Cork's Marvel artist Will Sliney: teaching a new generation to draw on telly

Marvel artist Will Sliney is teaching kids how to draw in a new TV show

Draw With Will is on Sky Kids.

THERE is nothing we love more here in Cork than a local success story. People who have done good, raised the bar, made a difference. But what we love even more, are the people who make it on a world stage and manage to find a way to stay in Cork. Because Cork people know that you can travel the globe, but you’ll never find a better place than here.

Internationally renowned Marvel graphic artist Will Sliney was born and reared in Ballycotton and that’s where he is based still, raising his two children, Tadhg (three) and Aria (one) with his wife Laura, a teacher. While his career has taken him all over the globe, nowhere compares to his homeplace, and he knows it.

“When Laura [who is from Carrigaline] moved here, I explained to her ‘you’re not moving to a house, you’re moving to a village.’ Quite the opposite of the often displaced characters he draws, Sliney is the product of a strong community background, something which he values immensely.

If you are a parent, chances are you know Will Sliney very well. During the height of the pandemic, his YouTube series We Will Draw served as a respite to those of us juggling homeschool and work-from-home, distracting our kids by showing them how to draw their favourite cartoon characters.

The inspiration behind the series was Laura. “On that fateful day in March 2020 when we were all sent home and put into lockdown, it was such a shock to everyone’s systems. I tweeted ‘if any kids are at home tomorrow, here’s my drawing of Spiderman. Let’s start an art challenge and you can show me what you can do.’”

Will Sliney in his home in Ballycotton

On the first day, he received 2000 drawings from children. The next day, he drew a character from Star Wars and he received almost 4000 submissions. “It just went mad. The New York Times did a story on it, and so did CNN and BBC.” Before he knew it, Sliney was taking part in RTÉ’s Home School Hub, giving art lessons to the children of Ireland. A year later, Sliney has realised a long term dream, fronting Draw With Will, a show streaming now on SKY Kids and Now TV. “I had two aims when it came to creating the show,” he says. “One, I wanted to show kids that it is possible to do this as a job and two, I wanted to hide as many drawing skills in the episodes as possible so that children come away having learned the basics.”

Now, Will is giving Irish Examiner readers a chance to create their own superhero. Come up with the concept - and he’ll design the winning entry (full competition details are below).

Like the characters he draws, Sliney’s origin story is not the one you might think. A huge fan of comic books and video games, he enjoyed an idyllic childhood in Ballycotton. “People might believe that I was stuck in my room drawing all the time, and that couldn’t be farther from the truth. I was very sporty, I had a great group of friends down here and we spent a lot of time playing football, catching crabs or jumping off the head of the pier.”

Encouraged by a guidance counsellor to consider a more creative route than the engineering qualification he was pursuing changed his path forever. “I suppose I was thinking that engineering was a stable job that was a good option. She was the one who encouraged me to give a creative job a go.”

Pivoting dramatically, Sliney began a degree in Multimedia in what was then CIT, now MCU. “At the time, the internet had really started becoming a thing with things like message boards and forums. So all of a sudden, I wasn’t just getting advice from Ireland, but I was learning about careers all around the world very, very quickly.”

Will is best-known for his work on Spider-Man. 

Timing, he says, is everything. “I genuinely believe that there were many other people like me, in the generations before that would have loved to have gone on and worked on Spider-Man, or Star Wars. It’s been around for a long, long time, but up until that point, they just wouldn’t have had the opportunity or wouldn’t have understood how to go about trying to get that kind of a job.”

Once again, educators saw a spark and paved the way for Sliney to see an opportunity beyond what was in front of him. “Multimedia would have been a very broad degree, taking in lots of disciplines, but the people running the course very much allowed and encouraged me to shift all of my projects towards comics. A turning point for me was when Stephen Young, one of my lecturers, told me to design the course that I needed for myself and that as long as it was challenging enough for me, he would support me in that.”

With a portfolio under his belt, and some contacts made thanks to internet message boards, it was time for Will Sliney to fly the nest and pit his wits in the biggest real-life forum for graphic artists - San Diego Comic-Con. Armed with a five-page portfolio and a loan, his aim was to doorstep companies like Marvel and DC.

Nothing can prepare you for the sheer size of the convention, which in recent years has drawn more than 180,000 people from all over the world. “It is everything you imagine multiplied by one thousand. It is jaw-dropping,” he says. “If you go to Croke Park for a match - that’s tiny compared to this. I remember turning the corner to walk into the hall and it was like I arrived into heaven.”

While visiting Comic-Con was something ticked off the bucket list for Will Sliney the fan, for Will Sliney the would-be graphic artist, it was another experience entirely. “Before I went there I had no perspective on how good or bad I was. I definitely had almost that X-Factor experience of walking out onto the stage to sing your audition and Simon Cowell putting the hand up and saying ‘you’re not good enough yet, but come back next year.’”

In the years that followed, Sliney honed his craft, sending his work to comic book artists that he admired for feedback. It’s an industry that supports young blood, he says, despite the fact that in supporting young artists, you are creating competition for yourself. “If someone’s going to break into comics, that they have to put in years and years of non-stop drawing, so there is a respect for that.”

Draw With Will is on Sky Kids.

In October, Will Sliney will mark nine years of drawing for Marvel, during which he has taken on the characters that inspired his love of comics as a child. He is best-known for his work on Spider-Man, marking a sweet spot in his own story arc. “Spider-Man defined comics for me as a child and drawing the character was always a dream that I hoped to achieve.”

The artist has come full circle. In the spirit of paying it forward that seems to be an integral part of the fantastical industry to which he belongs, Sliney wants to pass on his knowledge to the next generation.

And what better way than by paying homage to the educators - both formally and romantically - who encouraged him to follow his dreams. In Draw With Will he is arming the next generation of artists with the skills to compete.

As for Will Sliney? He is living the dream. With two young children, his working rhythm flexes to meet his family’s needs, and he finds taking a break in the afternoon to play with Tadhg and Aria to be exactly what he needs to replenish his creativity stocks. That and the cool breeze off the head of the pier looking out onto Ballycotton Bay.

Draw with Will is on SKY Kids.

The Irish Examiner has teamed up with Star Wars and Spider-Man animator Will Sliney for a very special competition. Readers can design their very own superhero — and Will will draw the winning entry.

Use your imagination to draw your very own superhero, send us a picture of your design to [e-mail]. We will ask Will to pick his favourite entry and he will redraw the winning design to send to you with a €150 voucher for art supplies. Closing date is Tuesday, August 3, 2021, Irish Examiner Competition Terms & Conditions apply.