Corto.



Pin up by Gabriel Ba for an exhibition about Hugo Pratt's most famous character, Corto Maltese. If you don't know the artist or the character, than you simply don't know good comics.

Vive le mode.


sketch by Gabriel Ba.

Yesterday we did something a little different from usual. We were invited to cover a fashion show. To document the backstage, to draw the girls, the clothes and the beautiful park the show took place.


sketch by Gabriel Ba.

We were there for hours, and it certainly was a different experience from the previous times we saw a fashion show, sitting on a chair inside a room with heavy air-conditioner.


sketch by Fabio Moon.

It's good to have to draw very fast. You have to make a lot of choices regarding which lines you'll include and which ones you'll leave out. You have to learn how to watch and how to translate what you see into simple figures.

Here, there's no time for the drawing made of shapes. No balls, squares, triangles. Here, we're following lines. We're following walking lines, actually.

They're pretty to look at.

Too young and too thin, tho.


sketch by Fabio Moon.

today's girl.


The same, yet different.

Every day, there's something to do.

Back in 2004, we were thinking about doing some animation. But we had to worry about the comics, so we just dropped it.

We made this test.

It looks awful.

Numbers.


The top 300 comics sold in December of 2005 are here, according to Diamond, and ROCK'nROLL is there at # 270.

I guess this is the second time my brother and I make this list. Since the first was when we worked on Autobiographix, I guess the fact that the book had a Frank Miller story, a Will Eisner story and a bunch of other stories from famous creators was the major factor for the sales that time around. This time, I'm pretty sure at least some three or four people ordered the book because it had my name in it. And then another couple of people ordered it because my brother was in it.

And the other three thousand people just love rock and roll.

Talking about the first new book for 2006


Matt Fraction talks about Casanova a little bit more in this Publishers Weekly article.

As the first issue proceeds at Ba's drawing board, jaws drop here at the studio. Unlike anything he has done before, this stuff is gorgeous.

For some time, the twins that write you these lines were worried that every comic book we worked on where the script was done by somebody else would lose some of the energy we put in it, just because it would be a story we didn't create, a subject not close to our own hearts.

Smoke and Guns was my test regarding this matter. The story of our beloved cigarette girl would never have come from my mind, and yet I enjoyed doing it immensely, and I think it shows on the page. And I never lost the enthusiasm, averaging two pages a day on the last leg of the work.

Now it's Ba's turn. More challenging than my choice of material, Ba is doing it monthly. Only time will tell how it will look after three or four months, but by the look of it right now, this is going to be great.

And also...

Smoke and Guns made the top five list of comics of 2005 acording to the Comic Treadmill blog. It's nice to be remembered, even if by a blog (or a guy writing one, anyway).

GUNNED DOWN in this month's PREVIEWS.


When you're doing an anthology, you feel like you're not working alone, even if you are. Your story becomes part of a bigger whole, just like you're entering a train with a bunch of other artists and you can't control exactly where this train is going.

Weird things can happen when you work with a lot of people at the same time.



In case you missed the first time around, and I'm sure a lot of people did miss it, Terra Major solicited Gunned Down in this month's PREVIEWS (to be available at your comic book store in March). This is a western anthology with a lot of artists and a lot of stories. Ten stories, to be exact. And did I mention that all the artists are brazilians?

Well, they are.

This is the book Ba worked on last year. While I was doing Smoke and Guns, he was doing a indian story 41 pages long in this anthology. And I already said a lot about how great it looks, so you'll have to order the book to check it out. I also have a short story in it. With pistol duel and everything.

For the curious, here's one image.


And here is another.


Terra Major is not a big publisher. In fact, it's very small, very independent, and it really needs the support of the readers who basically don't read the books because they don't know the books exist.


Gunned Down
order code for comic shops:
[ JAN063250 ]
(it's on page 316 of the catalog, if you're going to look for it.)

One year Later.



Yesterday marked the first year without Will Eisner.

How have we behaved in our field to honor his absence? What have we done to distinguish ourselves the same way he always did, the same way he expected his peers to behave? How did we survive the loss of the first and greatest life master of our profession?



We kept working. Creating, writing and drawing. If we never stop telling stories, if we never stop trying to touch others with our worlds, our characters and the emotions we put in everything we do, then his legacy will continue and we will do him justice.

Take your job seriously.

Love what you do.

Be the best you can, and expect nothing less from yourself and others.

Try to make this world a better one.

Keep working.

Keep living.

And find love.

The future of comics.



My brother and I were born in 1976, so 2006 was one of these years we would always look upon with wonder, being the year we would turn 30. What would we have accomplished? What would we still have to do, to discover, to create? Who would we be?

I know now that, to be a comic book creator, you have to create. Above all, you must have this urge to create, to tell stories and to create worlds. To make people see what you're thinking, and to make them think as you do it.

This year, I want to create more than I ever created before.

I want to reach as many people as I can, but if I can make one person think about life, about love, about being in the now, than all the work I have is working.

Even if I'm not getting rich doing it.

Why get rich, anyway? All rich people I know work less and less, and all I want to do is work more and more.

I want to do comics. My brother wants to do comics.

That's what we're doing in 2006.

It all about the attitude.

Good year for all of you, a year that will be about doing and being all the things we were always saying.