Until next year.

Christmas is right around the corner, and so is the new year. Some of my various jobs entered their breaks, leaving me with a lot more time to do comics.

That's what I'll do, then. I'll be disappearing from the face of the earth (or from this blog, at least), for the next three weeks, to focus only in making comics. Since I noticed visitation to be quite slow, most won't even notice I'm gone. When the time comes, I'll be back. I suppose I'll be writing a lot, there are new stories brewing in our bakery, but that's all "next year" talk.

See you all next year.

Dancing in the dark.

Sometimes I wonder what should I write around here. At the same time, I try to guess who reads this, what this person (or people) is (are) after and if, by peaking at my very deranged train of thought, they leave satisfied.

Actually, I just want this to be the first step towards comics. For me, it would be my never-ending first step toward making them; for you, it would be the first step toward getting to know what those comics are about, what is cool about it and where do you start reading.

But enough of making questions (that's when you notice you just wrote two paragraphs with no question marks). It's also good not to know too much in advance what lies ahead. The mystery turn the journey much more interesting, so you should always enjoy the mystery you'll run into, be it by living, by working or by creating stories filled with mystery and uncertainty.

With every new story, you meet new people. They'll take you to places you never thought you would go. Maybe you've dreamed about it before, and somehow it all seems strangely familiar. Maybe you've read about all that in a book, in a comic or maybe you just waited your entire life for something like that to happen.

Or maybe I talk too much when I should be back at my board making my comics look better.

Do you think you know me?

I'm sure you think you know me by now. How different can I be from the others? In fact, aren't we all the same to you? Just a pair of pretty legs, a pair of pretty eyes, a pretty smile...

But, if we're all the same, why are you here? With me? Why aren't you somewhere else, with someone else? Why did you choose me?

Did you ever stop to think that maybe you didn't choose me? That it was I that chose you?

Do you still think you know me now?

Not someone to be messed with.

or just a picture of pretty things to come


I bet she wear red lipstick. I bet she smokes, in a "old hollywood" kind of way, with grace, charm and attitude. Yes, she smokes, without guilt or worries. And that's also how she lives.

No guilt.

No worries.

Just fun.

I can't deny she can get in trouble from time to time. I could go to the point where it would be safe to assume she attracts it. Well, she's a pretty girl, and those (the pretty girls) are always the ones trouble goes after.

Next year, we have an appointment. If I were to be romantic, and I have this tendency of being a romantic fool, I could say that next year, we have a date.

She'll be wearing her red lipstick, of course.

And she'll be smoking.

It lives!

It lives in every and each one of us. In our memories and in our hearts. It's there every day and every night, and we need it to stay that way.

Comics.

Everybody who is involved with comics, in any way one can get involved with comics, is in love. Or was, or will be. Comics is an experience that forever changes you, like falling in love for someone. It doesn't mean you'll stay together forever, but you'll always remember with kindness what you had.

the reader.

The reader is in love with the stories he or she reads. The characters, their lives, their problems. It doesn't need a regular person to tell the story about how to solve problems. Even super heroes have to solve problems, and they're made of paper. If they can do it, so can we. All we gotta do is try. When we read a story where people, no matter how ordinary or extraordinary, have the strength and courage to try, we discover that we also can try to do whatever we want to do. We may fail, as many will, but we can always learn from it, as we do by following, month after month, the adventures of our heroes.

the writer.

The writer is in love with the stories he has to tell, 'cause he's in love with the world. He is fascinated with life, with death, with people. For the writer, comics will be the window he found to show what is the world we live. You may recognize it from your own experiences, you may be surprised by what he shows you, but he's there for that: to show that we are here, we exist, and we are all worth living the stories we tell, as we are as interesting as any character we can create. The writer writes about us, for us and so we won't be forgotten.

the artist.

The artist is in love with an idea. A dream, a fantasy, a hope that anything is possible. If we are to see the matter of poetry, it would be by the hands of a comic book artist. The comic book artist is an invisible man, a creator of images that will only reach parts f your brain, of your soul and of your heart, parts that will command the other parts of your body to react to what he's showing you. The story you will remember, in case the artist succeeds, exists only in your mind, between the panels, as one continuous memory you've grown found of, one which can have the most remarkable images be ones you did not even draw.

We are all in love. Comic book is our passion. nothing is easy and simple in life, but for us, touched by comics, how can we fight love? How can we fight passion?

Comics have created a monster in all of us, and it's alive.