book reader.
I was a journalist. I was a drummer. I was everything. I didn't know what the heck I was. But with Jack Paar, the job was very specific - no confusion. You came in each day. You wrote five pages of jokes. You handed the pages in... The pressure was to write five pages of jokes every day. I did it, and I thought, 'This is what I like to do.'
I wrote my first book at eight, all of four pages. At 10, I did a 40-page story. At 12, I wrote two stage plays.
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