A beginning.

When you start a new story, what's the first image you put?

You may start with a wide shot to establish what's going on, where are the characters and things like that, to keep the reader from getting lost right in the beginning.

However, aren't some stories just like that?

There you are, lost in all these sea of images, none really grabbing your eye, and probably you're wondering off into your own head, when suddenly one detail catches you, steer you into the right direction, and that's when the story starts.

Right there, lost, you hold tight to that little image that comforts you.

When you realize, the detail is part of a much bigger story, a more interesting and beautiful one.

And that's when she turns and looks at you.

Covering the past.

Old stuff, from 1997, when we were doing fanzines (or mini comics) in college. One of the funniest things was playing "cover artist". As far as interior art goes, we have been fairly traditional. Black and white, traditional inking, all that. Most covers were like that, but from time to time, we tried different approaches.



Differently from comic book pages, a cover can be a nice single image, can have no background and still look awesome, and can have all kinds of techniques without getting too distracted. It was all a matter of playing with the design of this single image, and playing was fun.



Changing angles, choosing if the image of the cover would or would not have something to do with the pages within, varying black and white with pencil tones or washes, all that made the process of the covers a great way to think about what you can achieve with your images.



It was on those covers that I really discovered I liked to draw girls so much.

Funny monkeys.

Vasilis Lolos is a funny monkey. If you check out his preview for PIRATES OF CONEY ISLAND, you'll see just how talented he is. Aside from that, he's greek, and he's funny.

I keep expecting his hair to turn into snakes, or fire bursting from his eyes, but so far ha just make silent jokes.

It's a strange feeling, being a funny monkey. I have my share of it, just by the way people ask me questions as if they were expecting some different answer than the ones they would give me.

I'm not really funny, just occasionally.

I'm just happy.

Characters from life.

I love drawing from life. You can have the wildest imagination, but rarely you'll get as much diversity in terms of body language as by just looking and studies from real people.

Everybody moves differently.

In their own way, they move their hair, look to the side, smile. To take the "language" part of body language, you'll always learn new words when you study new people.

. . .

Ba finished the cover for Casanova 7, which is the last cover of the first "season". It's really good, and it shows how much Ba has evolved during this past eight months of work. It will also bring back some elements from previous covers in order to convey this sense of closure of the first arc.

. . .

I'm almost done with the script for the next graphic novel. I have a deadline, which can help a lot in terms of getting stuff done, and I have to start thumbnailing if I want to finish all of it by November. The next months will certainly be busy, which just make them much more fun.

. . .

The character I did the previous drawing is the same one I'm doing the studies for, and it's for a new short story. I often think that short stories, if not only good to tell moments of life, area good way to put your characters to some good use until their bigger stories are ready. This certainly seems the case, and hopefully the short story in question will make it easier to create the world and the mood for what I have planned for the characters I'm creating.

Characters that you love.

It's wonderful to create new characters, just like meeting new people, and yet with the same sense of silent recognition that we have when we meet old friends.

Some characters are visual and the most important thing is the way they look. Others are defined by the way they talk and by what they say. There are characters that look like many others, don't say anything special, but they are there for what they do, even if they only do one thing, and just once. If it's only one time, that was their time.

This year, I asked Terry Moore how he managed to do the same book for more than ten years, and he said:

"Create characters you love, and live with them."

Gerard Way's Space Boy.

This is one of the drawings Gerard Way did for the Umbrella Academy proposal, attesting to his artistic skills. It sure helped Ba's choice to accept the job, since the proposal was so visual and with such moody images. It really made us dive into that strange new world, and that's really what the images should do.

Gerard talks a little bit more about this project at the Dark Horse website with editor Scott Allie. Check it out, as it helps see the guy as a comic-book writer instead of just the frontman of My Chemical Romance .

While you're at it, tell us what you think of the recent issue of Casanova, out today all over the US in fine comic book stores.

Snap tale.

This is the latest De:TALES review.

If you haven't really read our stuff before, I think you'll like this review, as it has this first look perspective. Hopefully, you'll feel the same way the reviewer, and then you'll want more. Obviously, after some time out into the world, every review from now on has the potential for more information about the stories, which can help get you into it, and it can tell you stuff better discovered on the actual comic book pages.

While you're at it, here's a 24Seven review as well. Expect more colored work from us on the not so far future, and expect it to look this good.

Mad dog Casanova.

While Casanova 2 keeps selling strong, appearing at the first half of the top 300 comics for the month of July (See here the entire list), Casanova 3 comes out this wednesday, presenting yet another strange adventure of our strange spy.

Click here for a preview.



If there's something I always try to tell everybody who wants to do comics, it's this: you'll only do comics if you're doing comics. You only really learn what works and what doesn't when you're really doing a story, page after page, and everything have to work together. That's when you learn, and that's when you get better.

Bá is getting so much better just by working every month that now, more than ever, I know my statement was true.

I better finish this new script soon and get started on the pages, then.

The captain of the ship.

Today I finished another story for Boom Studios, for their next anthology project. It's only six pages, but it turned out much better than I expected. In fact, between all three stories I did for them, this is the one I liked the most, which is strange, considering it was the story I almost didn't make.

You never know what your work will look like before you really dive into it. You might discover a hidden pleasure after you start making the pages, and that pleasure will fuel your inspiration, your enthusiasm, and that will just show on the page on every panel.

My next project will be 76 pages long, IN COLOR, and it will probably fill a lot of my mind on the next three months. If all goes well, it will also result in more interesting texts around here.

URSULA wants you.

It is always good to see something like our URSULA on the top five best selling graphic novels at Khepri.com last week. This is the good thing about TPs. They can live forever and be rediscovered again and again.

It was first published in Brazil, then in the U.S. and already in Italy.

If you haven't seen URSULA yet, here is your chance. After all, you are not going to live forever.

Thanks.

We have officially been back for more than a week. We also have gone back to our regular working mode, to our regular working hours and to our regular long days. Even if I think we got thinner after this year's San Diego Convention, I can't help but feel we got bigger as well.

Doing this only once a year, the convention is our only chance to see the people we met in previous years, and also is the only chance to meet new people. And this year we certainly did meet all the people we could, covering quite a wide range of our comic book world.

To all of you, thanks.

In special, thanks to Vasilis and Becky for being so much in love for comics. Thanks to Matt Fraction for making sure everybody knew Casanova is just awesome. Thanks for Christina and her Dark Horse crew for all the back-up help all over the con. Thanks to Brian from Khepri.com for being our rendevouz man. Thanks to Pam for being in the know. Thanks to Bruno for being there. Thanks to James Jean for being close to Jose Villarubia when I met him, so I could meet them both at the same time. We even met Gerard Way, the writer of the new project Ba's involved, and he was quite the nice guy. Thanks to Ivan and all his robots. The book looks beautiful.

Thanks to Bob Schreck, for being always so nice to everybody (us included).

Also, thanks to the Flight people. I didn't actually talked to many of them, and the ones I did, only briefly, but I just think they were the most happy and joyful booth at the convention, and that reflects in the comics they're making, and comic books really need optimistic people right now. Specially those doing good stuff.

A special thanks Mimi Rosenheim, from AiT/Planet Lar, who published our lovely Ursula the best way it could ever be published and has given us only love and support. And Larry, who's awesome!

Finally, thanks to Diana Schutz, for believing in us and making sure that we stood in the right path, which is the one that led us where we are now. I'm not really sure where we are exactly, but it feels good. It feels promising, and it feels like home.

Thanks to all of you who made this two brazilians feel welcomed in the strange outside world.

It's good to be back, and good comics awaits.


Illustration for a brazilian newpaper, by Fabio Moon.