Casanova is now.

this was the first drawing of Casanova I did when we decided I was going to draw the second album.

Check out a preview of Casanova 14. This is the issue I'm most proud of, the end of the second album, the "go out with a bang" issue, the farewell, the issue to answer your questions.

I was drawing the last pages of issue 9, and reading the first pages of issue 10, and I asked Matt "is this what I think it is?" and he, in his "I'm the writer and I know stuff before any of you" pose, said "yes, but don't tell anyone".

Bá learned a lot working on Casanova, and so did I. This was never an easy comic to draw, and I tried to make it look simple (to do) and complex and rich as a world.


This was the second drawing, two days later, when I think I got it right.

Pixu thumbnails

In an independent project like PIXU, you have to establish your own deadlines, and than break these deadlines into smaller deadlines. This way, you won't get behind on your self-imposed schedule and you'll be able to balance doing it at the same time as your other projects.

Since we did 5 last year, we have been talking about what to do next, and we seriously decided to do another ensemble comic around january.

We'll be set up at the Image big booth in San Diego, just like last year. As soon as we decided to do another book, we knew we would need a booth, because our strong independent sales were always done directly with the reader, so we needed a place to tell the reader "this is where you'll find us and buy our book".

We spent at least two months working out the script part, talking in the internet with each other, some times from three different continents. The fact that a project like this is only possible because of the internet is an understatement.

Right now, we're doing the thumbnails. Becky is always the fastest one and, since Bá is already drawing more Umbrella Academy pages, I'm second on the thumbnail count.

Here are two pages from my thumbnails:

Wonder Twins, ACTIVATE!

Our story at the February edition of the My Space Dark Horse Presents anthology was conceived as an outlet to discover the fun behind the process of making comics.

As we were starting out and were trying to find some job at the american market, we have tried to get something going with Marvel and DC just like many other artists. We grew up reading super heroes and we thought the natural step as we became artists would be to draw them. In order to do that, we made what people call "submission pages", those sequences without a script or a story in which the artist would show what he can do with the characters he wants to draw. We made Batman pages, X-Men pages, Green Arrow pages, Authority pages, Planetary pages and so on. As much as we enjoyed those characters, the "working without a story" bit didn't quite work for us. We didn't feel like we were telling any story and the artwork was very uninspired because of that. We were discovering at the same time that we worked best with our own stories mostly because the story was the starting point, and not the art or the attempt at a job. If we wanted to do our best work, we needed to tell a story through pictures, and not just draw pretty pictures. That's where the idea behind Wonder Twins came from, and once we came up with a story interesting enough for us to tell using the super hero genre, it was easy. Bá sat and drew the story really fast, and we loved every page, and the story expanded from the original idea because we were having fun and we really believed that story also told the reader about the authors and not just about the characters, which I believe is what we get to know as the author's style. If we were to draw a story, we needed to make it our own, and have it be seen through our eyes, and through our style. Once we did this with this story, it was easy, and it was great.

And then Scott told us we needed an extra page.

He speaks!

As most of you may already have noticed, Fábio does most of the talking – writing – around here. Not that he's the bright one or he's the one who knows how to speak in english, but the fact is that he's been trying harder to enchant the american public with our ideas than I have.

I think I've been too busy drawing comics – monthly comics for that matter – that I didn't feel the need to write so often. Also, for being so busy drawing, I didn't have lots to say other than what I was putting on paper, which was, on most cases, a secret until it went to press. So as much as I wanted to talk about what I was working on, I felt I could not.

But now that last year is gone and most of The Umbrella Academy has been published already, I can talk a little about some of my ideas and my worries and what I care about when it comes to comicbooks.

I think it's fair to start with Umbrella, since it has called so much attention and it took so much of my time last year (and, yes, it will take some of my time this year also). I gave up super-hero comics for a while now because I thought it was all too worn off and it was just a part of the big machine of selling comics, toys, T-shirts and making movies and it was not about the stories anymore. So from the first script of Umbrella when the kids are fighting the Eiffel Tower and "flying towards camera" and stuff like that, I had cold feet and feared to have had made the wrong choice about taking on The Umbrella Academy. When I got to issue #3 I was very worried, because it's almost all action. The parts I enjoyed the most were when Vanya appeared, because they were the pages with more emotion and depth.




But you know what? Since I was one of the skeptics of this series (maybe the most skeptical of all), I'm now also one of its biggest admirers, because I have to give it to Gerard that he told a great story, created some instant-liking characters and gave this worn-off genre a very fresh tale.

I'm kinda sad to confess this, but i've made the best pages of my life for The Umbrella Academy. It's just sad because I'm a storyteller and I like – and I WANT – to tell stories of my own and I wish I was drawing my own stories right now, or at least more of that and not only stories someone else has written, even if it's a good story. The fact that I liked the Umbrella story helped me a big deal when coming up with the pages, because as the story was taking shape in front of me, first on the layouts and then on the actual pages, I instantly knew I was doing something good, worth reading, something that was not like all other super-hero comics on the stands. And that's the main reason I want to work on new comics, just to make something different from everything else.



But you know, we have lots of new stuff cooking and in 2008 I'll be able to fulfill my need to tell stories, as well as drawing and working with other authors. Too bad we can't talk about any of these things right now. But that's the fun of it, right?



Changing the subject a little, or entirely, I'd like to say why I don't really write as much here as, let's say, on our blog in portuguese we keep for our readers in Brazil. Yes, as you may know, we are from Brazil and we've been making comics in Brazil a little longer than in the U.S. We have almost 10 books published and lots of independent work, some awards and some recognition, but the market in Brazil is much different from the american one, much smaller, so I feel the need to speak to the audience at large and tell them why comics are so great, why we must be taken seriously and what is possible with comicbooks. It's a never ending struggle to pass it along to the newcomers, readers and the majority who doesn't even read comics thinking it's silly things just for kids.



Four years ago, we have created this blog (in english) in order to do the same thing with our american readers (or anyone in the world who could read in english actually), because no one knew us then. But we have been working so much, specially on monthly series, that this audience can see our work on a regular basis and get acquaintanced with it a lot easier than our brazilian audience, who gets a new book year year or so. Books that are kinda hard to find, also, as in the U.S. the public already know where to get his favorite comic every month.

So I really whish i could have a mix of the two markets, produce as much as I do for the U.S., with big print runs, and still be able to write in portuguese, the most beautiful language in the world. Well, that's what I have to aim for and keep reaching, right?

All my friends say I work too much, I don't have time to go out. They ask me if I wanna change the world. Well, I do. And I believe it can be done with comicbooks and that's what I'm gonna keep doing: telling stories that can change the world of someone who's lucky enough to read it.

Together, we're great.

According to this site, we're pretty great, and people should go after the stuff we have done.

Well, they should. Agreed.

Now, because we're in the comic business, some images will follow.



It's hard to jump from one project to the next, and loose drawings like this one will serve the purpose of just drawing for the fun of it, no expectations, no goals. Reclaim the artist you are, that artist who gives himself to the projects he works on, and after you're once more your own, go jump again on another project and tell more stories.



I love coffee, and so does Bá. For us, it's a big thinking and talking fuel, and we just can't do without. Maybe we could, but we sure don't want to.



Today, Dave sent the colored pages from the Umbrella Academy final issue. They look beautiful. His work over Bá's art made us reevaluate our entire work and how we approach it in terms of color. Before, we only wanted to color our pages ourselves. Now, even the stuff we do color will be, in our minds, compared to what Dave did, in that strange inner voice that keeps asking you "What would Dave do?" when you're thinking on ways to color a certain page or drawing.



I received a new script from Matt this week, and it's just the best script I ever read. It's, by far, the best script he's ever written. Now it's up to me to be the best pages I've ever done.

Black tie.

I mentioned in the backmatter of Casanova 10 how it felt right that I was doing the secret cinema people at the same time Bá was also drawing another group of well dressed black tie individuals, right?

I guess it's pretty obvious now what I was talking about.



Now, the storylines from Umbrella and Casanova are moving very far apart, and we're drawing completely different things.

the Casanova 14 cover.

This will be my final issue drawing Casanova. Acconding to the cover, all characters will move to Cuba, join the revolution and shoot crows.

Or become crows.

And their passports will have Casanova Quinn stamped on them on the way in.

Discover!

September is near by.



Click here and discover more about the Umbrella Academy.

BEEN THERE, DONE THAT, LOST THE AWARD AND IT WAS AWESOME!

As incredible as it may sound, after going 11 straight times, this year's San Diego Comic Con was unique, in good and bad ways. Every year we learn new things, meet new people and realize why we're once more there, among so many people who love comics.

The top spot on the most amazing things about this year was joining with Becky and Vasilis, that's for sure. We've known each other for some 3 or 4 years, but we always had very little time to spend together and talk and have fun. This year, we've made "5", the COOLEST COMIC of the year, hands down the most wanted item of the convention, and we were practically STUCK in our table together, just having fun and freezing under the air-conditioning from Hell. Our table, by the way, was only possible because of Ivan Brandon who had asked for 2 tables at the Image booth and passed one along to us. He has been doing amazing work in comics and has been putting great people together on his projects, like the amazing second volume of 24seven. The table was another great thing he's done for the sake of good comics.



As it was expected, everyone was amazed with GRAMPÁ's cover of "5", as well as all the other art he had in there. The awe for his work was only matched by his absence on the show, as he was truly missed and tons of people now want to see more of him.



Our table was, as we so accurately described, FUCKING FODA! Like a well balanced meal, it had all sort of colors, a variety of genres and all the powerful range of stuff we all are able to do. Next to our amazing and best-selling "5", we had Becky's MINIS, an amazing collection of her early mini-comics, and East Coast Rising, her Eisner nominated series from Tokyo Pop; and we had Vasilis' brand new graphic novel Last Call, as well as his mini-comic Hats and Pirates of Coney Island, published by Image; also their collaborate work on Nebuli, the first time I saw Vasilis' work and the starting point of the urge for us to make something together; And Fábio and I had the brand new CASANOVA #8, as well as the hardcover edition, alongside copies of the "who-are-these-amazing-brazilians" ROCK'N'ROLL we have made with Bruno and Kako. We got some FCBD comic from the Dark Horse booth, as well as the free poster and our one copy of our Eisner nominated De:TALES to show people and point them to the DH booth to buy it.


Speaking of Eisner Awards, this year was a great sample of independent authors and amazing different works and I think the most significant nominees and winners were from outside the mainstream comics, or super-heroes. As much as we were disappointed to lose, we could not have lost to a better book. The first time I've seen Jason's work I thought "we're so gonna lose to him". One of the things I regret about this year is that I didn't have any time to check out all these comics and creators on the floor, at the convention, because we were always selling at the booth or at some important meeting. I'd love to get American Born Chinese and Fun Home, as well as Jason's award winner The Left Bank Gang. One thing I'm definitely going to chase is Eric Powel's Satan's Sodomy Baby. I'm getting everything from Brian at Khepri.com.

Shout out to our awarded friends Jill Thompson (painter), James Jean (cover), Dave Stewart (colors) and Paul Pope (writer/artist - series). And Sam, congrats again and thanks for the Old Boy edition.

As it would be expected of someone who have been publishing constantly in the US for the last 5 years, our work's following of fans have increased considerably and we were happy to witness statements of gratitude, admiration and respect from lots of people who would stop by our table, as well as other fellow authors during all four days of the convention. It all started on our beloved USA Hostel, where we've been staying for the last 6 years. Our roommates, 2 funny auzies, not only have seen ROCK'N'ROLL, but also would not believe when they connected the dots between us and CASANOVA and Umbrella Academy that we would share that room with them. They were the nicest and funniest roommates we'd had in years. And it was full of amazingly hot women all the time, awesome and talented Ky-tee in particular. As much as nobody would believe or understand why we stayed in the hostel, and that this have been probably the last time we stay there, you won't meet so many different and interesting people from all over the world in the hotels.

Moving to a whole other level of stardom and recognition, this year had obvious aspects of our work that called a lot more attention, like my collaboration on The Umbrella Academy, written by Gerard Way. The same way I'm having a blast working on this book and I'm really proud of the results so far, Gerard could not be happier with our creation and the first thing he said to me was "thank you for this wonderful job". On the couple of hours we spent together on saturday, we did an one-hour signing for 80 lucky ticket winners, surrounded by an unbelievable sea of teenagers with cameras flashing, shouts and laughs, and It was really amazing to me when someone would come with a copy of CASANOVA, De:TALES, URSULA and "5" among the Umbrella Academy or My Chemical Romance items. As Gerard himself have put on an interview for MySpace, the main idea of making this comic is acknowledging the fact that he has millions of fans and use that to see if he can bring more people to know comics, not only our, but all comic that he loves. He just want to see comics do better and reach more people, and so do I.


various moments of the time with Gerard, the madness of the signing and at the bottom, the Umbrella team: Nate Piekos (letters), Dave Stewart (colors), me (art) and Gerard.

Another moment on the Olympus of fame was when Joss Whedon came to our table to finally meet Fábio, who's been working with him on his brand-new Sugar Shock comic for Dark Horse Presents. Everyone around was so excited and thrilled and whispering "oh my god, it's Joss Whedon", while Joss was excited and thrilled and whispering "oh my god, it's Fábio Moon". Promotional genius that he is, he asked Fábio to draw the main character of the book on a T-shirt that he would wear on his panel and signings and Fábio stood up for the task and made an amazing job, right there on the fly. Joss would parade with his new T-shirt for the next 3 days (on top of clean clothes, ok) and he even wore it on the exclusive EW party on saturday night. Walking around with Nisha Gopalan, the lovely girl who was kind enough to include and interview us for the TOP 100 EW list, we asked to be introduced to J. J. Abrams, who said he loved Joss' T-shirt, to which Fábio answered "well, write a comic for me to work on and I'll make you a T-shirt".


Fábio and Joss Whedon...


... and the famous Dandelion T-shirt.

This year we had a lot of time to talk to Diana Schutz, our godmother, our light and guide trough the helm of comics. We owe her so much that it cannot be described with words. Only making amazing comics we can honor our debt with her.


Fábio and Diana.

We had our share of meetings and projects are indeed moving forward, as the doors have been open wide to us and we have to make sure they won't close. As usual, we hanged out a lot with other creators on lunches, dinners and late at night at the Hyatt bar. We've met M.K. Perker, an amazing and hilarious artist from Turkey, we were introduced to John Cassaday and talked a lot to Jim Lee, who was really impressed with Becky's work. The dead-dog party that wraps the convention was one of the best I've ever been to, where all the creators present were really happy with the show and the direction comics are going. With lots of drunk smiles and sincere joy and respect from one another, we ended our trip with hugs and toast and, as I was making fun of Paul Pope and Jim Pascoe that "if I wasn't wearing this hat, I would be on your "messy-hair" team", he said to me in a natural voice and with an honest smile on his face:

"You are on our team. We're all on the same team".

SDCC: 5 and Sugarshock!

Here we are, in San Diego. Days are long, nights are nice, and comics are our business and business is good! Tonight, the Eisners!

Click here to see my new project, a mini series called SugarShock, written by Joss Whedon!

It's nice to have a table again, and to be in such nice company. If you're going do the convention this weekend, stop by at the Image booth and find our table. We're cool, we're there, and you want to meet us and read our books.

Yes, you do.

Gerard Way interviewed.

Gerard Way gives an interview about The Umbrella Academy at Newsarama, going from the original idea to Bá's influence on the book. And he confirms he's going to San Diego, so we'll all be there to sign some books and posters. We'll bring the originals from the FCBD Umbrella story to sell at the convention, so if you like original art (from Bá), here's your chance.


variant Gerard Way cover for The Umbrella Academy 1

5 part 1: we love comics.

5 is our cool new comic. We did it with our friends because we all love doing comics, and we wanted to do something together for those who love comics as well.

Grampá, who loves comics, did this cover.

We loved it.

More to come, and expect a lot of love when this baby hits at the San Diego Comicon.

EW 100 list

We made it into the EW 100 list, the ultimate must list. And we got a FULL PAGE!. Go find the magazine and check it out (I will). After that, go find our books fast! Eisner nominated De:TALES and the up-coming Umbrella Academy by Dark Horse, Casanova by Image, URSULA by AiT/Planet Lar and much, much more.



And check for our MEGA-SUPER-COOLEST-COMIC-EVER, 5, made specially for the San Diego Comic Con alongside amazing and beautiful Becky Cloonan, mysterious and talented Vasilis Lolos and exotic 10th wonder of the world Grampá.

Only at our booth on the 2007 SDCC!

Let's start talking about it.

Becky Cloonan has the first image from our special comic book together at her blog. Entitled 5, the comic will have short stories by all the artists involved, which are: Becky, Vasilis Lolos, Gabriel Bá, Rafael Grampá and myself.

During her interview on Newsarama, she talks a little about our new comic too, and what it is about.

We are on the final steps of completing the work for this book, and it's funny to think that something that I did after I finished my two first issues of Casanova will be published (self published) before any of the issues see print. I guess that's one of the best things about doing it all yourself. If you want, you can have it ready really fast.

5 will be ready to go in July at the San Diego Comicon.

Step by Step - the art of Umbrella Academy

The Free Comic Book Day was yesterday and I hope lots of people have got their copies of the Umbrella Academy comic. I know I still don't have mine. Anyway, I hope people like it, because I'm really having a great time working on that book.

I decided to show some steps of the production of the pages here, now that I can actually show the pages.



1- Layouts. This is what I do to show to editor Scott Allie and writer Gerard Way. The approve or ask for changes, make suggestions, then I can show them only the final inked version of the page. I make the layouts very small and I don't enlarge and print them like some people do. When I go to pencil the page, I keep the layout next to me and do everything again. A lot of times it is very hard to get the same emotion, movement and expression I got on the layouts when I'm translating it to the big page, but I always end up getting it.



2- Inking. After I pencil everything, sometimes with more or less detail, depending on lighting, planes, whatever, I ink the page. BLACK AND WHITE RULES!



3- Colors. When I'm done, I send the pages to Dark Horse and they send it to Dave Stewart, who does MAGIC on them with colors. People know me for not being happy with color jobs over my pages, but I'm so glad with Dave's work. I could not imagine someone better for the task.

So, let's go back to the drawing board, because lots of Umbrella pages still await me.

FLIGHT preview.

Newsarama has a very nice gallery preview of the next issue of FLIGHT. Lots of pages from, I guess, almost all the artists involved. If I was already excited about FLIGHT before contributing to it, I'm even more excited now that I have done something for the book. All the serious talks about the process of making comics, all the time showing previews, all the sketches and the different styles, all that "behind the scenes" part of making FLIGHT just made the book better to me. It's hard to make an anthology with so many artists involved, and I really admire Kazu for making it so well.

FLIGHT volume 4 will be released on July 10th.

Click on the images below to see bigger versions of two of my pages for this album.

Ivan.

I have no idea how exactly we met Ivan Brandon. He contacted us to do a story for the first 24Seven anthology, but I'm not sure if it was because he saw our ROCK'n'ROLL, or if he saw Smoke and Guns, or even if he saw that Casanova teaser image that ran on the back cover of Fell 1.

Turns out Ivan is a really nice guy, loves comics, and has this unique way to make you want to work with him. Money is never an issue with Ivan, we're never getting rich working together, but we're not losing any money either.

Today is Ivan's birthday.

He likes robots.

Happy birthday, man.

2007 list

There are lot's of times when we have the impression we have nothing to do and feel very useless or unproductive. These gaps between craziness of insane work usually kill me of boredom. I prefer being up to my neck with work, always in a rush.



It is good to know the things you're gonna do before you do them, just so you can better plan the journey. Also, you don't feel this emptiness, this gap, this void. So Here it comes our 2007 list of things to fill up the void:

- CASANOVA volume 1 TP - LUXURIA
- CASANOVA #8-14 (also known as second volume)
- Fábio's story on FLIGHT
- Fábio story on 24 Seven volume 2
- Umbrella Academy FCBD edition
- Umbrella Academy 6 part mini-series
- SDCC special BEST-COMIC-EVER with Becky Cloonan, Vasilis Lolos and Grampá

Well. It seems like a good year. Let's get busy.

Momentum.

I was talking with Grampá over the weekend and we made some very important decisions concerning the special comic book we're planning for San Diego this year. I still have to check all this out with Becky and Vasilis, but I guess they'll be just as excited as we are. I'm very happy to see Grampá's enthusiasm over doing comics at last, and that's the kind of people you should have at your side if you can when you're going after your dreams. Likewise, Becky and Vasilis share this kinetic energy on their personal projects, one that sometimes gets lost on other endeavors, and one that should be nurtured and watched closely. I know a lot of people who want to do comics, but just a few that really love to create them. Becky was one of the first I met, and she introduced me to Vasilis. And, once Bá and I met Grampá, all fell into place and it was just a matter of time until we decided to do something together. Here we are, trying to capture this momentum, this time in all our lives where we simply love what we do, and we do it the best we can.

Before all that, I have to finish my robot story.

I've been drawing at a much slower pace than usual, and that's not what I originally planned, but at the same time that got me much more time to think about my future projects - or the ideas I have and the hope they'll become future projects. Risking to spend more time on the future than o the present, I can't help but to feel happy that I'm doing comics, I'm creating stories and I have friends to do all these things with.

And I work everyday with my brother. That alone is a priceless experience, one that I can't describe and that you wouldn't believe me if I did.

Grampa.

Grampá is a friend of ours. We just talked about him a few days ago, as he worked with Bá on that giant wall thing. He did most of that. He's awesome.

The first comic book story he EVER drew was four pages long and it's feature on the Gunned Down anthology book, published in 2005 by Terra Major (get it here). We would never believe it was his first pages ever if we didn't know him. After that, we were constantly asking for more, for the next one, for something bigger, longer, bolder.

It's coming.

This year, as an way of committing to his story (or maybe as an necessary excuse to finish it), he's going with us to the San Diego Comicon, and we all will share a booth with the also awesome Becky Cloonan and Vasilis Lolos. Such an international roaster called for an extra effort, so we are all doing special stuff just for the booth. And Grampá is doing a brand new story, a brand new book.

And he created a blog to talk about it!

And here's the first image:



This post won't allow comments, so you can rightfully go to Grampá's blog to comment there.