Water in the past.



As I read another review of Smoke and Guns, I realized I need something else to work on really fast. As much as I enjoy people talking about my work, I feel like I'm stuck on the past, even if a not very distant one, as I live in that period where I was still drawing the book.

If I don't start something new soon, I'll just keep living as a memory in the review of other people.

Every new week is a new world to explore.


artwork by Gabriel Ba.

And to finish my day...

"Smoke and Guns is rich with attitude and atmosphere, and it certainly doesn't hurt matters that the book also has one of the hottest covers of the year.

Read more here.

Spreading the word on the liberty to say whatever you want.

I just read on Neil Gaiman's journal that there's several auctions to help the First Amendment Project, and they consist in people interested in bidding for a place (or at least their name and the way they look to) in the next book from a variety of writers, from Stephen King to Michael Chabon to Lemony Snicket to Neil Gaiman himself.

And all the information is up at http://www.ebay.com/fap (or at http://cgi3.ebay.com/ws/eBayISAPI.dll?ViewUserPage&userid=auctioncause).

I wouldn't mind being a zombie on a Stephen King book, or a Lawyer on a John Grishan book, or anything at a Neil Gaiman book (even a piece of rock with my name engraved).

I'd make a very charming piece of rock.

Kazu.

When I first heard of Flight, I thought "why there's not more of that being published right now?"

Then I kept hearing about the book, and so I discovered the guy behind this great effort: Kazu Kibuishi. Not far after, I found his blog and then I discovered so much more than what I was looking for.

His copper strips are beautiful.

His Daysy Cutter Graphic Novel is the most fun I had this year reading a comic book.

And every new image off his next graphic novel just makes me smile. That's what some comics should be about, in my opinion: something beautiful that brings smiles at everyone's faces.

We need more artists that can do that.


Artwork by Kazu Kibuishi.

Damaged head.



Steven Grant wrote a lot of Punisher comics I read as a kid. That's the image I have of him: that guy. Now, he's still doing comics, but he's just another comic book creator I see at conventions. I know what he's doing right now, but it's not as a fan that I look at him.

It's strange the way this things chance and you actually becomes part of what once was only a distant world you only knew existed.

Anyway, over at his Permanent Damage column, he reviews both Gunned Down and Smoke and Guns, one on top of the other. "An excellent anthology for a great price" is the punch line for his review of our beloved western.

Gunned Down won't be solicited in PREVIEWS, so if you want the book, contact Terra Major and see with publisher/writer Shane Amaya how you can get this already available beautiful book.

Smoke and Guns should be at fine stores all around at the end of the month.

Tape that.

Apparently, I lost Matt Fraction's mention of Gunned Down as a comic he "dug lately" on his and Joe Casey's Basement tapes, but a sharpen eyed friend pointed it to me, and so I read their conversation for the last two weeks: Word does not get across so good on how to make people know your book even exist.

Earlier, they talk about hype as the "word of mouth" that spreads before the book is available. Personally, I really don't put my money on hype. Proper word of mouth, on the other hand, means that people who read the book liked enough to tell other people about it. That's something we're all a little short these days.

Differently from hype, I believe that we need a bigger effort on "getting people to know who you are and what you do". There's a lot of stuff coming out, and we should make it easier for the reader, for the retailer - even for the publisher who may hire you - to know why they should care about your work or at least give it a chance when they never heard of you. Specially when your work does not involve super-heroes.

Me, I love comics. I've been reading comics since forever, I think it's a great way to tell a story in ways that merge what a book can do with what a movie can do, then add something only comics can do. I want to be a storyteller, and I want to tell my stories in comic books.

And I want people to know my stories exist.

Nothing will stop me.

Nothing can.

When you love what you do, you can do it all your life.

I'm still pretty young, so I got that going for me.

What have you been reading?

cover artwork by Fabio Moon.
Johnny Bacardy and Ian Brill take their turns to review Smoke and Guns. Their response to my artwork seems to be as positive as the others who already reviewed the book.

Sometimes I remember this is the first book I work without my brother, and that all the artwork was my responsibility. Also, I remember that this is the longest page-length project I've worked as an artist, since all the other books I've worked on had less pages drawn by me than Smoke and Guns.

If you always have to keep growing, than I think the next thing I do will just have to be longer, not to say better, than Smoke and Guns. That's the challenge.

Illustration work.

Newspaper illustration by Gabriel Ba.

Not really a lot to say this weekend.

Images from this week and words about what's to come.



There's something magical bout doing comic books. Something I don't find anywhere else.

Next week, we start creating new characters. We don't usually do a lot of drawings of characters before starting to draw a story, but this time I think it will take a lot of character studies to get the grip of this particular bunch of people. And we don't want the character to change the way they look every 10 pages or so, at least in the beginning where we're still getting used to them. So, a lot o pre-production this time.

This time, it's a little different.

This time, it will come out every month, so we better be ready.

You should be ready too.

Past and present.



One of the good things about old stuff is the fact that's very easy for you to forget you actually did that. It's more like looking at something you remember having read instead of having done. The two images in this post came from Roland - days of wrath, the first mini-series we published in the US back in 1999. Now, it's coming out in portuguese and I've been looking at it constantly.

And here are a couple of reviews of Smoke and Guns, one by Ken and another by Jog.

Shooting words part 2.
More bullets and more reviews!



Sean Maher put a very interesting review of Smoke and Guns over at Bookshelf Comics. A lot of nice words about the art. Yes, he says a lot of nice things about the story as well, as he should in such a fun tale of our beloved cigarette girls, but he really seemed to think my artwork is "fantastic".

Shooting words.



Shane Amaya, writer and publisher of Terra Major, did an interview at Newsarama about our already epic western anthology book, Gunned Down. The interview even has a comment posted by Jimmy Palmiotti.

Anyway, if you want the book, go to the Terra Major website and write Shane about it. Your best bet is the internet, and both the publisher's site and Khepri.com can hook you up for a copy of this beautiful book.

To finish up this one, a picture: the first one I finished for the book. It was made to propose the book for a brazilian publisher house, and to advertise the book, and it's not part of the actual content of the book.

But it's nice.

Busy week, like all should be.



My brother and I will spend most of this week very busy. This week, we're doing a 6 page story for a brazilian newspaper, celebrating the book-fair of children books and comics that starts soon. Instead of running a written piece to describe what's happening relating to comics, the newspaper asked us to come up with a story that would tell of all this things in a less journalistic fashion.

I think it's great when we have the chance to do comics that will be seen and read by people who don't usually read comics.

This is really fun, but it's six pages in three days. IN COLOR!

Back to work, then.

I don't get it.

When it comes to doing what you love, it doesn't help trying to explain how things work, even if they do, to people that only want to know how it ends. They'll always miss the important bits.



New things are moving. Slowly, but forward. We still have a lot to do (don't we always?), but this week and the next hold the promise to be the busiest from the entire year.

Maybe I'm wrong, and let's hope that this is the case, for we certainly need to keep working to get things moving.



Anyway, Eric Stephenson asked for four pages of the first thing we'll be publishing with Image to go in the next PREVIEWS. Or something like that. Off they went, and soon we'll see how that goes. Considering that Smoke and Guns will be out in the stores by September, I hope people's awareness of my work will be higher for when the first Image comic book arrives in November (or is it in October?).

Back to work, shall we?

At the space station.

Over at the AiT site, there's now all the info on how to order Smoke and Guns, on a page all it's own. It also already has some nice things said about the book.

Fast forward, present time.


sketch made on Becky Cloonan's sketchbook.

Back to work. Back home.

If the trip to San Diego (and then New York) didn't make us any richer, it made us healthier. After two weeks of heavy walking around, almost always carrying heavy bags, I feel like I'm a completely different person from the weak thin guy locked inside his basement drawing all the time. Now, I just need to keep up with the walking and somehow do that at the same time as I stay at the drawing board.

Some things move slowly, but they move forward. One of these things is our collection of stories coming out from Dark Horse next year. It's finally happening, and it's all ours: our stories, our words, our artwork. It's all our fault, and we wouldn't have it any other way. Much more will be said about this on the next months, as our job is far from over.

Now, back to work. Back home.

Cigaretters and Ice creams.

Over at the Jim Lee's blog, Jim himself talks a little about his time at the Isotope Comics Store and Lounge, where he got to read a certain fun little tale of Scarlett and the other cigarette girls.

Variety review
It appears that VARIETY has the first review of Smoke and Guns. My "terrific inky art" really enjoys the compliment.

The last words of the con.

watercolor by Fabio Moon.
Like an image from the past. Like a dream come true. That's what this year's convention was like.

A Dark Horse deal.

An Image deal.

Actually, two Image deals.

A lot of fun.

A lot of friends.

A lot to look forward to...

... And a lot to do.

The look from the inside.


From left to right: F‡bio, B‡, Kako, Shane e Bruno.

It is just great to do what you love. It is great to do comics. And it is great to see your comic in your hand


this is the italian Ursula in my hands.

I've been doing some watercolors at the AiT/Planet LAr table every time I sit there for autographs. They are simple but they look nice. Here are some of them:





It's great to have the book out.

My brother us also doing sketches at the convention. He took a picture of one of the nicest ones he did.



Tomorrow is the last day at the convention. We'll actually have a lot of new stuff to tell. Dark Horse, Image, Portugal, you name it.

But that is tomorrow.

Off we go.


Good things start with a nice cup of coffee. And so it's with a cup of coffee that we shall start yet another trip to the Comic book convention in San Diego. It's the ninth time we go. Yes, the ninth.
Sometimes we think we're already getting tired of all this convention business, but we go anyway. Even if we think we have seen it all, every year we see and do something new.

We just had to learn how to look, and there it was.



We go to the comic book convention for the people. There are lots and lots of them, and most surely never heard of us, and we believe that we can help them get to know what kind of work I do. There's so much out there, so many booths, so many independent artists, so many comic books that look just the same as yours (well, not the same, ours is cool, but people don't know that yet) that you need to talk people into looking inside your cover. Let them decide if they like what's inside, but make them know you exist.

Let them look for it in the crowd, and see if whatever they see smiles at them.


To look the part we're playing...



It's simple and we like it that way. It has some strange portuguese words that only our brazilian fans will understand, but that's our card and it serves it's purpose. Anyone interested in sending us e-mail, just click on the card. We probably won't answer before the convention is over, but eventually we'll get to it.

I hope we have a safe trip. And a fun one, while we're at it.

Where, when and why.

Larry Young put the signing schedule for the AiT booth #2001, where you'll find that we'll only be signing there starting Friday at 1 p.m., then Saturday at 5 p.m., and finally Sunday at 12 noon, which only goes to tell you that Larry really thinks we're sloppy drunks who won't EVER get up before noon.

He's not that wrong, actually.

All in all, I'm sure he just moved us around to accommodate the scheduling of his big star artists and writers, all of which have very important meetings to attend and panels to deliver. My brother and I, we'll just enjoy our time in the Space Station as much as we can, and everybody's more than welcome to bring your copies of Ursula or Smoke and Guns for us to sign.

If we're not there, we'll probably be at the Terra Major table (R16) at the 1900 aisle, where we have also brand new artwork on the Gunned Down western anthology they just released.

If we're not there as well, we'll then be in very important meetings of our own, as we're also hard working twins and we have high hopes for the coming months.

C'era una volta una storia d'amore.



Clicking HERE, you'll see another good review of the italian version of Ursula. This one is a little longer, shows a little more of the story, it's pictures, it even has a very grumpy portrait of the brazilian wonder twins.

It feels strangely familiar to have a love story published in italian.

Sitting, drawing, talking and pizza.

I'm doing a new story. My brother is doing another story. We're both working at the same time, as we have already learned that we work better if we're doing it at the same time.

If you're a comic book artist, you'll find that you spend a lot of time alone, sitting on your drawing board, away from the outside world and from more pleasurable things, like sun, fresh air and the company of your friends. It's very easy to get lost on your own thoughts when you spend so much time alone, with no one to talk to, no one to show your daily work. That's the reason it's so good to work with my brother, who's my best friend and is the best bouncing board I could hope for.

Feedback is the key to a better tomorrow. You learn from your mistakes and it takes somebody else to tell you what they are. You could find out on your own, of course, but most of the time you're just to close to the problem to see it, and you need an distant look.



Next week, we'll be gone to San Diego. Before that, we're running like crazy, and that mainly consist of sitting in front of a blank piece of paper thinking of new pages to do and show.

We could use more coffee in the process.


It seems this is the first italian review review I've found in italian for Ursula. Reading very slowly, I was left with the impression that it is a good review and that the person who wrote it liked the book very much.



Brian, the khepri.com uber internet retailer, just let me know that those who want to order Smoke and Guns online can do it HERE. Great price, Brian.

Self-delusions of the artist - part 2.

The possibilities are many.
You can do whatever you want.

Some people think comics are too connected to super-heroes. Nowadays, manga is also spreading like a virus on everybody's shelves. Well, maybe not everybody, but surely on most kid's shelves, since manga has already arrived linked with a variety of "brothers": the video game kids are playing, the cartoon kids are watching and the clothes kids are wearing. It's very easy to get the attention on kids when you surround them with all this different products and they all look alike. You start a trend and it spreads.

But comics are not just super-heroes or manga. They're not only for kids, even if some of those supposed to be for kids have forgotten that and are trying - and failing - to appeal to grown ups.

Comics are just a window of possibilities. You can open this window and you can see anything on the other side. Just like books, just like movies, just like plays, comic books should - and will - go in every direction and tell all sorts of stories.

If it's not there yet, just wait.

And keep your eyes on the ball, as you don't want to be left behind.

Self-delusions of the artist.

You feel you can do anything. Doing comics, you feel like you can do anything. That's how powerful is the joy of the storyteller, of the guy who will create worlds for others to live in.

You think you can fly.

You believe you can be faster than a speeding train.

You can't see through wall.

It's even better.

You can see through people's souls.

A new look.

You can identify an artist by the way he looks at the world. Every story begins with a single look, which is the artist's, and it's his vision that will translate whatever world he sees fit to us, readers.

The images are words the artist will use to describe this world.

To tell his story.

new faces.

Today I start the new story. Not a very big one, neither very small. It's just the right size for what it's suppose to tell. All in all, each story should be measured for the moment it carries, not for the amount of pages it has.

As it's just the first page, I'm yet unfamiliar with the characters. They are strangers to me.

I hope to change that before the end of next week.

Talking a lot but saying very little.

The days are really flying before the San Diego Comicon. We're both drawing new stories and, aside from that, a really big number of projects are coming together quite nicely. Soon, we'll have something new and exciting to say.

Well, if you like comics, that is.

If you don't, chances are you're lost on the internet and ended up in some crazy brazilian twins' website. They talked funny and you stayed a while.

Maybe you'll be back some day.

Maybe I'll have something related to the crazy fashion week that's going on in Sao Paulo this week to share.

If you're lucky, maybe I'll show some new pictures.

I just checked out the previews page for Smoke and Guns.

Great way to begin my day.

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.