INTERVIEW - Anthony O’Neill, Artist On Nestor
to unleash a monster that he thought he had sealed away centuries ago, revealing himself as a vampire. The first issue was illustrated masterfully by the great Paul MC Callan and the second part was done by myself. GS: I especially like the way you have used subtle reds to blend with the black and white. How do you plan out a page? AO’N: Its interesting you should ask that, in the beginning Martin, Mike and myself sat down and spoke about what way we were going to tackle the story, it was my first time ever being involved in the comic book publishing world, and i was a little shy at first to add my two cents (now the lads can’t shut me up) Martin and Mike both noticed this and took me under their wings, straight away they got me involved in the collaborative aspects of the piece and made me feel so welcome. After I became more comfortable I slowly but surely came out of my shell, and one of the first things I suggested was that; if we were doing a “vampire” comic book that we “have” to allow for the stark vivid reds of the blood to shine through against a contrasted gray scale palette, I felt that this would give us a distinct style that would hit the reader like a brick when they opened it up. Mike and Martin were graciously behind this concept one hundred percent from the very beginning and gave me all the freedom I needed to bring it to light, but in the end due to budgeting we had to settle on the interior
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of the book being only gray scale, this meant that i had to now go back and edit the entire piece so that the “stark reds” were now also gray but just contrasted enough so that the reader could easily see the difference between that of the character and backdrop grays as well as the grays of the newly colored blood. In the end I spent so much time editing, that the total gray scale look actually came out looking even better than the original concept. I’ve always felt that this was a perfect example of how as an artist you can plan down to the finest detail, but you will always meet a speed bump along the way and its really learning to deal with those speed bumps rather than panicking that is more important in the long run. GS: What first inspired you to draw comics? AO’N: I have been drawing for as long as I can remember, my mother used to say I was born with a pencil in my hand, but unfortunately I was never really trained. When I was a kid I grew up loving Saturday morning cartoons, Spider-Man, Hulk, The X-Men, Marvel was my haven, and I spent years copying those characters straight from my television, don’t get me wrong I loved Bruce Timm’s Batman and things like He-Man and the Masters of the Universe as well as Thundercats, Skeleton Warriors and Bravestarr the list goes on and on, but it wasn’t until my uncle Paul came to me at the age of about seven or eight and
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O’Neill is a very talented up and coming artist from Ireland who is working on the critically acclaimed title Nestor. GS: Hi Anthony your work on Nestor looks fantastic. Can you tell us more about the book? AO’N: Hi Luke thank you very much for having me, I’m extremely honored to be here, “NESTOR” is the new four star (as rated by SFX Comic-Heroes magazine) two part comic book written by Abandonedcomics; Mike Lynch and Martin Greene. The story is set in the fair city of Dublin and revolves around the main character “Nestor”, who does his best to blend in with normal every day society. Nestor watches old movies, works in a grocery store and enjoys hanging out with his friend in his local bar. Then one night this all changes when the woman he loves is murdered in their home by a gang of Villainous Thugs. Nestor seeks revenge and is forced