ALONE

Alone, she leaves the house.
Alone, she dives into the crowd.
Alone, she realizes she lost her life living the life of others.
Alone, she realizes she's lost, and slowly she closes her eyes
To cry.

Gravity Games

If you have OLN (outdoor Life network) on your TV, chances are you'll get to see the work we did for the Gravity Games event that I think starts today in Cleveland.

If you want, here and here you can see some preliminary images we did for the show (even-though they'll look very different in the final product).

The choice is yours.

Every day, you can start a new story. Who will be in it, what will happen, how will it end, you can't tell. You only know that it can start at any time. The choice is yours.

Every day, you can decide to abandon a story. You got tired halfway through, or even after the end (for some stories continue with us after they end), or maybe you don't know what to do with it, no matter how interesting this story may be. The choice is yours.

Every day, you can decide to do comic books. You can set up to be a writer, an artist, a colorist, a letterer, maybe all the above at once or even just an editor. Which book or story or character or situation you'll create is still in the darkness of a future possibility, but, still, the choice is yours.

Every day, you get tired of working for free. You only remember that work is a coin you exchange for another type of coin that you use to pay your bills and buy your food. Work is, of course, a exchange coin, but it's good for you to give something that came from you, that you did and want to say to the world, and in exchange you'll receive the contact of the people that will read your work, and everybody that gives you a positive opinion, maybe even a negative one, about your performance will be helping make you you, because you can't really be yourself alone.

Nobody is an island, we are all determined by the world we all live in (in the same measure that we determine the world thought our vision of it). Without the other people, we would not exist, for there wouldn't be any exchange of any sort. Without exchange there's no gain, no learning. Without learning, there's no life.

Let's get back to the essential.

The choice is yours.

If you want to do comics, do it. If you don't do it, the choice is yours. Choice equals guilt, equals responsibility over your own doings, so you have only yourself to blame if your not doing your comics.

Yes, we're alive.

We've been having some very busy weeks. Not that we normally don't have work to do, but these days we got so much more work that I just didn't have time to sit and write anything down. When I did sit down, eventually, I slept. And I had wonderful dreams with beautiful women.

It's funny how connected the work seems nowadays, and how every now and then we're put face to face with our past, making it our present, and affecting our future. I can be a little dramatic in such statements, but I like the little coincidences of life. Here's one:

When we first met the AiT/Planet Lar people, last year, approaching them with Ursula, they showed us what kind of books they did and what was brand new at the time (you're always more enthusiastic about your brand new stuff). Among the releases, we got Last of the Independents, written by Matt Fraction and drawn by Kieron Dwyer. I knew Kieron's work before, but it was the first time I ever heard of Matt.

A year passed. Ursula is now out from AiT and, in a most unusual way, we heard the name Matt Fraction again, only this time around I found out that he works with advertising and such very profitable lines of work, and that he was working with some friends os mine here in Brazil. My friends called my brother and I to help out on the job, so we've been drawing like crazy on the most high-tech environment you could possibly imagine, pool table included, from noon to four in the morning every day for the past week. We still have a week ahead of us, and a lot more cool drawings to do.

When I can, I'll say what I'm working on so you can go and watch it. As of right now, I'll leave you with the promise that, as soon as I have more time to post decently, I'll tell more of the Smoke and Guns process, and maybe show some of the pages that are ready.