Nick Roche

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The name or term "Nick/Nicholas" refers to more than one character or idea. For a list of other meanings, see Nicholas (disambiguation).
Trousers lie shattered in the background.

Nick Roche (born September 5, 1979 [1]) is an Irish comic book artist and writer for IDW Publishing. He is awesome.

Nick Roche is a native of County Wexford, but currently resides in Dublin, Ireland. Having always been a massive Transformers fan, Roche's produced artwork for fan fiction, including the Transmasters UK (TMUK) group, and UK convention publications, gaining a healthy fanbase within the UK, but remaining almost entirely unknown outside of the tight-knit UK fandom.

He pitched his work to Dreamwave Productions but had no response, something he's glad about in hindsight; he notes "at the time, I'd have worked for free but it turns out everyone else at Dreamwave was doing that anyway".[2] Nick finally got his break into Transformers when IDW Publishing acquired the Transformers license. A friend of Nick's by the name of Dave Hendrick sent IDW supremo Chris Ryall Nick's samples.

Twenty minutes later there was an email back from Chris.

Nick started on the "Chrischarger" art before being given Spotlights, then more Spotlights (and a Devastation fill-in) before being given the Maximum Dinobots mini-series. He's also penciled numerous covers for the different Transformers series, including a piece for the Target 2006 reprints featuring the original team of Wreckers, the covers for the Metrodome DVD sets of Super-God Masterforce and Victory, and a special comic and a piece of artwork packed with Madman Entertainment's Generation 1 DVD set. Nick has also worked on the new Transformers UK comic book (issue 2) and the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles comic for Titan.

If that wasn't enough, Nick drew and wrote Spotlight: Kup, which also has the distinction of being the first issue in the IDW G1 continuity written by someone other than Simon Furman. He co-wrote and drew the incredibly well-received Last Stand of the Wreckers with James Roberts. And he also writes panto![2]

Shattered trousers are usually left in his wake.

Look: you can't comprehend the scale of trouser destruction that will occur. The current financial crisis? Pffah! There will be people wandering around this Christmas with next to no trouser coverage. And as for the potentially countless children who will lose their sight and sense of decency from flying pant-shards...well, it doesn't bear thinking about. No gusset is safe this Christmas.Nick on the imminent release of Maximum Dinobots #1[3]

Fiction

IDW Generation 1 continuity

Nick was sitting at a signing table at Auto Assembly 2009 when Grimlock barged his way past Gregg Berger and Liam Shalloo, complaining about his absence from All Hail Megatron. All Hail Megatron #13 cover One year later, Auto Assembly 2010 attendees could apparently "buy Nick's pants" at Swindle's charity auction and tombola. The Transformers #9 cover

Writing

Nick's writing often tackles or addresses the concept of change within Cybertronians, both as a shapeshifting race and a culture left in stasis by millennia of war. Many of his stories have unflinching and graphic robotic violence—dismemberment, decapitation, bodily mutilation, and copious amounts of blood, among other things. Like Roberts, he also has a tendency to use characters with little or no previous media appearances—Last Stand of the Wreckers featured a cast almost entirely comprised of European toy-exclusives and obscure Japanese characters, while Sins of the Wreckers introduced many characters from the Beast Era as antagonists. Also, he put Tidal Wave into the IDWverse, because that's just how cool he is.

Comic book art

Roche's art style is instantly recognizable in a comic due to his strong shapes, exaggerated proportions and bold, simple character designs. According to him, he just "makes the hands bigger and the pointy bits pointier", and he would like to draw with "Senior's energy, Wildman's expressiveness and Yaniger's chins!". According to Roche, he finds he does change his art style automatically depending on the story; such as upping the cartooniness for "Spotlight: Hot Rod" and toning it down for a story from Prowl's point of view.[2]

A lesser-known variation on the spelling of Nick's name.

IDW Publishing

Madman Entertainment

Titan Books



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DVD cover art

Metrodome

Convention appearances

Notes

What can brown do for you?
  • He has admitted to being "gay for Hot Rod".
  • He is also the first Transformers celebrity to have interviewed another Transformers celebrity.[4]
  • On Twitter, while talking about how more than five panels average a page is a burden for artists, he strongly indicated that James Roberts' masses of detailed panels are why they hadn't worked together in years[5] (though they are still friends).
  • He also admitted he's an "asshole to myself" when he breaks that rule himself in his own scripts![6]
  • At Auto Assembly 2010 it was discovered that Nick can do an uncanny David Kaye impression. Yesssssss.


References

  1. ↑ "The Twenty-Nine Club"
  2. ↑ 2.0 2.1 2.2 Nick Roche interview with Moonbase Two
  3. ↑ http://forum.idwpublishing.com/viewtopic.php?p=106763#106763
  4. ↑ http://c3.libsyn.com/media/20749/EP_26_-_OLDMOON_OILBASE_INTERVIEWS_STAN_BUSH.mp3?nvb=20100909170039&nva=20100910171039&sid=fd4711763d08f49953c5982d42719c75&l_sid=20749&l_eid=&l_mid=2021798&t=0155622406f16c055d36b
  5. ↑ "Well, we haven't worked together in three years... make of THAT what you will... :)" (11:16 a.m. - 13 Nov 2015)
  6. ↑ "Furman aims for that [five panels]. Everyone's different. I'm an asshole to myself, to be honest!" (10:43 a.m. - 13 Nov 2015)
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