Some things have changed.

I already spent too much time redesigning the site, so here you have it. It has a bunch of information, some pictures, some history, and soon enough it will have some more fun stuff (fun for who is a question for another time).

I'm behind on the schedule for the Dark Horse book cover, so that's what's ahead of me for the week. Also, I have my final rehearsal for the dance show tonight, and the actual show tomorrow.

Something strange is happening.


Prepare yourselves for Monday.

Another step, and the new breed. - another Rock'n'Roll story.


Rock'n'Roll was the first comic book my brother and I wrote together that others worked on the artwork as well. Before that, we only wrote for ourselves.

When we started self publishing our stories in Brazil, which basically means doing the "xerox, fold and staple" kind of publication, we did some fanzine with other artists, and we soon found out that everybody has a different attitude towards the work. We don't all work the same way, commit the same way, talk about your comics the same way and sell your work the same way. Sometimes, we felt we were working for others, and not with others, when we did a collaborative fanzine. And the differences between everybody involved was the reason all the fanzines we did with them stopped being made.

At that time, everybody did "everything": I wrote and drew my own story, Ba wrote and drew his, and so on. We were all complete creators, for good and for bad.

When we started the next fanzine, in 1997, we decided to do everything, and be responsible for everything, so we would not have anybody to blame. We kept doing everything, but we were the only ones in it. It was our comic, our name, our fault. It worked much better. And we really developed the working relationship between ourselves that to this day we can't find anywhere else.

But things change. We have grown into professionals of the comic book form, and professionals will eventually work with others, so we started talking about it with our friends. And then we made Rock'n'Roll.

Now, there's another thing about working together that's not as bad as different attitudes towards the work: you create an environment and a vibe that you share and that helps your work, that improves your work. We were all excited to be working together, to be seeing the other guy's artwork, his different view, his unique approach. We all wanted to do good, and it shows when you're reading the comic book.

. . .

Now this is something completely different, but since I mentioned it this morning to talk about my journey, here are other people in their journeys:

The Xeric Foundation has announced its most recent grant recipients. They'll receive a bunch of money and some free ads at some important comic book related magazines, as well as a good spot on the PREVIEWS catalog, and will get the attention to publish their independent comics. Let's hope they do well. Here they are:


They are

Catherine Hannah - Winter Beard
Lance Christian Hansen - Don't Cry
Melody Shickley - In the Hands of Boys
Albert Benjamin Thompson - HUSK

And congratulations for Melody, for actually having a website for people to go to in this internet age.

. . .

And to finish up for today, I notice some strange visitation coming from Image Comics' website, which just re-openned, and so I had to check out and discover they already have us listed there with both the Rock'n'Roll credit and the Casanova credit. Now I'll have to tell you all the stories about how I discovered Image Comics when I was a teenager reading comics. But that's for another day.

The ball drops- a Rock'n'Roll story.



I just realize that my Rock'n'Roll comic book is coming out from Image Comics in twenty days and that I haven't been talking about it non stop as I should be. I wonder why that is?

I know that, in the issue of previews it was solicited, it had a big preview (at least that was the impression I was given, as I never really saw the previews catalog), so it clearly should have grabbed people's attention there, mostly the retailers'. Hopefully, those retailers will order a good bunch of the book and everything will be alright, but it's never 100% safe in this world, is it?

Rock 'n' Roll is the closest thing my brother and I ever made to a perfect one shot comic book, it's the most fun idea we could come up with, with the most interesting characters we wanted to use, with the elements we all loved to read in comics as we were growing up.

It is also a big tribute to how much Mike Mignola changed the way we understood comics.

We came a long way since we saw the first issue of Roland - days of wrath go out into the world. Back then, we were completely unknown artists, self-publishing with a completely unknown writer from Santa Barbara, there was no big internet world to spread the word on your work, but since we had won the Xeric Foundation Grant, we had our share of media attention and we got some five thousand orders for the first issue, which to this day I think is a great start.

That was in 1999.

I wonder how many initial orders Rock'n'Roll will have.

the voice.

Today I did the first drawing for one of the projects I'll be working on next year. This will be the "I'm only the artist" project, as I plan to focus on writing more. I miss writing longer stories, as my last writing efforts were not longer than 10 pages of comics, but at the same time I don't want to hurry on the writing just so I have something new to draw. The artist must be drawing so his style stays fresh, so I can't stop. Not now, when I finally think that I do, after all, have a style.

Which is something I'm not so sure when it comes to my writings. I really should write more often to acquire, just as with the art, a sense of style and personal flavor. I feel that every time I start writing, it sounds and reads like the last thing I read, or just like somebody else. I remember feeling that I had a style, that I had a voice. Nowadays I feel like I mostly have a view.

That has to change.

automatic face.


I had plenty of ink on my brush after finishing one page today, so I did this drawing, without any preliminary pencil. It's my automatic Gunned Down drawing, mostly done on the inside of other people's copies, next to a nice dedication joke.

Not that they were any funny, my dedications.

But at least I tried.

I gotta get back to the next page. I have only two left, then the story is done.

Spreading like rats.


artwork by Fabio Moon, all rights reserved.

Comic books are a popular medium. Telling stories are popular, or at least they should be. They should be made for the people, and for as many people as possible.

We should find ways to spread our arms and reach out.

We should always do our best to tell the stories we have.

We should always keep going.

Rise and shine.

No sleep, just keep on dancing.



Dancers.

Done between three and four in the morning, for a job I thought I would hate. I didn't hate it, but I just lost an entire night of sleep to finish it.



Some drawings are ugly. At least, they're meant to be ugly, but in their ugliness they turn into something quite interesting.

Deep.

That's what you'll get after my hands ache because of how fast I had to ink.

I really need some sleep. I'll probably eat breakfast first. I really like breakfast, and I can make some mean fried eggs.

Hungry.

Green gun illustration.


illustration by Gabriel Ba, all rights reserved.

Here's a illustration Ba did for the biggest newspaper in Brazil. The story covered the upcoming election on whether or not selling guns should be prohibited in Brazil.

Black and white with flat colors. That's how Casanova will look like (with just one flat color instead of two), only that it will look completely different since Ba will draw stuff he never had to come up with before.

September Smoke.

Brian, that big Khepri.com guy, just wrote me a note to tell that Smoke and Guns was his top graphic novel of September. It's also nice to see my first american work, the Roland - days of wrath graphic novel, on the same top 10 list, and at number 3 no less. I think that maybe your current work do attract attention to your older work.

Today I shall finish my first set of super-heroes pages. I got delayed by some unexpected family matter, but the pages are now getting back on track. After all is said and done, I'll go back to this first swim to tell you about the fish and the wonders I saw at the bottom of the ocean.

Tapes.

Matt Fraction and Joe Casey talk about Casanova at their weekly Basement Tapes. The pitch, the bible, the choice of artist.

Interesting.

Ba is reading the first issue, Matt is writing the second, stuff is happening.

Interesting.

The monsters you have inside.


I was creating some monsters today. Not as easy as I thought it would be.

Riot.



Just a quick note on how cool that Riot comic book store looks. It makes a good impression on the ladies, that's for sure. My girlfriend, and my sister, would both be vary comfortable in that store, and they would even feel inclined to look at some comics.

It's not bad either that there's a Smoke and Guns poster in there.