Last smoke.


another picture over at Larry's.

It has been a long month, filled with long days and long nights of hard work. Every day is work day, and all energy is used to push harder towards this dream I had that one day I would be done, I would be ready, and I come keep going.

This day was yesterday, as I went to work, wearing my best suit, to do the last page of Smoke and Guns.

I'll be talking about this month for years to come. This is the month I started looking at comics in a brand new manner, where everything is possible and any dream can come true.

Next week is my birthday, and I just gave myself the best present I possibly could:

I gave myself a shining bright future.

Let's get to it.

Words.

It's completely different. It's like a brand new story. The blend of the images and the text creates this poetic thing we call comics.

There's nothing more exciting than seeing the story you drew with balloons and captions. With words that tell a story to go along with your images.

Together, image and words tell the complete story and none really works without the other. Not entirely, anyway.

Doing comics is great


artwork by Gabriel Ba for the Gunned Down anthology.

41 pages in 25 days!


On the 26th of April, my brother set himself on a journey: 41 pages to be completed before the end of May. He had just finished doing the thumbnails and nearly a month was ahead of him.

Little did he know he was destined to greater things.

Greater like finishing before the month was over. Greater like doing the best pages of his life.

Greater because he did it on his own.

When you're an independent comic-book maker, you're your worst enemy. Only you can stop yourself from achieving your dreams. Only you can stop yourself from telling your story.

My brother is unstoppable.

He's the main reason I started doing comics, and remain the most important aspect of comics in my life.

Mostly talking about others.

My brother is on his last two pages of his western story. When people see the story, nobody will believe he did 40 pages in less than a month. I still don't believe he was this fast, and specially that he was this good.

Watching him draw is one of the reasons I love working in comics.

As far as my story goes, I'm a little behind, but I'm certain I'll finish it in time. I have to. And I'm confident I'll also like the way it looks in the end. Right now, it's more of a humming in my mind than a music, but soon it will be over. As will Smoke and Guns. I'm less than 20 pages close to the end, and already I feel the story is on non-stop-action mode.

I received an e-mail from Becky Cloonan today, and she told me a little about her new projects. I'm amazed how good she is, and how much she improves every new work she does.

She's fast, too. Faster than a speeding bullet, some say.

I wonder if she can see through walls.

Not really about apples, but fruit related for sure.

It's one thing when you realize you won't draw any more men on your comic book. They were not the main characters, most didn't even have names.

But today was different. Today one of the main characters' last page began. I really enjoyed drawing this particular girl (if you can call her that, which I can, since I call all women girls) and this last page of hers came faster than I imagined. I want this page to be special. I want it to be a blast.

For the next page certainly will be.

THE LAST MEN.

I'm on the final round of Smoke and Guns pages and, suddenly, I realized I just did the last men in the story, who were running, in the dark, silently. They were angry, they wanted blood, but it was not about them.

Those fools.

It was all about Scarlett.

Smoke and Guns interview

Newsarama has an interview with the creators of Smoke andGuns. Kirsten and I were questioned about the book, the look and the cigarrette girls state of mind.

Check it out and don't miss the book when it comes out!

Working with others.



My excitement only grows s the other artists from the western anthology start to send in the pages they're doing. It makes me want to do my best work, which is the whole reason you look for collaboration: working with others makes you think about what they're doing and about what you're doing, and thinking is the most important part of the creative process

Tipping my hat


Look out for Gunned Down, an western anthology, to be release in July. It's going to be really something to watch out for.

I wanted to tell more about the book, on a more regular basis, but I'm really busy right now doing comics! It's great to vanish from the world, sit on your drawing board and see an story unfold. It's well worth the isolation.

Next month I'll be back.