Al Nolan's 20,000 Leagues Blog

Sancho #5...

2008-12-01T23:09:00.004Z

...is finally here... Good jaysus, it took it out of me. But it's a good un'!

Kicks off with a cracking Sancho story from (and I love saying this) 2000AD's Mike Carroll and me, followed swiftly by a new twist on a zombie tale from Iano and newcomer Cian Tormey. Ian is back again with a one pager after this with none udder than Oink's Davy Francis on drawing duties. Then one from me, something about superheroes. Then a neat one to finish off from Danielle Lavigne and me again. As usual it's available from our website for the knockdown Paypal price of 4euro incl. shipping, or email me at alan@20000-leagues.com.

Sorry I haven't been a busy blogger for a good while -- I've been busy bein' a busy daddy with a bouncin' baby. Sweet divine, do kids take up a lot of your time. And money. But they're worth it.

In other news:

-- 4 Fathers, the new webcomic from me and Davy Francis, is nearly ready to go. It'll be hosted by www.20000-leagues.com soon, and Davy's art is SUPERB!

-- Had a grand ol' time at the Dublin City Comic Con last weekend, shootin' the shite with pals Declan Shalvey, Paddy Lynch, Phil Barrett, Paddy Brown, Hilbo "Superhilbo" Loftus-Lawler, DeeDee de Barra, Aidan Courtney, Marty, Tanya and Wonderwoman from Derry's Planet Ace -- a smorgasboard of Irish comic talent. Was blown away by Gavin from Long Stone Comics inking skills. Sunday was cut short for me due to my lovely wife getting the winter vomiting bug, which is a much fun as it sounds.

-- I booked my table for the Thing (formerly the UK Web and Mini Comix Thing) in London, 28th March.

-- Ian and I are currently working on a 5 page story for kid's Irish language comic RiRa, about 3 schoolkids who are investigators on their lunchbreaks. Full colour art, I'm lovin it.

-- I am working on a 6 pager for 2000ad fanzine ZARJAZ, a Slaine story. Looooovely.

And finally, plans for our next comic mini series are well underway -- THE RED DEATH should be hitting the shelves towards the middle of next year. More news/sketches as we have it/them!

Al.

SANCHO shortlisted for and Eagle Award! Again!

2008-04-15T22:29:00.002+01:00

Just a quick note to let y'all know that thanks to your help SANCHO has been shortlisted for a prestigious Eagle Award, the comic BAFTA!

Now, Sancho fans, we need your help again!

To WIN the award for Favourite European Comic, we need as many people as possible to go to

http://www.eagleawards.co.uk/vote.asp

and vote for SANCHO in category 18. And then get all your friends to vote for Sancho too!

We may win the award, and you will definitely win our eternal gratitude. And since me and Ian have both recently been bitten by zombies straight from the pages of our own august publication, eternity may be a mighty long time.

SANCHO is a comedy-horror comic by ALAN NOLAN & IAN WHELAN and was shortlisted last year for an Eagle, missing out to Asterix by only 8 votes. This year, there's no sign of the indomitable Gaul, so it's all to play for.

Many thanks to those of you who have voted already to get us shortlisted, it's once more into the breach!

Voting ends soon, so remember the old saying "Vote early, Vote often, Tell a friend to vote!"

Al.

PS There are many other fine contenders in many of the other categories, including Irishmen Bob Byrne and Declan Shalvey – please remember to vote for them too!

http://www.20000-leagues.com

Sancho TPB

2008-04-14T16:46:00.004+01:00

Over the last few weeks I've been a busy lil bee, working on a collected TPB with all the Sancho stories from issue 1-4, just for the people who like their comics on a bookshelf insteada in a box!

It's got a brand new cover by yours trewly, and features artwork from the irrespressible Declan Shalvey and the irresponsible Archimedes Templar, as well as contributions from Ed Berridge, Bryan Coyle, Garv Giltinan, Charlie Gillespie and Davy Francis.

It's at the printers at the moment, hoping to have copies at the Bristol Comic Expo in May, otherwise it'll be available from our main site www.20000-leagues.com in due course.

Al.

Zomblogger Post Now Online!

2008-01-15T23:08:00.000Z

Check out http://zom-blogger.blogspot.com/ for the latest Zomblogger posting!

Shit finally together!

2008-01-13T19:35:00.000Z

Well, it's the new year, and Senor Jose Maria Garcia's Carnivale of Curiosities has a new name: SANCHO #4! We finally put it to bed before Christmas and had preview editions at John Hendrick's Dublin City Comic Con (which sold out!) A new print run is due in shortly.

Having looked at the contents we decided it had the same look, feel and contents range of the last couple of SANCHO comics, and if it walks like a duck/talks like a duck etc... then we'd better just be done with it and call it SANCHO.

Declan Shalvey (Herokillers, Tequila and Frankenstein) contributes the superb cover, coloured by myself. Inside you'll find "Big Trouble with Little People" by Ian and me, "Zomblogger" by me (see http://zom-blogger.blogspot.com/), "Out & About In Dublin" by 2000ad and Future Quake botherers Ed Berridge and Bryan Coyle,"Mary Bateman's Hen" by Pádraig Ó Mealóid and your truly, and Sancho #4 is finished off (literally) with a nice little story by ol' pal Garv Giltinan "A Meeting of Minds".

Issues are €4, £3.50, or $6 including shipping from our main site http://www.20000-leagues.com/ or by PayPal (please send to alanfnolan@yahoo.ie).

Carnivale Update

2007-08-25T00:57:00.000+01:00

Just back from nearly 2 weeks in Spain, where I drew 90% of the panels for Pádraig Ó Méalóid's "Mary Bateman's Hen", finalised the script for a new strip'o'mine entitled "Zomblogger" (being the Blog of Neville Rourke, occultophile, formerly of Dublin, Ireland, currently ticklin' the weird and wacky underbelly of New York, New York: a multimedia extravaganza, ie, it'll be in the Carnivale comic and on t'web), and drew all the illustrations for that one. Feast yer eyes on some (very rough and unfinished) illos on the left. N-joy. Al.

Carnivale of Curiosities Update

2007-07-25T23:26:00.000+01:00

It's slow going, but it's getting there!

A little view for yis into the magick behind the making of a Sancho story.

These are the first 2 pages of a new 7 page story written by Iano and drawn by yours trewly, entitled (at the moment) Saint Patrick's Slay.

It's set in a graveyard somewhere in Ireland and features some of our indigenous little green clad folk, who have been busy eating American tourists.

On the right is some very messy thumbnails (I can read 'em, sort of) for the top two pages and for the rest of the story. I hope to have the story completed by the end of next week, then it's onto Ian's zombie story and one for the bould Pádraid O Mealoid called Mary Bateman's Hen.

Thassit, pals -- 'til next time,

Al.

Welcome! And Current Projects.

2007-07-08T14:24:00.000+01:00

Hello and welcome to the 20,000 Leagues blog!

It's great to have ye here, laddie-me-boy! (Or laddie-me-lass.)

This is our first blog, so I suppose I'd better tell you a bit about ourselves and our current projects.

20,000 Leagues is a comics publishing company based in the garden county of Wicklow, Ireland, and is run by Al Nolan (me) and Ian Whelan.

We set it up to publish our comic "Sancho", Iano is the writer, I co-write and draw it. It's up to issue 3 so far and was nominated this year for an Eagle Award (we lost out in our catagory to that little fecker Asterix. Ah well.)

Ian and I are currently working on a new comic "Señor José Maria Garcia's Carnivale of Curiosities", an anthology of stories set in the Sancho universe. It'll feature a cover by Herokiller's Declan Shalvey, a couple of stories by me and Ian, as well as stories from Ed Berridge and Bryan Coyle "Dublin Nightmare" and the Guys from Monkeys With Machineguns "The Rubberneckers" as well as a couple of surprises. It'll be released for Rob Curley's SubCon in Dublin on 29th September.

At the same time I'm working on a comic called "Sancho : The Parliament of the Djinn", which promises to be an 80 page behemoth -- I'm taking my time with this one!

Apart from that, we publish another anthology semi-regularly, "Soft Boiled", which is in magazine format.