Thread by @KevinKeane24, So considering everything that’s come up today with regard to Ciarán Marcantonio [...]

So considering everything that’s come up today with regard to Ciarán Marcantonio and his behaviour in his personal life and how its effected the people around him. I want to openly express my perspective on this as someone who previously worked with him.

I met Ciarán back in 2013 when I was first started trying to find work in comics. We did a short story together for LS and over the years he and I spoke almost solely about comics and how to further our individual careers. Him being a writer and me being an artist.

I have always separated my work from my personal life. As far as my involvement with him at that time, it was work and beyond that I wasn’t personally involved with him in any way plus i didn’t particularly appreciate how he communicated in a collaborative sense.

When he wanted to discuss ideas I was always present to go back and forth, however he did not provide me the same. I would often get no response at all or at the very least a passive acknowledgement for my work. This bothered me and began to shape my opinion of him as a person.

Now, again I separate my work from my personal life so I let my opinion of him sit while I continued to do the work in order to build my portfolio. To me it was all just more experience for the career I was pursuing. So people are more selfish than others and have more ego too.

Fair enough, I accepted that years ago so it’s was no different here. Then when Neon Skies came around I saw a real opportunity to prove myself to the other professionals here at home who I admire and respect. As well as gain more experience too.

It wasn’t until here in my career that it became more than work and it became a real collaboration. At this point after a few years, I had become close friends with both Gillian and Wayne too. For the first time in my adult life I felt content that I had struck a solid balance.

Neon Skies was the biggest challenge to date for me artistically. I’m not a huge fan of sci-fi or cyberpunk and so working in this genre was me getting out of my comfort zone in a big way and having the confidence from both Ciarán and Gill gave me a huge drive to give it my all.

Throughout the whole process we had massive ups and downs. It’s sounds cliché but it genuinely was a rollercoaster. I drew and inked the entire book, my initial colourist pulled out unexpectedly so I then had to source a new colourist as well as letter the whole book too.

Our original colourist was tied down by scheduling but thankfully I found Cristian Sabarre who is now one of my favourite people in the world. Our original letterer has to step away for personal reasons too and with time getting short, I decided i’d try my hand at letters.

The reason I’m giving these details is to explain that i gained so much from Neon Skies, I learned to how letter comics, I gained a close friend in Cristian, my friendship with Gill grew massively and I improved on my drawing too. That’s a lot of positives to take away at once.

The real negative from all of this was Ciarán. He would text me a ridiculous hours to disuss plans and ideas, I could tell he didn’t really read my responses either. He instead just wanted someone to sit and listen while he attempted to impress himself.

Even I know, story-wise Neon Skies isn’t exactly mind blowing stuff, it’s a decent story but the way he made it out to me was like we were reinventing comics.
In reality i just wanted to make a good book and gain some experience for myself and my career.

I wanted to the art to do the talking, I wanted to the colours to be beautiful. I believe we really achieved that. I must commend Gill too, her editorial meant that the concept wasn’t completely derivative with constant nods to things Ciarán was a fan of.

After the book was done, I wanted to do the release and finally relaxe from a two year slog of designing and putting the book together. In essence I did all of the heavy lifting on Neon Skies and in fairness to Ciarán he’s never questioned that, to me at least.

This was where things went south fast. You must understand by now Ciarán were good friends, however only in the context of comics, I never showed interest in his personal activities, mainly because it’s non of my business really? So I didn’t get involved.

I still had reservations over how he communicated with me so I opted to keep things professional and personal to a degree with clear boundaries in my own mind. I always found I communicated with Wayne and Gill more naturally so I put more energy there than anywhere else.

Considering how much work was going into building Rogue Comics as well as working on neon skies and our other titles, when I was informed of his behaviour I was truly stunned. I couldn’t believe what I was hear and seeing. As the evidence mounted I became sick to my stomach.

I don’t share much of my personal life online, but I will say, I was raised to treat everyone I meet with respect, I like to give people my attention and I love to help people.
When I discovered what Ciarán was doing, it went against every part of me fundamentally as a person.

At first I thought of Gill and how this would effect her. My first instinct as her friend was to be present and supportive as this was going to impact her a hell of a lot more than me. Then I saw the amount of people he’d been contacting and I genuinely could believe it.

From the women he’d been contacting to the people within the comic scene he was effectively bullying for whatever reason, it was clear his ego and narcissistic behaviour had taken over. It was hear that we had to make a decision on his involvement with Rogue.

He seemed to think he was the highest example of Irish indie comics, which was downright insulting to the rest of us, considering we were the one legitimising his work. So we knew this couldn’t be trusted. So we discussed it and made an offer.

Wayne, Gill and I spoke to Ciarán directly and gave him the option own up to what he did, accept the responsibility and show us that he was willing to work this out or don’t and leave Rogue, we want nothing to do with you if this is how you’re behaving and treating us.

He promised us all that he would. He agreed to everything we asked. It wasn’t long then before it came back to us that he had then been doing the exact opposite and tried to shift the narrative that we were pushing him away for as many reasons as he could come up with.

This was infuriating and so we went with the only option we had left.
We removed him from Rogue and that was that. We all wanted to leave things there and move on without further nonsense. Until frequently for weeks after we heard from multiple people what he was saying about us.

Then with no options left we publicly outed him and his behaviour which saw an incredible amount of support. However it was reported as abusive and removed. Ironic to say the least.

I want to be clear, we all severed ties with him as a person a long time ago, we all moved on. He however has not and has hid behind many excuses for his actions. He’s attempted change the story in his favour. The facts in the mountain of evidence present today.

I hope to show from my perspective that those of us who worked with him don’t condone or accept his behaviour in anyway whatsoever. If you decide not to support him that’s your decision by all means, but please consider how it all effected us as well.

I never want to be associated with him ever again, none of us do. His actions are horrific and disgusting. I still love neon skies for what it gave me but if his name means you can’t look at it, I understand and respect that.
Thank you for taking the time to read this.

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