King Lear
Ed Hillyer, or Ilya, is a comic book writer and artist, whose work has been published internationally by Marvel, DC and Dark Horse in the USA, Kodansha in Japan, and numerous independent companies worldwide like Slab'o'Concrete. He began his career in the British independent scene in 1987, when he started self-publishing 'BIC'. This comic was later reprinted by Tundra as 'Skidmarks'. He cooperated with Eddie Campbell as an inker on the 'Deadface/Baccus' opus, and as a penciller on 'The Eyeball Kid' series in Cheval Noir.
Mostly using the signature Ilya or iLYA, he is best known as the creator of the award-winning graphic novel series 'The End of the Century Club'. He also made a daringly different take on 'King Lear' for Self Made Hero's Manga Shakespeare series in 2009. This publisher also issued his next graphic novel, 'Room For Love', in November 2013. Ilya has furthermore contributed to anthologies like 'It's Dark in London' by Oscar Zarate, and has been the editor for the 'Best New Manga' anthology, published by Carroll & Graf in the USA in 2006, as well as the Constable & Robinson's Mammoth line in the UK.
Hillyer has made an animated comic strip for BBC Online, called 'Jean Genii', and he published the weekly 'Dick' strip in the gay paper Boyz. Together with Woodrow (Sugar Buzz) Phoenix, he is a founder member of the Detonator studios. His illustration clients include the BBC, Royal Academy of Arts, Times and Guardian newspapers. He also designs and tutors workshops and courses on the art of comics and manga for colleges, galleries, libraries and schools, across the UK as well as abroad. He is furthermore the author of the 'Manga Drawing Kit' for Thunder Bay Press (2005). His debut prose novel was 'The Clay Dreaming' (Myriad, 2010).
Room for Love