Colorful interview.

For all of you curious about this new project I'm doing on Dark Horse, Umbrella Academy, there is a interview/talk with writer Gerard Way and editor Scott Allie on NEWSARAMA today.

And they have colored the drawing I did. It looks kinda cool and reminds me of the days we did ROLAND and Steve Oliff colored it. It is always very weird seeing someone working over my art.



New times are coming. Colorful times, it seems.

Robots tonight.

We had a blast at this year's Comicon. We met a lot of people, signed a lot of books and did what we set out to do. Since we're now back at the drawing board, there's only working ahead. What we will be working on is the good stuff, the stuff of dreams.

Tonight, I would love for all of the LA residents to go to the 24Seven release party at the MeltDown comic store, which starts at 8pm, and say hello to Becky Cloonan, Vasilis Lolos, Matt Fraction, Kelly Sue and Ivan Brandon for me. The book looks beautiful, and it's filled with the freshest passion for comics.

Here's a panel from my story with my brother, "the FIREMEN".

Rain maker.

One of the greatest things about going to comic book convention is meeting comic book creators, as we all work reclusively in our basements. Here in San Diego, it's like we're one big club and, no matter how movie and games oriented the convention has gotten, it's still the comics club, a place where we all love comics, and a place where we belong.

I have this impression that right now is a great time for comics. A lot of great comics are being published, a lot of creators are doing the kind of comics they love, no matter if they are super heroes or not. Now is a time of great passion for comics, and that just reflects on the comics.

Today, as part of the "announcements of the con", Dark Horse announced a new book my brother Ba is drawing, and he already did a signing alongside with the amazing James Jean, who just won an Eisner and is doing the covers, and with the writer of the series, a guy called Gerard Way.

The new comic book is called Umbrella Academy.


From left to right: Ba (with the hat), James Jean (with glasses) and Gerard Way (with gray hair).

While finishing the forth issue of Casanova last weekend, Ba did his first picture for the book, based on the characters the writer himself (who can draw pretty well and who has a band called My Chemical Romance) did and sent. I'm not sure they did show these image at the convention, so here it is:

Busy Comicon!

We did our Dark Horse signing and it was great. Just the fact they had one of those light banner things of us was completely worth the trip. Aside from that, we did AiT signings, which we will do again today, and Bá is just conquering the world with Casanova.

Okay, conquering the world was pushing it a little.

But that's the way we feel right now.

Back to the last two days.

OFF TO SAN DIEGO!

Here we go again. One more time, San Diego, and all that it entails, awaits us. I wish I could say I'm not nervous, and part of me is in fact very calm, but I have a lot to do there, many people to see, to talk, to meet, and when you're moving as fast as a speeding bullet, you worry you're going to miss the train.

We won't. I know that.

In case there's anyone reading, here's what our schedule will be like:

THURSDAY

3pm - De:TALES signing at the Dark Horse booth.
Come say hi and get your De:TALES copy signed. If you liked the stories we put on the book, you'll like the stories we have to tell on the flesh.

4:30pm - CBLDF signing on the CBLDF booth

We're auctioning the cover of Casanova 3 for the fund, and we'll be doing drawings for those there at the time. Come by and help protect the freedom of the artist.

FRIDAY

1pm - AiT signing
If you liked Ursula or Smoke and Guns, we'll be there talking about comics and signing your books. Larry has a lot of cool books and we'd love to convince you to try them out when you buy ours. I'll have postcard prints of the Smoke and Guns cover for 2 bucks if anyone wants them. They sure look pretty.

3pm - 24Seven signing

Stop by at booth 2729 to see this beautiful book and check out our story on your hands. I'm very proud of our artwork on this story, specially my colors, and no internet preview can really show what I did there. And we'll have nice postcard prints of scenes from the story for 2 bucks each.

SATURDAY

5pm - Ait signing

Second chance. If you liked Ursula or Smoke and Guns, we'll be there talking about comics and signing your books. Larry has a lot of cool books and we'd love to convince you to try them out when you buy ours. I'll have postcard prints of the Smoke and Guns cover for 2 bucks if anyone wants them. They sure look pretty.

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We'll have a secret signing on Saturday, and we'll be hanging around all these booths at various times, and Ba will be a lot at Booth 2729 side by side with Matt Fraction on the Casanova bandwagon extravaganza.

This is the tenth straight year we go to San Diego. The first one, we were merely comic book fans, we stood in lines for autographs, we got copies of the books we liked from the hands of the artists and writers we liked, we started meeting them and discovering they were real and, most of the times, they were really nice guys (or girls).

We're really nice guys as well. Don't be shy and come talk to us. Get to know our work and ask us why we do comics. We'll tell you all about it. We'll tell you stories.

We'll leave you waiting for more.

Scripting.

So, this script I'm drawing finally arrived. It's nice, tight, and it has some interesting characters. It's six pages long.

I have been reading other people's scripts for some time now, and the more I read them, the less I write my scripts this way. I appreciate all the detail the writers put in the panels, the descriptions and the page rhythm, but when it comes to working on my own scripts, I can't help but work differently.

Artists who also draw often don't write a full script to themselves, mostly because it's boring to do the same thing several times. I already create the story o in my head, then I have to write it, pencil it, ink it and letter it (and maybe color it)? That's too much of the same thing, if you ask me.

At the same time, I also think the story should be thought trough as much as one can, and I don't do anything out of laziness. I'm just directing my energy where it is most needed.

Center stage.

Today I had a dream about theatre. That's all I really remember: the stage, the backstage, actors and lights. And, every time I think about theatre, I think about the role of the artist on a comic book.

How much thought do I put into staging everything I'm going to draw? I think about light sources to play the dramatic effect of the story, I position my "actors" in a way they'll interact with one another, I make sure the dialogue keeps hitting the necessary beats, and I leave room for the reader to fill in the blanks.



There's a very nice review of De:TALES on the Oregonian's Paper Trail blog. A month after it's release, it's good to see our lovely book still catching the attention of people. And, since it took us six years to complete this book, I hope it takes at least the same amount of time for people to keep talking about it. Or maybe a little longer.

Web comics on the way?

Over at The Engine, Warren Ellis created a space for people to post their web comics. No so different than any other place web comics are posted, the main attractive in this new development of that site, for me, is the possibility to make all those people, who already talk about comics all day, see some comics they wouldn't see in the comic store. Maybe they would see it, but they can't find it, 'cause the stores don't carry it. Or maybe because they haven't been published because the artists haven't had their chance yet. Or maybe because they such are very bad comics.

I like the internet as a way to connect people, to some times read what other people write, think and shout out. It's a good "place" to try to say what you want to say, and maybe show some pictures. The potential to web comics is, to me, very limited when compared to real comics, just because you don't hold it in your hands and flip through. But web comics are a great way to speak your mind without any financial obligation. It's just you, your creativity (or the lack of) and everybody who bumps in it in the way.

I'm thinking about a simple web comic to post on The Engine. When it starts, I'll let you know.

So far, so good.

I have four new penciled pages. Ba has three. We have two more weeks of hard work before we go to San Diego. In-between working all the time, we'll release a new indy comic in Brasil, have a release party and sign some autographs, as a way to warm up to what's in store for us at this year's convention.

Not that we decided to do the comic book to warm up, but it works that way as well, which is coincidentally good.

We're also considering doing one mini-comic for San Diego. Maybe two. Maybe some nice colorful prints of the Casanova covers.

And, finally, we've been thinking, which seem to be the easiest part, but is in fact the most difficult. There's all kinds of things you can think of when you're buried deep into work, but sometimes trying to come up with your next fresh idea for your new story isn't one of these things. However, now is the time for new ideas, now is the time for new stories. Maybe some stories will just continue, as we realize we miss some characters too much to just leave them be on their old stories.

Once I was done with Roland, I said "no more horses!" and tried different things.

I guess the horses had different plans for me.