The book is on the table.

Issue 2 arrived today, it's also beautiful. No, it's even better than issue 1. Ba is on top of his game here, only getting better.

Back to the comics still to come.

Getting my hands dirty.

There's nothing better than starting a new story. Well, maybe there is, but it's great all the same to draw that first page and get that feeling that you have started walking down this road, discovering new ground, and that once you're done, you'll be able to show people this new story so they will be able to walk down this road as well.

I'm on page two and I love it already.

Next week, pirates are coming, so I must hurry on what I'm doing now to get more pages done.

June is my favorite month of the year, and it's almost over. I've done some of what I set myself up to do, but there's so much more I could have done.

So much more I will do.

It's my favorite month, all right.

But it's not the only month there is.

. . .

Oh, and I'm really thinking about getting the BONE ONE VOLUME EDITION now that's going back to press.

Yello Jello

Well, our friend Bruno D'Angelo has redesigned his site, YELLO JELLO, with lots of comics he's been doing for years, some unpublished even.

There's a link to his brand new BLOG and even to products he is selling, like T-shirts, mugs and other fun stuff.

He is the artist behinf almost ALL Terra Major comics and he has done one chapter on our ROCK'N'ROLL comic, published by Image last year.

Take a look. You are still gonna hear a lot about him.

Starting tomorrow.

The new story should start tomorrow. Thumbnails are done, and the characters, as much as I would like to have created them beforehand, should be defined once they appear on the page. This story in a bit different from all the others we have done, and I'm anxious to see how it's going to play out.

Bá should start penciling Casanova 4 tomorrow and, judging by the time it took him to finish issue 3, he should have no problems finishing this issue before we travel to San Diego later in July.

Thanks to everyone for the nice words about De:TALES (yes, it's such a lovely book) and for the early support to the just released Casanova. Let's hope they both do well and let's also hope everybody likes what's coming next.

Today is the day!

Today, Casanova hits the stands. It's out and you can finally see it. Nothing will ever be the same again.

That's a good thing.

Tell us what you think of this first issue and, if you haven't seen De:TALES already, now it's your chance to go again to your comic book store and get your copy (and let us know what you think of it too).

Warren Ellis seem to like it.

Backstage.

It's funny to watch something from the backstage. It's not the same as doing it yourself, that would be the center stage. No, I'm just watching from a same distance, yet from very close, as pages and more pages of Casanova are made. Besides Ba, I'm probably the only one who sees all the pencils, all the thumbnails and all the sketches. I see stuff even Matt Fraction doesn't see, and he's the writer of the comic book. I see all the drawings Ba didn't like (even if they were great drawings) and erased.

I see the whole thing.



Today, Bá finished the cover of issue 5.

Today, I'm also doing a cover. It has to be done by the end of the weekend, so I still have a lot of work before me. I'm only doing sketches today.

And now Ba is at the backstage, watching me as I go.

Speak your mind -the work never stops.

Let me start by saying I have no idea what's written in japanese on my drawing. It was written in one of my brushes and I just copied it into the picture. Hopefully, it has some artistic meaning.

I finished a script yesterday for a new story, and now I'm trying to figure out how the characters will look. Because of the way they talk, I want them to have a very different look from my previous characters, a kind of old and polish look, but at the same time I have this very contemporary visions of them in my mind, which means maybe I won't escape the world my characters live once again.

Brian, from Khepri.com, wrote me today to let people know that anyone that can't find De:Tales in their comic book stores can buy it online (and cheaper) ON THIS LINK HERE! Brian is really good at getting stuff to people who wants it, so that's a good opportunity to those yet to discover the wonder twins magic.



The work never stops, does it? Neither should we, then.

Neither should we stop to create, to push ourselves harder into every direction we can, creatively.

I love comics because I really think in comics we can accomplish things in a story that are impossible to accomplish in film or in prose. Because of that, I try to reach the boundaries of the comics medium, I try to learn of it's history, I try to create something that I believe in.

I believe in telling stories. De:TALES has the latest ones we told. What did you think of it?

Tomorrow begins today!

So, did you get your copy of De:TALES already? Have you read it? What did you think?

After spending a week with the book on my hands, I still can't believe how beautiful it turned out. How good it reads, how the order of the stories works.

How everything works.

Don't you agree?

note: this post will be here for two weeks, and I want people to comment on their thoughts about the book.

Thirty.

Yesterday was a great day. We're now thirty. We're now old.

I don't feel old, really. I have more energy than ever, as so many stuff is happening. For starters, we just got this on the mail.



Nice.

But now all.

We also received another package in the mail, the same day, as if they all knew.

Inside detail - Late for coffee

De:TALES comes out on wednesday. Because of that, I'll write something about some of the stories, and why this book exists.

I think that personal contact is important when you're trying to sell your work, your story and your art, but the story is, in the end, the most important point of the equation. No matter how many conventions I go, how many editors I meet, how nice or good looking I am, it's the quality of my story that will get the job done.

And that's exactly what happened.

My brother and I had met Diana Schutz when we finished Roland, as we gave her a copy of the story for her to read - and then for her to give to Frank Miller, who had also just finished 300. That was back in 1999 or 2000 (my brother remember these things better than me, but anyway).

A year later. we had Ursula to show, and she noticed how much better the art had gotten, but since it was only the artwork we were showing, the conversation could go only so far.

Back in Brazil, in 2001, after meeting her and so many other editors, we started working on other stories, and trying to come up with more serious ones. At the time, we were contributing to an brazilian anthology, and we focused our efforts into stories for the anthology. Out of that effort, we did Late for coffee.

I'm very proud of that one. It was probably the only time we completely divided roles, as I wrote everything without Ba's help, and he then drew the entire thing himself. We talked a lot during the process, which is one of the advantages of working side by side at the studio, and we found the best angle for every scene.

After we were done, we translated it and, alongside with the next story we did (Other Words), we sent it by mail to Diana Schutz. Some months later, we received an email from her

She had read it, and, aside from how much the art had improved, she was impressed about how much she liked the story.

The story.

That's the most important point of the equation, in my opinion.

But the art in this story is one of the most beautiful things Ba have ever done.

Makes you want to fall in love and makes you want to cry.

I noticed a detail or two just now.

If you click HERE, you can see the Dark Horse page for our beloved upcoming De:TALES, and I just noticed it contains a four page preview of our first story.

The book is coming out next week, and from there on, nothing will ever be the same.

We have been working with Diana Schutz to get this book out since 2002, so most of the stories we did since then are on the book. Now, with the release of the stories, we have only an open road to travel, in which new stories (yet un-written and un-drawn) will emerge.