FCBD Serenity story

That story I did I just wrote about on the last post? It's a Serenity story, written by Zack Whedon, and it will be one of Dark Horse Free Comic Book Day's offerings. Yes, FREE!
The interview I did about it? It here on this link so you can check it out. If you want, you can also check it out what the writer has to say about the story on this other link, and than you'll discover my book will actually be a flipbook, and the flip story is a Star Wars story with Han Solo and Chewbacca! How cool is that?
the month of May can't arrive soon enough.

1. You can see how my thumbnail sketch looks like when I'm showing it to the editors and writers. This is how I get pages aproved.
2. The final panel.

Almost time

My drawing board can almost rest for a few days at this year's end. Bá and I are working on a poster, and then all I have to do is to start planning for 2012.
I just finished a new short story. I already answered an interview about it.
Bá is kicking ass on new Casanova issues, and after that I'll take over once more for the forth arc.
We've been having new ideas, but we know ideas might take a long time till they're stories, so we preffer to wait until we have a book to talk about the book. Ideas are like a girl who smiles at you: you feel warm inside, you feel special, but then it takes a lot of work to win that girl over. Lets first do the work before we introduce anybody to our new "girl".

Still, I think 2012 will be awesome.

Life drawings

Some of the drawings Bá did this year at the live drawing class. Not one took more than 10 minutes, but these range from 1 minute to 5 minutes each.

Matt Fraction in Brazil

It was great to have Matt and Kelly Sue in Brazil, even if only for a little while, and even if we didn't see each other all that much with us having to handle our booth and Matt and Kelly Sue writing and reading and walking around the cool parts of the city.



Back to drawing comics now. These puppies don't get made all by themselves (or, how I would have said to Kelly Sue, "and that's why we have Mario").

Look for this on November 23.

I'll have a new story on the sixth issue on the Dark Horse Presents anthology, out this month. Also, I did the cover, which looks like this:

The two new stories I did this year were for traditional anthologies. One for DHP. The other story, a three pager, I did for a traditional Argentinean anthology which now has a brazilian incarnation.

X-Men in Rio

We've been busy here in Brazil, Daytripper has just been released here and we're having a blast with the "national" response, but I decided to stop by and put these two images up. We're heading for Rio de Janeiro later this week for the Rio Comicon and, since one of the internaitonal guests is long-time-all-star-X-Men-writer Chris Claremont, I took some time to pay tribute to a part of the history of the X-Men, and of comics, which deeply influenced both Bá and I, and I colored these two pieces we made in July as part of the CBLDF that took place in SDCC this year.

We'll meet up with our friends Bob Schreck and Paul Pope while there, as they're also guests of the show (the festival in Rio is amazing), and we'll try to show them a good time, brazilian style.

Floating world of original art.

Last month, the comic book store Floating World hosted, in Portland, an art exhibit of original Casanova art (which you can check out on this link of Matt's release of Casanova: Avaritia #1 on the store), and now it's time to celebrate the release of Habibi, Craig Thompson's new book, and again Floating World will have a great art exhibit of Habibi-inspired pieces of artwork from several artists, and Craig invited both Bá and I to contribute.
We felt honored and pumped up with the challenge and, if you find yourself in Portland this month, don't miss the chance to check out the results. And buy Habibi while you're at it, it's a wonderful book. Casanova: AVARITIA #2 is also out in stores today, so lucky you, Casanovonaut who is craving to know what happens next.

Lots of different stuff and a São Paulo pinup

We've been busy with new projects, lots of drawings and conventions here in Brazil. I'm working on the new CASANOVA: AVARITIA issues, we're adapting a Brazilian novel into a Graphic Novel, we're working on a illustration book and we're also trying to put new ideas together. All that while we tour around the world to spread the love for comics.
Well, this is one of the illustrations I just did for a poster of a concert, a simphony about São Paulo.

Initial sketch was made on a notebook, 3 inches tall.



I don't usually do this, but this time I have printed the sketch bigger and used it as the skeleton for the pencils, just because I liked the composition so much and it would be very hard to get it right on the bigger size artwork. I'm working on a A4 size here, not that big in fact.



Inked version, using Micron and Staedtler pens.



Since I have scanned the pencil, I noticed how nice the paper texture turned out to be and how it would dialogue well with the city. I decided to incorporate that into the final artwork.
The pattern on the sky is a tile pattern typical of São Paulo, with a very clever use of tiles forming the shape of the state.



It's kind of my homage to Katsuhiro Otomo as well. I always loved how his cities are more than just backgrounds and are treated as characters, his light and shadows and the use of zipatone and patterns in the black and white art.

Well... Back to work.

Pug loves you

Casanova, strip and stuff

I know we're already twins and we can do double the amount of work, but sometimes I could use an extra pair of hands. We've been busy.

Bá is going strong on Casanova Avaritia pages (thumbnails shown above) and I just finished our weekly strip (we publish a weekly strip in Brazil's biggest newspaper). It's weird how some of our world will take a long time to be published worldwide, and at the same time other works of ours, being done at the same time, will be puvblished in the US fast and will take a long time to be published in Brazil. It's like we can't please everybody, which sadly I think is true.

The Scream Awards! You can vote for us until October 18th, but why wait? VOTE NOW!
(Our comic doesn't have vampires or zombies, but it's ver cool anyway.)

Habibi, which is Craig Thompson's new book, is awesome and it comes out next week. Check out the book's website to see if Craig is doing a signing near you and go get his great book. Bá and I will have some Craig-related news soon.

Back to work.

Daytripper nominated for SCREAM AWARDS!

Our beloved Daytripper has been nominated to the Scream Awards on the "best Comic Book or Graphic Novel" cathegory. Please give it a shout and vote here.

CASANOVA is back... AGAIN... FINALLY!

On September 7th, the wait is over. Even people who have not been waiting will have not to wait any longer, because that which they did not know will be known at last. Yes, confusing. But yes, amazing.
The new CASANOVA : AVARITIA series starts this wednesday, a four issues series, each chapter with 32 pages filled with crazy, sexy, complicated and fun sci-fi stuff for people who really give a shit about comics. Written by super-star Matt Fraction, art by humble me (yet, awesome art by humble me), hand lettered by Dustin Harbin and colors Cris Peter. Published by ICON!
And if you're one of them, you might like to know that Floating World in Portland has an exposition of original Casanova pages during September, pages ranging from Luxuria, to Gula and the freshly started AVARITIA. Go check out the amazing black and white artwork, just to compare to the great color work Cris Peter is doing on the series.


Well, what are you waiting for?

Dark Horse Presents 6

September is right across the corner and, while we're really producing several new stories, most of them are still very far away from any clear publication date, except for Casanova-AVARITIA, the new arc which starts coming out NEXT WEEK, but Bá is drawing this arc, not me. So, with that in mind, I'm doing a story for issue 6 of the new Dark Horse Presents anthology. This is the only new story I'm writing and drawing which will be published this year in the US, and it's only 8 pages long. I gave my best to make each page count.

I received the invitation to create a new story shortly after I did the variant cover for issue 2, so I can say the original inspiration for the story came from that cover - or from the idea which inspired that cover - but it went on a completely different direction. A better one, if you ask me.

I thought it was very nice of my editor to invite me to do another cover, this time for the issue my story will be in, and what I came up with is the image below:

I never forget how important Dark Horse Presents was for my brother and I, how in it we discovered Sin City and Hellboy, how in its digital rebirth a few years back I did Sugarshock with Joss Whedon (for which I got an Eisner Award) and how it still publishes and celebrates creators with a personal voice. I'm thrilled to think that in this issue my story is in there's also a new Jill Thompson story.

This issue only comes out in November, but it never hurts to give people the heads up.

A new face

We've been meaning to change the visuals of our blog for quite some time, and today we decided it was time to skip working on what we were supposed to be working on - a three page story for a brazilian anthology, the script for one of the new things we're now writing, new Casanova pages from this new script Matt sent and some other things - to write a little code, choose some images and give our site, its blogs and our web presence a face lift.
This is the forth time, in more than 8 years, that we changed how this blog looks, and I hope we can keep it the way it is now for another good chunk of our lives, as we're getting further and further away from the modern and current web-design technology, and it's getting harder and harder to do this all by ourselves.
In the past few years, we ended up dividing our web presence in all these several social medias, from Flickr to Youtube to twitter and facebook, leaving around images, videos, other links and several words and thoughts born on the heat of the moment (and only written in these other virtual places), so I hope the links on the side bar are helpful for those trying to keep track. I'll be happy if it makes it easier for me.

I fished these images from 2004, when we redesigned the blog for the first time. I still like how simple and effective these animated gifs are, and maybe I'll put some new ones on here from time to time.

Just before I go, I like to leave here an update I think we already said in all those other social medias: since they cancelled the Wizard World Los Angeles, we won't be traveling to the US this year anymore. We, like many, had made plans for that convention, for another chance to get to know L.A a little more and maybe see some of our friends who live there, but I guess this will have to wait. The positive side of this is "more time to write and draw new stories", which I think it's what we all should focus on.

Harvey Awards winner

Thanks once again for another moment of unforgettable joy. This has indeed been an amazing trip.

Happy together around the world.

After our great time in San Diego this year, crowned by the Eisner Award we received for Daytripper, we returned filled with the creative energy contained in all works of love, and it was great to come back home with that feeling that the stories we tell are being read. We had a great time inside the convention on our super booth with the always great company of our talented booth babes - Becky Cloonan and Jill Thompson - and our faithful and hilarious brazilian companions Rafael Albuquerque, Gustavo Duarte and Marcelo Braga.

Outside the convention, the great hang out place and creative outlet was of course the Tr!ckster store and bar, where the new generations met the old, where comics were praised, studied and respected, and where we created art in all its forms. In all our 15 years of SDCC, it's always this kind of energy that keeps us coming back, and this time the Tr!ckster was the place to find that energy - and to pass it around.

Back in Brazil, there's always a lot to do, and right now the final preparations for the release of the brazilian edition of Daytripper are being made, but already we are on a new trip - to AFRICA. We're in Luanda right now, capital of Angola, as guests of Luanda Cartoon, an international comics, animation and cartoon festival, and it's great to see how our work is understood in other portuguese-speaking countries. We crossed the Atlantic and yet, here we feel somewhat at home, sharing the same dreams, the same inspiration and the same difficulties. We still have some days here in Angola, let's see what else we can discover as every day here is an adventure.

In the end, every day can be an adventure, no matter where you are, if you have the spirit and the heart for it.

Daytripper - Eisner Awards 2011 - Best Limited Series

DAYTRIPPER!!

THANK YOU!
THANK YOU!
THANK YOU!

FODA!!

SDCC auction for the CBLDF

As explained here and here, once again we're participating in the CBLDF auction that takes place every year during SDCC in San Diego. We were thrilled to be able to use characters we grew up reading, and by the scenes we did, you can see when we got hooked up on super heroes.


Both our booth (1320) and the CBLDF booth will have signing cards of those images, but imagine how great would the original look on your wall.

See you in San Diego!

SDCC MADNESS!!

SDCC is around the corner and we're running like crazy here. But that's the way to go.

We'll be sharing booth #1320 once Again with Becky Cloonan, Jill Thompson, Rafael Albuquerque, Gustavo Duarte and Marcelo Braga. We'll have ATELIER, CASANOVA: LUXURIA TP and fresh copies of the CASANOVA: GULA trade. We'll have some copies of the DAYTRIPPER TP, but not many. Well, maybe we'll have more comics in small quantities.

We'll bring some original pages to sell as well.

And we'll have POSTERS!


We'll put our signing schedules here next week.

See you then.

Harvey 2011 nominations

The nominees for the 2011 Harvey Awards have been announced and there's a lot of good stuff in there, lots of friends nominated!

And we're really happy to be nominated for the Harvey Awards on two categories: Best Contunuing or Limited Series and Best Single Issue or Story.





Thanks once more for this year full of good vibrations for our beloved story. We never knew we'd come this far and we don't really know where we're going next, but we had a great time telling this story and all this feedback has only been showing us we might be going the right way.

Killjoys

On July of 2010, during breakfast on the hotel inSan Diego, Gerard was showing me the concept images for My Chemical Romance's new album, "Danger Days: The true lives of the fabulous Killjoys". I got so excited with that, and considering that the same concept would turn into a comic he's gonna do with Becky Cloonan and Shaun Simon, I told him I'd make a drawing when the album came up, that could be used as an alternate cover for the comic or a poster or something.

Well, the album came out last november and my drawing ended up being a promotional poster on their U.S. tour, so I hear.

Here's a step-by-step production process of the drawing.

Amazon's Best of 2011

Daytripper has been selected as one of Amazon.com's Top Ten Best Books of the Year So Far on the Comics and Graphic Novels category.




This has been an amazing year, full of rewards that only refuel our love for comics and make us want to keep creating new stories forever.
So let's do it.

Solstice

Summer solstice at one side of the world, Winter solstice at the other. Both ways, there are stories to be told, thus work to be done.

I just finished a cover, which the editor liked and have already been sent off, and so off I go to this short 8 page story which I've been planning since April, when the idea was born. It's a strange thing, going back to short stories after the 220 pages of Daytripper, but in a refreshing sort of way, I think it's just what I need. These days, it's easy to get carried away and only come up with big epic ideas, ideas which will take many pages - and many years - to get done, and there are some periods in your life, and in your work, where a smaller story is just the right size to fit that moment in which you want to work and, at the same size, still have time to gaze at the world and see what the tides might be bringing my way.
I hope that the next time I have something to write about in here, this short story will be over, and I hope this happens in the next two weeks.
Back to work.

Solicitation for Casanova Avaritia #1

The wait is over - or almost - as Casanova is once again solicited! This is the moment all of you - or at least many of you - have been waiting for: 100% new Casanova issues. No reprints. No old material. New story! New artwork! New color palette!
Our new arc, avaritia will start in September, and the solicitation goes like this:
CASANOVA: AVARITIA #1 (of 4)
Written by MATT FRACTION
Penciled by GABRIEL BÁ
Cover by GABRIEL BÁ
From the writer of Marvel's smash hit FEAR ITSELF and the artist of the best-selling book Umbrella Academy comes the FULL-COLOR rebirth of the coolest comic of all time -- CASANOVA IS BACK and NOW YOU can see what everybody's been talking about. THIS ISSUE: The world's sexiest and savviest superspy kills his way from dimension to dimension in a high-stakes, action-packed adventure that cannot be described in a mere human "solicitation." !!! 32 ALL-NEW FULL-COLOR PAGES. PREORDER THIS BOOK! IF YOUR RETAILER CAN'T READ YOUR MIND, YOU CAN'T READ 'CASANOVA.'
40 PGS./Mature …$4.99

CASANOVA- AVARITIA 1 cover revealed!

In September, everything in the Casanova universe will be new. New storyline, new artwork, new mood. And here's the first brand new cover!

If you like the cover, wait until you see what the interiors look like.
All the best, and back to work.

Daytripper gets two Eagles

Over the weekend, during the MCM Expo London Comicon, took place the Eagle Awards ceremony, and we're very happy that Daytripper won in TWO categories.

Yes, we're happy. And honored. And we feel blessed, and it's incredible to think how far this story of ours is going, how many people are reading it, and how it appears they like it. This story means a lot to us, and it's great to see how much it means to others. This overwhelming feeling only inspires us to keep going, pushing ourselves harder and telling new stories.
Thank you all so much for this worldly support, and let's get back to work.

Sketch

Thinking about a new strip, the sketchbook by my side.

Casanova GULA trade, coming in July

CASANOVA: GULA TPB
Written by MATT FRACTION
Penciled by FÁBIO MOON & GABRIEL BÁ
Cover by FÁBIO MOON
Casanova Quinn is a secret secret agent, and a pawn in a game of espionage-chess played by his father Cornelius and the forces of E.M.P.I.R.E. against alllll the bad guys in the whole wide world. When a mission goes haywire and Casanova disappears, all hell breaks loose across the span of the space-time continuum itself. As archrival Newman Xeno conspires to break both the laws of man and physics, the fabric of all-that-is begins to fray. Clearing the way for that delightful little Armageddon is Casanova’s twin sister, Zephyr, killing her way through a blood-soaked hit list that ends with their father. All this as a super-vixen from the future scrambles to unravel the mystery at the heart of it all: WHEN IS CASANOVA QUINN? The sex is sexier and the violence is violent-ier in this, the second breathtaking volume of CASANOVA, the comic that Entertainment Weekly calls “Sexy... gripping and darkly funny.” Collecting CASANOVA: GULA #1-4.
160 PGS./Mature ...$14.99
ISBN: 978-0-7851-4863-0

Figure drawing

Here's Bá training.
A little practice never hurts anybody, even if you already "know" how do draw. There's always something new to learn, to think about, to consider.
Most of this poses were just one minute poses, some were three minutes long, one or another, five minutes long.