Missed Irish Book Day in person? These free graphic novels and comics are available online until April 30!
Want to download the full Book Day program? Click here:
A Hibernian In Hellas by Maeve Clancy
(Digital Copy available until April 30, 2024)
Originally a travel webcomic in 2011, printed in 2014. Now out of print, but available to Solas Nua readers online! A special thanks to Maeve for making this possible.
A Hibernian in Hellas is an autobiographical webcomic about author Maeve Clancy’s travels in Greece during the financial crisis. Simultaneously a documentation of her trip and a meditation on cultures overlapping, stories in landscape, and solo travel, the piece carefully tracks the small observations and moments that lend meaning to the trip. Readers get to notice the history and humanity lodged within the Greek landscape, as well as the current customs and social environment, alongside Clancy through her artwork. We are left with a thread of personal emotional ties, cross-cultural connections, and a sense of what can be learned and what is limited during individual exploration of a new place. Clancy’s position as an Irish traveler, a woman, and an artist shine through as important lenses with which she views the world.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Multi-disciplinary artist Maeve Clancy creates work using cut paper, pop up, story, and drawings. Aside from creating mounted solo exhibitions, she has worked as a set designer for film & TV, taught workshops at the 24 Hour Comics Day in Dublin, and worked on music videos for Irish singer-songwriter Lisa Hannigan. Clancy also writes fictional, documentary, and historical comics.
Past commissions include a large-scale installation at a National Trust property in Somerset, UK; a solo exhibition at Corte Eremo, Mantova, Italy; artwork for Tall Ships Dublin; and more. Recent commissions include a graphic novel about Michael Davitt, a series of animations for Cruinniú na nÓg 2020 shown on RTÉ and a cut paper installation for An Táin Arts Centre. She has also started Dooagh Press, the home of original graphic novels made and printed in Ireland: https://dooaghpress.com/.
Midlands by Debbie Jenkinson
(Digital Copy available until April 30, 2024)
Published in April 2023, Midlands is a fictional graphic novel which follows a pharmacist named Ronnie Fox from Dublin who somehow ends up living in exile in a small town in the Irish midlands. Stunning full-color illustrations guide the reader through Ronnie’s journey of grief and self-discovery as she grapples with the loss of her mother and a subsequent deep dive into her familial ancestry and history. This is a story of finding and redefining home, family, and belonging–all while opening up perspectives and checking the biases that often come along with living in siloed, sheltered communities. Ironic and witty, Jenkinson also employs humor throughout the novel’s narration to highlight moments of absurdity and hope within Ronnie’s process of grief and growth.
Want to Read more of Debbie’s Work?
Purchase the Award-winning GHOSTING here in print,
PDF, or on Kindle.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Debbie Jenkinson is an illustrator/author from Dublin. She is the Promotions Officer at Illustrators Ireland, and a committee member at DCAF, a non-profit comic book festival that happens four times a year in Dublin. She is also the co-founder of The Comics Lab, (as part of DCAF) which explores story-telling in sequential formats. They initiated Ireland’s first Graphic Short Prize run with The Irish Times April 2019 and made an anthology of the 10 shortlisted entries.
In 2020 she published Ghosting, (the Irish Comic News Awards’ OVERALL BEST IRISH COMIC 2020 and The Irish Times’ Best Graphic Novel of 2021 list). Her followup literary graphic novel Midlands was released in 2023 to critical acclaim.
Over 50 comics available from IrishComics.ie!
IrishComics.ie was founded to help a bunch of Irish comic creators share their work and potentially their audiences. The four founding members – Aaron Fever, Clare Foley, Hugh Madden and Paul Carroll – took the approach of old-school blogs to turn the usual methods of sharing comics on their heads. Algorithms be damned.
This site features a simple process: every weekday, a comic page is published.
Over time, short stories, graphic novellas, and cherished web comics will be shared across IrishComics.ie.
WHAT TO READ AT IRISHCOMICS.IE
Beloved and Don’t Wake Daddy Patrick are deliciously horror-inflected stories by Kat Foyle.
The Dead Zoo by Eoin Stephens is set in a trippy, post-apocalyptic Dublin.
The Selkies Call by Anne Toole and Rosa Devine is about the mythical Irish creatures, selkies, and is set in Dun Laoghaire Harbour.
The Joyce Society by Nate Donnell and Mike Lynch created a Joyce-themed adventure romp.
A Hopeful Voice is a delicate tale of a South Korean visiting Dublin by Niall Ruddy and Min the Elephant.
The Widow Gamble is a modern retelling of a traditional piece of folklore by Eoin Barclay and Mark Kielty.
Missed the handout of The Con Artists by Luke Healy?
Luke has a new book launching in May, called Self Esteem and the End of the World.
Solas Nua is working to bring Luke to D.C. this fall! Make sure you're on our mailing list to get the latest updates. Sign up here.
Read about Irish Book Day 2024
Solas Nua's Irish Book Day at Fantom Comics
Sunday, March 17, 2024 • 12:00-6:00 PM
2010 P Street NW, 2nd floor • Washington, DC 20036 • (202) 731-0825
Free Irish comic books & a chance to get to know graphic novels from Ireland!
Expanding on our long tradition of providing Washington, D.C. with free Irish literature on St. Patrick’s Day, this year Solas Nua was delighted to partner with Fantom Comics for an afternoon of discovering, sharing, and discussing new graphic works by Irish authors--We worked with Irish comic artists and writers to bring you the best of visual storytelling from Ireland. Over 300 copies of Luke Healy's The Con Artists were handed out this year to interested readers in Washington D.C. on March 17th, 2024.
Inside the 2024 Book Day comic pack included digital access to all the graphic novels from amazing Irish authors listed above, as well as a physical copy of one of the Guardian’s Best Graphic Novels of 2022:
The Con Artists by Luke Healy
A quintessentially millennial tale about friendship and the quest for self-actualization.
This is going to be Frank’s year. He’s going to do it all: find love, become a famous comedian, and responsibly parent his plants. But then, Giorgio gets hit by a bus.
Self-assured and utterly entitled, Giorgio has always seemed like “Frank, but better.” Moving in with and caring for his estranged childhood friend quickly starts to chip away at Frank’s sense of self, as well as Giogio’s carefully curated online persona. Is Giorgio’s penchant for overindulgence truly aspirational? Or is it ultimately a red flag? The further Frank is pulled into Giorgio’s orbit, the quicker his existential dread blooms. Expectation and reality soon collide in a singular tale about trust and confidence.
Luke Healy’s playful, hilarious third graphic novel uses crisp lines and physical comedy to portray an uneasy friendship between two young men on the cusp of adulting. Snippets from Frank’s middling stand-up routines are punctuated by the subtle farce of Healy’s mise-en-scène and the lively, at times scathingly pointed, banter of old friends. The Con Artists is a stylish character study that asks the question of who fools who once everyone is off-camera.
PRAISE FOR THE CON ARTISTS:
"Healy’s bittersweet portrayal of a troubled friendship is full of finely observed detail and deadpan humour, but it’s also a deeply felt exploration of happiness, trust and the lies we tell our friends and ourselves."―Guardian Best Graphic Novels of 2022
“Smart, funny, restrained and beautifully drawn.”—The Irish Times
"A beautifully observed masterpiece... The Con Artists by Luke Healy is my favourite graphic novel of the year so far, and to be honest, it might just be among my favourite comics ever."—Rachel Cooke, The Guardian
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Luke Healy was born and raised in Dublin, Ireland, where he also received a BA in Journalism. He has an MFA from the Centre for Cartoon Studies in Vermont, USA. He has published three graphic novels: Americana (And the Act of Getting Over It), How to Survive in the North, and Permanent Press. Healy’s work has been exhibited in the Museum of Comics and Cartoon Art in Manhattan and his clients include The New Yorker, BBC, Vice, and Narratively.
SPECIAL THANKS
Special Thanks to Dennis Houlihan and Mimi Conway, Fantom Comics, Drawn and Quarterly, and all of the participating artists.
Irish Book Day is generously supported by the Government of Ireland Emigrant Support Programme and the DC Commission on the Arts & Humanities.
