Marvel illustrator Will Sliney: ‘There were no examples of see it, be it when I was younger’

He’s built a successful career as a Marvel illustrator — but Will Sliney is determined to give something back to his young fans. As well as Storytellers, his RTÉ ‘how to draw’ show, he’s also just brought his Comic Book Expo to Cork.

The Ballycotton native wants young artists in Ireland to feel comic books are an industry in which they could have a career.

Will Sliney looked through the doors of San Diego Convention Centre and saw his future. The Cork artist was on his first trip to San Diego Comic-Con, an epicentre of global nerd culture.

Queuing to enter, he couldn’t believe the sheer scale of everything: The crowds, the venue, the excitement. The entire experience had a mind-blowing impact on the aspiring comic book illustrator from Ballycotton. 

He’d taken out a loan to attend Comic-Con, hoping to share his portfolio with the big publishers. He was here to hustle. Now that the moment was at hand, he was overwhelmed.

“When I realised that [working in comics] was a thing I could do, it consumed me. I built my life around it,” Sliney recounts, ahead of the return of his popular how-to-draw RTÉ series, Will Sliney’s Storytellers, which incorporates the voice talents of stars such as Aisling Bea, Laura Whitmore and Dermot Whelan.

“Once I finished college...everyone has that travel bug – my travel bug happened to be taking out a loan and going to a comic book convention and seeing what I could learn from it.

“I went to San Diego Comic-Con. There were well over 100,000 people. I can remember seeing through the doors while queuing up with my ticket, getting a glimpse of the hall. 

"Thinking that what I saw in front of me was the whole thing: Then realising that it went on for a kilometre down, this full-on explosion of pop culture.

“It’s impossible to describe,” he says. “An awesome, awesome event. Especially for someone like me who was into this stuff all of the time but would never have had an opportunity to see it first hand.”

The next season of the popular how-to-draw RTÉ series, Will Sliney’s Storytellers, will include the voice talents of stars such as Aisling Bea, Laura Whitmore and Dermot Whelan.

That was over a decade ago when Sliney was a multimedia graduate from what was then Cork Institute of Technology.

More than ten years on, he has worked with Marvel ( The Amazing Spider-Man) Star Wars and, in collaboration with writer Charles Soule, has published his original series Hell To Pay with independent comics powerhouse Image.

Sliney also has a parallel career as an ambassador in Ireland for the joys of comics. In that second capacity, he recently brought the third Cork Comic Book Expo to Mahon Point shopping centre featuring workshops, demonstrations, and art competitions.

The Ballycotton native wants young artists in Ireland to feel comic books are an industry in which they could have a career. He has worked on Spider-Man for Marvel and told the backstory of Kylo Ren for Star Wars. And he’s done it all while remaining based (mainly) in Cork. 

It’s a life of which earlier generations of comic-book writers and artists in Ireland could only dream.

Storytellers is one of the projects of which he’s proudest. It began life early in the pandemic – and quickly became a source of joy and escapism for budding artists around the country.

“You could look back and think it was the shrewdest business decision I ever made. It totally wasn’t," he says. 

I bought a camera in the Black Friday sales of 2019, thinking it would be fun to make a YouTube video. A couple of months later I was on national telly with the same camera. It was bonkers.

“It all came from a tweet on the first day of the pandemic,” he explains.

“My wife is a teacher. She was sent home. Everyone was like what are people going to do? You couldn’t go outside your door. I just put up a tweet saying, ‘here’s my picture of Spider-Man, do you want to draw yours?’ It just exploded. Here we are now 100 episodes of telly later. It’s been wild.”

The internet changed everything, he said. He was able to share his work with illustrators in the US and to take pointers on how he might improve. Being able to go online and share his illustrations made the world feel smaller — and the comic book industry less like something on another planet.

“I often wonder if there were versions of me that were there that didn’t get the chance to have their work seen across the pond.

“I did go to the conventions in America to show my work. I was also very lucky because it was a time when internet message boards became a huge thing. I could get feedback instantly.

“Ten years beforehand, somebody wouldn’t have had any of that feedback. Even the small little tips and tricks I was learning every day online: How to make comics, what size the pages should be, what I should work on. 

"If you didn’t have something like that — even if you did take that big jump of going to America, like I did, you would have been going for that first round of feedback.

“I think that’s what I’m a product of — the start of the message board age of being a creative person. There were no examples of ‘see it, be it’, when we were younger. Now there’s a direct link to the number of people from Ireland who are breaking through regularly now.”

Artist Will Sliney, has worked with Marvel (The Amazing Spider-Man) Star Wars and, in collaboration with writer Charles Soule, has published his original series Hell To Pay with independent comics powerhouse Image. Picture: Joleen Cronin

He first started working for Marvel in 2012. The first Iron Man movie had changed the face of cinema and the Avengers movie had just come out.

“Seeing a lot of that stuff was definitely inspiring,” he says. “I went through what felt like years [of struggle]. The dream was to work for Marvel. It was getting my portfolio, sharing my portfolio. 

"Getting rejected loads – not being good enough. Learning, practicing, show my next pages – still not being good enough. Over and over. You kind of get beaten down. It’s really hard.”

Then, he would go to the cinema and watch Iron Man and Thor and be reminded of his passion for comics.

“You sit through the movies and think, this is the stuff I love. It also really mainstreamed it. When I started in comics, it would have been around when Iron Man was coming out.

“Before that, if I’d tried to explain what I wanted to do… [my family] wouldn’t have had a notion. Whereas a few years later, everyone’s grandmother knew Tony Stark was Iron Man.

“It made it all seem that much bigger when everyone knew what Marvel was. It’s amazing how much it has grown.”

Sliney, who lives at home with wife Laura and children Tadhg and Aria, loves to stay busy, so he’s particularly excited about the return of Storytellers, which is back on screens this week.

Julia's artwork - Firebird, via Irish Examiner art competition

So what can we expect from the new season?

“Since the start of the pandemic, I’ve had so many people send me their drawings of famous characters from Marvel and Star Wars and many more, but then a real trend appeared of kids creating their own superheroes.

“This was the spark of the idea behind the new season of Storytellers. Don’t just show people how to draw, encourage them to create their own characters. 

"The first time I got to see this was our competition with the Irish Examiner [in 2021], and I am thrilled to say that some of these designs made it through to the show.”

The format will also be expanded this year by showing viewers how to draw Japanese-style “manga” characters, who have become increasingly popular with readers and artists, he says.

“It’s really reflected in the drawings sent to me. We have a manga character who is going to be voiced by [champion wrestler] Becky Lynch.

“The character is an Irish streamer who is inhabited by the spirit of an ancient samurai who is voiced by a Japanese actor. We’re combining them together: The modern streamer and an ancient character.”

All episodes of Will Sliney’s Storytellers 2 are available on RTÉ Player now