Do you feel like running?

It happens every time June arrives.
The hurry.
So many thing to do, so many pages to prepare, ideas to put down on paper and projects to read and write. Every year, it's crazy around June.

There's no reason to wait for something exciting to happen. You, and you alone, is responsible for your success, for your accomplishments, so you better go after what you want whenever you can, all the time, until you get it.
And, if you're going after your dreams, do it fast.

Comics are hard. You'll have to work a lot, more than most people you know. You'll probably have to believe in yourself more than most people you know. Most people you know feel like shit, but even like that they can do their jobs. You, on the other hand, is going after something higher than the average. You're fabricating dreams, putting down on paper the life of characters, of people, of ideals you (and hopefully others) believe in.
You're in it for good and bad, so you better give it your best if you want it to last.

You know you'll always be a comic book storyteller, but if you don't work hard, you'll only be that inside your head.

Follow the lines.

As we move towards new things, this is something that we do: sketches. As we're translating our ideas into a story, we have to always translate what we see to the paper through our drawings, and it's by constantly drawing that we guarantee that, when the time comes to do the actual paper, we have no problem drawing anything we feel like drawing, all these things we think it's cool until we reach the annoying point of having to draw them.

After the weekend.

I had a dream with comics this weekend. I don't remember much of it, but it made me feel good while it lasted. It made me feel I was on the right track, despite the bumps on the road.

We're less than a month away from the San Diego convention, which is, mostly, our biggest link to the american comic book market. It's there that we meet new people, just as well as we meet the ones we already know. It's there that people who have bought some of our books have the chance to meet us face-to-face, have a book autographed and even get a sketch - just don't ask for horses!

I wonder if we put too much of our energy into this one trip. In doing so, we're mostly putting a lot of effort in our artist's career, as we're always showing what we've done between conventions to the editors we know (and to some we just met).

But what about the stories? How much easier does it get, year after year, to tell our own stories?

MirrorMask trailer

Here's the link for the new MirrorMask trailer. As I have no idea when the movie will be shown in Brazil (and even if it will be shown at all), I marvel at this little internet treats.

I think the best way to describe anything Dave McKean does is "Hey, this is incredible, I have no idea how he did it and it looks great!" He mix elements of drawings, painting, sculpture, computer 3D images and effects, real people, real sets, all together to create something that looks unique. He does not use "special effects" to do the ordinary and the expected.

He's a weird man, and his vision of the world is a fascinating one.

Loose...


Sometimes I feel you have to play with the images to jump-start your brain.

The Gunned Down Crew, top row from left: Jefferson Costa, Grampa, Kako, Bruno D'Angelo, Ricardo Giassetti, Clayton Jr.; bottom row from left: Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Shane Amaya, Cobiaco. Not pictured: Rafael Coutinho, Jeremy Nisen, Pam Noles, and Peov. Photo by Douglas Kawazu.

Aside from Shane, all others on this picture are brazilians. It's probably the first time I've been in a project where I knew most of the people involved (and this amount of individuals was bigger than four). Strangely enough, I wasn't familiar with everybody's work and was pleasantly surprised when I saw all the pages from the book.

Some news should be broadcasted.

The Black Diamond will be available for retailers with a free 50% overship, so you'll be able to see the 6 page preview of Smoke and Guns before the book actually comes out.



And, speaking of books, here's the official press release of Gunned Down, the western anthology my brother and I did stories for. After you read the press release, you'll no doubt won't stand your curiosity to discover the brand new Terra Major website, which has several pages of preview art from Gunned Down and from Prey 2, another comic book Shane and Bruno are releasing for the San Diego Comicon.

You know it, don't you?

You go to sleep and you're thinking about it. You wake up the next morning and it's the first thing on your mind. Something has to be done.

That's when you read. You go, open a book and start reading, trying as hard as you can to dive into the book's world, forgetting your own and, hopefully, forgetting about this idea that doesn't leave your mind.

It's useless.

In the book you start finding words you want to use, characters you want to use (and kill, of course), you find yourself writing a complete different book as you read the one you hold in your hands.

Same thing with movies. Try watching a movie and you'll see the actors acting, in your mind, the story that's growing inside of you, speaking the lines you want them to speak, doing it in a dark alley just like you imagined.

Sight.

Let's go back to the blank piece of paper, then. Let's stop in front of it, breathe, think that you really want a cup of coffee, and go and stand up to get one.

Coffee always helps.

It won't save you from your story, though. You will still come back to the blank piece of paper and still you'll have to create your next story, your next characters, your next step on the way to the rest of your life.

But it somehow seems easier now, with my warm cup of coffee on my hand.

I can almost smell it. I love the way a fresh out of the printer book smells. I guess that, for this book, I would love it even if it smelled really bad.

Hand me your cigarette.

One of the good things of working on a big story with lots of characters is trying to find a different movement for each one. I like to draw people smoking, holding their cigarettes, puffing and everything, because I know that many people do smoke but they all probably do it differently.

There are several ways you can hold your cigarette, just as many as you can keep it between your closed lips. Some smokers can talk while still with the cigarette in their mouths, some can't.

Hands are very expressive and are great tools to make a character more dramatic. When this character smokes, you almost always have something in the character's hands so you are always using the hands to say more about the character.

Today.


Let's all work for a better today. Let it be today (and tomorrow, and the day after) the day we go after our best. Let us chase our future as if it's only up to us to be grand.

It is only up to us.

Today, I was born. So was my brother.

Today I remember that life is great when you live it fully.

Let us live life fully.

Let us do what we love, and love who we have around, and dream of the life we want.

Let us wake up to realize the life we want is already the life we have.

Happy birthday, my brother.

If you want to draw, there's nothing stopping you and you should always be drawing. There's nothing that will do better for your skills than practicing.

It's much like dancing. You have to keep doing it so you can learn to listen to the music.

...

I hear the color guide to the cover of Smoke and Guns is awesome, although I would have to be in San Francisco right now to really know. But I'll see it when everyone sees it, and that's good enough for me. I'm glad it will be ready in San Diego, just in time for some signing.

...

The other day, a friend of mine said you had more control over the story when you were doing comics compared to movies, 'cause comics are like small budget simple movies. I then interrupted and said that comics were the complete opposite of small budget movies.

Comics are big budget movies. We can do whatever we want. We can have our characters look like big movie stars, we can have fancy locations, around the world sets, the most incredible especial effects. We can go back in time and do epic historical stories. If you see that most comics turned into film were big budget movies, you'll see what I'm talking about.

The great thing about comics is the freedom we have to do everything we want. And that alone is priceless.

Sequential interview!

There's an interview with me at Sequential Tart, and it's a big one. Go check it out.

Talking a little about what's going on around here a bit, I also finished the story I did for the Gunned Down western anthology. The book is turning out to be a great collection of stories, from vey different artists, every one with a very distinct style. The cover's almost really, when it's done, I'll post an image here.

Did I mention all the artists in the anthology are brazillians? Well, they all are, about ten of them (of us). And, since we're all braziilian artists doing western stories, I found it peculiar that yet another brazillian artist is also drawing an western. It's funny how sometimes all these things happen at the same time.

Back to the drawing board.

Last smoke.


another picture over at Larry's.

It has been a long month, filled with long days and long nights of hard work. Every day is work day, and all energy is used to push harder towards this dream I had that one day I would be done, I would be ready, and I come keep going.

This day was yesterday, as I went to work, wearing my best suit, to do the last page of Smoke and Guns.

I'll be talking about this month for years to come. This is the month I started looking at comics in a brand new manner, where everything is possible and any dream can come true.

Next week is my birthday, and I just gave myself the best present I possibly could:

I gave myself a shining bright future.

Let's get to it.

Words.

It's completely different. It's like a brand new story. The blend of the images and the text creates this poetic thing we call comics.

There's nothing more exciting than seeing the story you drew with balloons and captions. With words that tell a story to go along with your images.

Together, image and words tell the complete story and none really works without the other. Not entirely, anyway.

Doing comics is great


artwork by Gabriel Ba for the Gunned Down anthology.

41 pages in 25 days!


On the 26th of April, my brother set himself on a journey: 41 pages to be completed before the end of May. He had just finished doing the thumbnails and nearly a month was ahead of him.

Little did he know he was destined to greater things.

Greater like finishing before the month was over. Greater like doing the best pages of his life.

Greater because he did it on his own.

When you're an independent comic-book maker, you're your worst enemy. Only you can stop yourself from achieving your dreams. Only you can stop yourself from telling your story.

My brother is unstoppable.

He's the main reason I started doing comics, and remain the most important aspect of comics in my life.

Mostly talking about others.

My brother is on his last two pages of his western story. When people see the story, nobody will believe he did 40 pages in less than a month. I still don't believe he was this fast, and specially that he was this good.

Watching him draw is one of the reasons I love working in comics.

As far as my story goes, I'm a little behind, but I'm certain I'll finish it in time. I have to. And I'm confident I'll also like the way it looks in the end. Right now, it's more of a humming in my mind than a music, but soon it will be over. As will Smoke and Guns. I'm less than 20 pages close to the end, and already I feel the story is on non-stop-action mode.

I received an e-mail from Becky Cloonan today, and she told me a little about her new projects. I'm amazed how good she is, and how much she improves every new work she does.

She's fast, too. Faster than a speeding bullet, some say.

I wonder if she can see through walls.

Not really about apples, but fruit related for sure.

It's one thing when you realize you won't draw any more men on your comic book. They were not the main characters, most didn't even have names.

But today was different. Today one of the main characters' last page began. I really enjoyed drawing this particular girl (if you can call her that, which I can, since I call all women girls) and this last page of hers came faster than I imagined. I want this page to be special. I want it to be a blast.

For the next page certainly will be.

THE LAST MEN.

I'm on the final round of Smoke and Guns pages and, suddenly, I realized I just did the last men in the story, who were running, in the dark, silently. They were angry, they wanted blood, but it was not about them.

Those fools.

It was all about Scarlett.

Smoke and Guns interview

Newsarama has an interview with the creators of Smoke andGuns. Kirsten and I were questioned about the book, the look and the cigarrette girls state of mind.

Check it out and don't miss the book when it comes out!

Working with others.



My excitement only grows s the other artists from the western anthology start to send in the pages they're doing. It makes me want to do my best work, which is the whole reason you look for collaboration: working with others makes you think about what they're doing and about what you're doing, and thinking is the most important part of the creative process

Tipping my hat


Look out for Gunned Down, an western anthology, to be release in July. It's going to be really something to watch out for.

I wanted to tell more about the book, on a more regular basis, but I'm really busy right now doing comics! It's great to vanish from the world, sit on your drawing board and see an story unfold. It's well worth the isolation.

Next month I'll be back.

A matter of pride.



I'm not ashamed to say to myself: beautiful.

I'm really proud of my work on Smoke and Guns, it's very nice to be able to do what you like and feel satisfied by what you've acomplished so far.

It's going to be a very log month, a lot of things will change.

Until June, enjoy the cover.

More will come later.

THINGS TO COME - part two.

Here are two preview pages we just did yesterday to talk to publishers and editors about the project. The first two "real" drawings we did for this new book. The first one is mine and the one below is my brother's.


This is going to be a blast!

Things to come.

This is the very first image for a new story. We have been thinking about this for a bit, but just last week the idea struck and we set what this story would be about. Maybe it's true what they say, that good things come for those who wait.

We waited, and the idea came.

Now it's doing it time. It's drawing every page, it's talking with editors, it's talking with everyone involved with this new project. Tomorrow is our first group meeting, and all is rolling now towards July.

San Diego in July, a new anthology will be released at the Comicon, called Gunned Down. Lots of stories, 200 pages long. It won't come unnoticed, I'm sure, but it's always good to start spreading the word when you can. I'm doing a story, my brother is doing another, and that's not even the beginning.

Only one first image, and I'm already excited.

That's really what's great about doing comics.

Ballet.

Third movement: the fall

Falling is inevitable.
Aching is inevitable.
Loving is inevitable.

We have fallen into the world,
Waiting for someone that
Will catch us and will ask if
We want to dance.

ROLAND.

Do you already know about Roland?

Roland - days of wrath was the my first published work in the US. It was written by Shane Amaya, published by Terra Major and is available in the internet by our good friends at Kepri.com.

It was originally published as a four issues mini-series for which I did the first and third chapters. My brother did the second and final chapter. Working together with my brother always makes me try harder and give it my best, with our brotherly competition working out in the most positive way.

It was done in full color, and the colorist responsible for it was no other than Steve Oliff, better known for his work on AKIRA. I grew up enjoying his work on the Cosmic Odyssey, on that World's Finest mini-series Steve Rude drew, even on the first issues of Spawn. But his work on AKIRA just blew me away. The mood, the attention to detail and how much the colors added to the story, that will always be one of my references for colors in comic books.

Anyway, Roland is, above all things, a very good story. A really well told story. a story that I felt was so good that I agreed drawing it. The fact that we became friends with the writer during the making of the comic was only a plus to that story.

What is it about? Well, it's about Charlemagne's army. It's also about betrayal, about faith, about loyalty and revenge. It's a great story of sacrifice for a greater good, and of consequences upon times of war.

If you're interested, why not give it a try?

Ballet.

First movement: the waiting
She waits for him every night,
And every night he comes.
While he doesn't arrive
She suffers
thinking he's not coming anymore.



Second movement: the longing
After he left,
she couldn't
go back to sleep.

Her body missed
the touch,
the heat,
the embrace.

Without his tenderness,
the silence became
unsettling.

Sleepless,
she heard music
till dawn.

The tribute.

Only time will tell how comics will be now that Will Eisner is gone. The day will come when new artists won't have heard of him (as many already haven't) and when his name will only be one more among a lot of "those old guys from the early days". Still, for the time being, all of us have Will Eisner as the reference of the artist that believed in what he was doing and that never quit. He was not the for the glory. He was there for the stories.

His stories, for all the love and hard work he put into then, will survive most which will fade. They already have, and will keep on surviving, reaching new readers every year.

In the spirit of remembering the way he lived instead of the way he died, the Comic Book Artist magazine number 6 is dedicated to him, presenting tons of tributes from people from all corners of the comic book world. The solicitation for it is up at Diamond and and the press release is the following:



COMIC BOOK ARTIST (VOL 2) #6: The Will Eisner Tribute Issue
Edited by Jon B. Cooke

The CBA All-Star Tribute Honoring the Great Sequential Art Master,
Will Eisner. This double-sized memorial issue features remembrances,
art and essays by over 200 artists, writers, editors, friends and fans -- all
celebrating the man, his superlative 70-year career, and his
unprecedented impact on the art form. Behind a Dave Gibbons cover,
this mammoth special contains tribute art by an incredibly diverse group
of creators, including Mike Allred, Murphy Anderson, Gabriel Ba, Donna Barr, Frank
Cho, Darwyn Cooke, Geof Darrow, Jack Davis, Mike Diana, Irwin Hasen,
Gilbert Hernandez, Alex Horley, Everett Raymond Kinstler, David
Levine, Joe Linsner, Mark Martin, Mike Mignola, Fabio Moon, Eric Powell, Mike
Ploog, Trina Robbins, Spain Rodriguez, Alex Ross, Craig Thompson,
Tim Vigil, among many others. Included are interviews with Art
Spiegelman, Jules Feiffer and Scott McCloud, on their friendships with
Eisner and his influence on the future of comics. Plus testimonials and
anecdotes shared by a wide array of comic book pros, including Alan
Moore, Neil Gaiman, Stan Lee, Richard Corben, Joe Kubert, David
Mazzucchelli, Joe Simon, and many others. Join us to experience a
spirit of good will as the creator's legion of admirers celebrate the life
and mourn the passing of a true giant, Will Eisner. -- $14.50 (US), 192
pages (24 pages in full-color), Perfect Bound, Magazine, Diamond
Order Code: APR053289

Talk the talk.


Another one of my brother's great drawings. Simple, yet so complete, so real. You feel you're there, and those people are breathing, standing up not really straight, for they have flaws, just like us.

Sneak peek.

Haven't talked about Smoke andGuns around here in a while. Yes, that's true. But Larry has, and he's once more showing this great ad for Black Diamond, which features a very small bunch of very hot pages from Smoke and Guns. We still haven't decided which pages will be in this particular preview (the talked about Black Diamond book) and maybe those in the ad won't be in it once it comes out.

So, if I were you, I would go find myself some magnifying lenses and would enjoy that "BLAM".

Baby steps.

sometimes I think people have know idea how a drawing (or a bunch of then, for that matter) gets done. The picture is there and you just see the finished product. But how did it come to that?

Well...


From layout to finished art of some illustration work my brother and I did for a brazilian magazine.


We were kind of bummed we had to combine drawings and pictures, but the result did not end up like crap, I think.


Some images changed, some remained the same. It was all for the best, in the end.

New adventures.

Every new story is a new adventure, one that we must face head on and full of joy. If the story is drawn by my brother, than we are all going to have a blast. As I always say, he's the best artist in the world. Even if I'm exagerating, he's worth every word of praise he can get, and I can't wait for our next story together.

This is one image from his latest work. Enjoy.

Here comes the monkeys!

Let me tell you about monkeys.

They are nicer than dogs, for they don't bark. They smell bad, I'll give you that, but so does cat litter, and if you have a cat, you'll need a cat litter box and you'll have a smelly house anyway.

What's my point?

Buy yourself a monkey.

They're really cheap right now, but their market value is rapidly growing.

Buy yourself a monkey.

They come in all different sizes and colors.

Silence


I love the silence in this picture, and the way it tells more than if I had said anything.

Everybody loves monkeys.


Everybody loves monkeys and I wonder why that is.

Maybe they (the monkeys) are cute, but you know that's not really true. Maybe they're funny in a silent movie kind of way.

Monkeys are so similar to humans at times that we sometimes think that we too behave like they do and, therefore, wouldn't it be natural for them to behave like us as well?

Now, don't be silly. Why would monkeys behave like us?

They know better.

Are you looking?



Why do you hold back? What are you waiting for? What am I waiting for?

Nobody should wait. At least, we shouldn't wait and do nothing. If you're doing something, you're not waiting, you're building, we're learning, we're going towards something that, for better or worse, is ahead of us.

Only if we take the journey can we discover what's there.

Are you looking?

For the girls.

for today the day is theirs.


Sit beside me.

Sit beside me today.

Even sitting, you float. And you look at me with your shiny dark eyes, always waiting for a surprise. Wait that I'm almost there. I come from far, from a distant dream where I got a present for you. I come only now on the day you least expect me, but need me the most.

Sit that I have a story for you.

Your story.

Too bad we have but a day, for your story is much longer than that. In fact, I've been telling your story for some time now.

I plan on keep telling it for the rest of my life.

sketch number 2.


Sketches are good to solve problems with very few lines. You learn how to choose your lines, the same way you have to choose your words when you're writing.

sketch number 1.

I missed doing sketches. Drawing straight with a ball-pen, mistakes being an intrinsic part of the work, looking out at the work and writing in images your impressions.

It helps you think and it helps you feel.

The Call.


We're always waiting for the call. One that will change your life, that will make your day. Maybe just one that will pay the bill.

We're always waiting.

I guess the most important call is the one that tells you what you really want. This moment of revelation might not be per se a single moment, but it eventually happens and, when it does, you'll see everything else differently.

Some people tell me we'll see everything green. I'd prefer blue, or even a very delicate pink (on a waving elegant just-above-the-knee skirt wore by a pretty girl). The point is, you'll be more focused, you will have found your path, your yellow brick road.

So your call came and you found your way. Now what?

That's what I'm constantly trying to find out, and there's where the great joy of life is: finding it, every day.

Get together.

I think it's great when artists can get together. More most of the time, we stay in our dungeon, trapped in our little world, with pages to do and stories to tell. Too soon and too easily we forget there's life outside our thick walls, and meeting with the rest of the world, especially the rest of the comics world, is always refreshing and interesting.

Yesterday, my brother and I gave a lecture about comics together with our other comic book brothers, Bruno and Kako. The four of us worked together on ROCK'n'ROLL! last year, and we're already working on something new. It's always great fun too watch us get together, the exchange of very useless knowledge and sharp dry jokes, and swearing. And we always start by mentioning the guy who was our first comic book teacher and the place where we first met. His name is Domingos Takeshita (or Tak), and Ursula is dedicated to him because he was the first who would encourage every one of us to create a dream and follow it wherever it may take you.

Yesterday, Tak went to see us speak at the lecture, and we all got together to tell jokes, laugh and swear a lot. and the night was young after the lecture was over, so on we continued into the nearest bar, and away we drank into the night.

It was lovely.

But now I have a problem. Now I want to see all my comic book friends who I haven't seen in some time. Maybe I should see what's up with this whole "Rann/Tanaghar war" by asking my friends Ivan Reis and Marc Campos if they are having fun with that interstellar action.

First, I need to finish the Will Eisner tribute page, which, as I mentioned before, changed completely from my first idea, mainly because my brother Ba's idea was so great. All for the best, in the end.

Doing it again.

Today, I reworked a page I had already pencilled. The first version was done a month ago, in the same day I had already finished a page. I was tired but wanted to keep going in order to finish the week with a certain number of pages in the can. I did the page with the original thumbnail in mind, and it actually went pretty fast. The only problem was that it sucked! were I too deliver the page on the very next day, I would have finished one of the worse pages I've done in the last five year. Maybe the worst. Ever!

The page featured two hot girls, and they both looked like guys on the page. Enough said on how bad it was.

And that's a good thing about working with a more flexible schedule. I was not happy with that page, so I moved on with the story, working on other pages I "liked" more. Once I was feeling good about myself (because doing good work can make that to your ego), I went day to the abandoned page and did a complete new version. It's much better. There's a killer panel (one of the best on the story so far) and a much better flow on the story.

And the girls, as one should expect, look hot.

Waiting.



She's waiting. Her time will come.

Dream of the stolen painting.

Smoke and Guns panel.

This week, I mostly did comics. It's always refreshing to be able to work so much on the pages, not be driven away for some illustration work, or for any other of the thousands of things we usually have to do eventually.

I had a dream about going to the comic book convention. the airport looked more like a train station, and I seemed to be trying to run away with some important piece of fine arts, probably a painting. I don't know by whom, but it was a big deal, since the terrorists appeared in my dream trying to steal it. Right at that point, I noticed I had a gun in my hand and, as I'm sure many of you would do (in your dreams, of course), I started fighting the terrorists.

I ended up getting caught by the terrorists, but I hid the painting. Im smart like that, and much more clever than those stupid terrorists. The strange thing is that the one terrorist that caught me was a beautiful woman.

That's what I get for drawing girls with guns day after day.

San Francisco weekend.

If you're going to San Francisco this weekend for Wondercon, make sure you stop by the Terra Major booth, which will be manned by Brian Scot Johnson of Kephri.com. They'll have Roland (our first mini-series in the States), Hattin, Takeyama, Prey... and even some ROCK'n'ROLL! And for those curious of things to come, there'll be xeroxes of one of the new stories from the first ever Terra Major anthology (featuring the all star cast of artists from Terra Major, us included). Don't miss it.

Of course, don't forget to visit the AiT booth as well. If you still didn't get Ursula, they'll have it, and I'm sure that, if you're nice, Larry could show you some Smoke and Guns pages.

Have a good San Francisco weekend.

UPDATE!

So, as it seems, there won't be a AiT booth at Wondercon. But Larry (Young, you know, the guy making comics better) will attend the show as a fan. He'll hang around the Terra Major booth since he and Brian are pals, so if you want to bump into him and ask him about Smoke and Guns, that's your starting point. And, since I'm a nice guy, I'll give you a secret password when you come across Larry: ask him about "kra-ka-pow".

Swimming

I received an e-mail from one editor today and a message from another. They were all very nice and sounded interested in my work, which is good. Of course, I sent messages to them earlier, but to know they replied is good. It shows they liked the work I've been doing enough to write back and tell me so.

This is something I learned already: you have to show your work constantly to the editors, so they can see what it looks like, and also so they can see that you're constantly working and have a professional rhythm. If you want to work as an artist, and now it's the strange sounding part, you already have to be working as an artist. It's like swimming: you gotta be on the water to swim, you can learn how to swim on the ground, where it's safe and warm.

Sometimes, you have to get yourself wet.

Exciting ideas.

I've been drawing Smoke and Guns like crazy. If there's one good thing about doing a story is the joy of creating, page after page, the events only you saw on the script.

Okay, maybe the editor also saw the script, the writer should did, even before it was written I guess, but you get my point. The artist is the one providing life to this idea we're all very excited about.

And we are all very excited about Smoke and Guns.

Sometime between this week and the next, I have a one page story in tribute to Will Eisner to do for this magazine. I already have the idea and did the thumbnail, but sometimes I let the thumbnail (or the idea) sit distant for some days and see if I like them when I get back to it after a little time. Maybe I can have a better idea, and maybe I can fall in love even more for the idea I already had. We'll see.

My story is told with images.

poetry is bliss.


Images talk.

They say an image is worth a thousand words. Maybe a good image, and that's what I want: I want good images, a big range of expressions, faces, hand movements and even eyebrow disposition. The characters are actors, and maybe they need to be really bad at acting, maybe they need to be those over-the-top exaggerated actors who gesticulate too much, and make too many faces, and move too much.

Sometimes, you need to make it bigger in order to tell your story.

Lines in a drawing are like adjectives in a sentence. They add to the story, but the trick, as in adjectives, is in choosing which lines to put and which to leave out. Too many lines won't help tell your story, they'll just confuse the reader.



You have to motivate the eye. Where do we look, where do we go after that image, all must be thought about and decided by the artist. When one character looks a certain way, he's motivating the artist to show, in the next panel, what he's seeing. Like the character, our eyes must follow the story the pictures are telling, and must see the images we're choosing.

We see what the story wants to show.



I like to draw the story that doesn't always show everything. Following the images, we put the story together in our minds, and some images, maybe the most important, the most moving, don't even exist on the page. They are between the panels, after that look and before that smile, when that hair moved and I knew exactly what she was thinking.

Comics is not without it's poetry. To say more than meets the eye, to use words to convey more than just their meaning, to create images that tell more than what they're showing, all that is to be a poet, to make us feel and believe in something that we made up, something the reader made real in his mind and in his heart.

Have a cigarette.

Smoke and Guns panel.

Smoke and Guns is fun to draw. I hope, when I'm finally done with it, it's also fun to read.

"Done".

I wonder when I'll be done with it. Hopefully, this year. In the summer, if everything glues together in this crazy puzzle my life (and everybody else's, it seems) turned to. It would be really great to have the book in my hands by the time I arrive in San Diego for the next big Comic Book Convention. Do you know this is the only time of the year I actually take a vacation (in order to go to the convention, so maybe it's not a vacation after all, it's more like "far away job")? Sometimes I have the impression it's the only time of the year that I leave the house. Luckily, it's only an impression. Luckily, despite the very long hour involved, I love what I do. And this is the year I set myself to do more comics than I ever done before. Smoke and Guns is my first step towards that goal.

AND...

Today is Brazil's nacional comic book day.