I'm not here right now.

artwork by Gabriel Ba.

CASANOVA #1 is DONE!

And it will make the cover of April's Previews, of books shipping in June.

Research

We have been drawing a lot. Maybe that's why we don't have more time to write anything decent around here. There's a downside to that, but stories are being made. That's the most important thing.

To show some images, let's just say that my brother Gabriel does a lot of visual research. He loves creating worlds and loves to portray worlds that already exist.

In the spirit of the forthcoming New York convention, and to wish my friend Joe Prado good luck on his frst trip to the big apple, here are some sketches Ba did for the story we just finished that happens in NYC.







Still to come: from the thumbnail to the finished colored page.

Color.



This week, I have to finish the colors on our NYC Mech story. Last week was crazy busy with the last minute storyboard, and so this week I shall do the remaining pages.

It's looking really good so far. The best coloring I'd ever done.

I'll try to write up a step-by-step of part of it when I'm done, to show here.

Even if no one is looking.

Also, my brother and I have just come up with a new story for brazilian publication. We had the beginning already, but today we sat in front of each other and ping-ponged ideas until we had the whole thing plotted.

It's going to be big.

Nameless, as of right now, but that will change when the pages start to pour (I'm not sure I can say this that way and get my point across, but I'm brazilian, I can write weirdly).

We have been drawing stories other people have written for some time, specially for the american market, but what we really like to do is to tell our own stories. That's why we decided to do comics: to be storytellers.

We have some things to say, and we learned to draw so we could show those things.

...

Yesterday, we had a long conversation on the phone with Diana Schutz, our editor at Dark Horse, about our upcoming book De:TALES. She made a lot of notes about the order of the stories, about the cover and about the design of the book. We could see that she had spent a lot of time actually reading our stories and thinking about what would be best in one book, and that's what an editor should do: see what works for the book and what doesn't. And tell you why.

She told us all the whys she had for our book.

And she told us we're in very good shape.

The book should be on PREVIEWS shortly.

e-mail.
I'm testing sending off post via e-mail. I'm not sure if that will fasten my side of things, or if I'll post more, but I thought it couldn't hurt to do this test. Lots of comics on our table this week. But then a storyboard comes and I feel a wreck. It's two in the morning and I'm going to sleep, should be up at nine.

While I'm sleeping, you should read this: Paul Pope is shortly interviewed in Wired. If there's a guy nowadays to always keep an eye on, this guy is Paul Pope.

This week.



Doing comics is fun. It's like something inside of you is just set on fire, and you become somebody else when you're doing it. Or maybe you become yourself when you're doing comics, and that's why it's so hard to do anything else after you tasted the sweet flavor only comics can give you.

I did a story with my brother for an NYC mech anthology book. It was a blast, and my share of the work so far was only coming up with the story together with him. He did the artwork (and took a break from Casanova for that) and now I'm back on the job to color the story.

I'll just say this. NY is fun to draw.

Corto.



Pin up by Gabriel Ba for an exhibition about Hugo Pratt's most famous character, Corto Maltese. If you don't know the artist or the character, than you simply don't know good comics.

Vive le mode.


sketch by Gabriel Ba.

Yesterday we did something a little different from usual. We were invited to cover a fashion show. To document the backstage, to draw the girls, the clothes and the beautiful park the show took place.


sketch by Gabriel Ba.

We were there for hours, and it certainly was a different experience from the previous times we saw a fashion show, sitting on a chair inside a room with heavy air-conditioner.


sketch by Fabio Moon.

It's good to have to draw very fast. You have to make a lot of choices regarding which lines you'll include and which ones you'll leave out. You have to learn how to watch and how to translate what you see into simple figures.

Here, there's no time for the drawing made of shapes. No balls, squares, triangles. Here, we're following lines. We're following walking lines, actually.

They're pretty to look at.

Too young and too thin, tho.


sketch by Fabio Moon.

today's girl.


The same, yet different.

Every day, there's something to do.

Back in 2004, we were thinking about doing some animation. But we had to worry about the comics, so we just dropped it.

We made this test.

It looks awful.

Numbers.


The top 300 comics sold in December of 2005 are here, according to Diamond, and ROCK'nROLL is there at # 270.

I guess this is the second time my brother and I make this list. Since the first was when we worked on Autobiographix, I guess the fact that the book had a Frank Miller story, a Will Eisner story and a bunch of other stories from famous creators was the major factor for the sales that time around. This time, I'm pretty sure at least some three or four people ordered the book because it had my name in it. And then another couple of people ordered it because my brother was in it.

And the other three thousand people just love rock and roll.

Talking about the first new book for 2006


Matt Fraction talks about Casanova a little bit more in this Publishers Weekly article.

As the first issue proceeds at Ba's drawing board, jaws drop here at the studio. Unlike anything he has done before, this stuff is gorgeous.

For some time, the twins that write you these lines were worried that every comic book we worked on where the script was done by somebody else would lose some of the energy we put in it, just because it would be a story we didn't create, a subject not close to our own hearts.

Smoke and Guns was my test regarding this matter. The story of our beloved cigarette girl would never have come from my mind, and yet I enjoyed doing it immensely, and I think it shows on the page. And I never lost the enthusiasm, averaging two pages a day on the last leg of the work.

Now it's Ba's turn. More challenging than my choice of material, Ba is doing it monthly. Only time will tell how it will look after three or four months, but by the look of it right now, this is going to be great.

And also...

Smoke and Guns made the top five list of comics of 2005 acording to the Comic Treadmill blog. It's nice to be remembered, even if by a blog (or a guy writing one, anyway).

GUNNED DOWN in this month's PREVIEWS.


When you're doing an anthology, you feel like you're not working alone, even if you are. Your story becomes part of a bigger whole, just like you're entering a train with a bunch of other artists and you can't control exactly where this train is going.

Weird things can happen when you work with a lot of people at the same time.



In case you missed the first time around, and I'm sure a lot of people did miss it, Terra Major solicited Gunned Down in this month's PREVIEWS (to be available at your comic book store in March). This is a western anthology with a lot of artists and a lot of stories. Ten stories, to be exact. And did I mention that all the artists are brazilians?

Well, they are.

This is the book Ba worked on last year. While I was doing Smoke and Guns, he was doing a indian story 41 pages long in this anthology. And I already said a lot about how great it looks, so you'll have to order the book to check it out. I also have a short story in it. With pistol duel and everything.

For the curious, here's one image.


And here is another.


Terra Major is not a big publisher. In fact, it's very small, very independent, and it really needs the support of the readers who basically don't read the books because they don't know the books exist.


Gunned Down
order code for comic shops:
[ JAN063250 ]
(it's on page 316 of the catalog, if you're going to look for it.)

One year Later.



Yesterday marked the first year without Will Eisner.

How have we behaved in our field to honor his absence? What have we done to distinguish ourselves the same way he always did, the same way he expected his peers to behave? How did we survive the loss of the first and greatest life master of our profession?



We kept working. Creating, writing and drawing. If we never stop telling stories, if we never stop trying to touch others with our worlds, our characters and the emotions we put in everything we do, then his legacy will continue and we will do him justice.

Take your job seriously.

Love what you do.

Be the best you can, and expect nothing less from yourself and others.

Try to make this world a better one.

Keep working.

Keep living.

And find love.

The future of comics.



My brother and I were born in 1976, so 2006 was one of these years we would always look upon with wonder, being the year we would turn 30. What would we have accomplished? What would we still have to do, to discover, to create? Who would we be?

I know now that, to be a comic book creator, you have to create. Above all, you must have this urge to create, to tell stories and to create worlds. To make people see what you're thinking, and to make them think as you do it.

This year, I want to create more than I ever created before.

I want to reach as many people as I can, but if I can make one person think about life, about love, about being in the now, than all the work I have is working.

Even if I'm not getting rich doing it.

Why get rich, anyway? All rich people I know work less and less, and all I want to do is work more and more.

I want to do comics. My brother wants to do comics.

That's what we're doing in 2006.

It all about the attitude.

Good year for all of you, a year that will be about doing and being all the things we were always saying.

15000.

We just hit 15000 visitors.

This is the time to say some final words for this year.

Thanks for the readers who discovered us in 2005. And to those who remained from the previous years. and for those who are yet to come, thanks in advance.

I'm six pages into the zombie story, Ba is in full swing doing Casanova. Since it's the first time we try anything in a monthly schedule, we're yet to find out how it will affect the final look of the pages. So far, it looks great and it's only getting better. Not without it's bumps on the road, but that's pretty much every story. Creating is a complicated thing.

We never made so much comics as we did in 2005. And so far, 2006 looks like a pretty busy one.

One can hope, at least.

Thanks for watching and see you all next year.

Opinion.

Here's a quick opinion about someone who read ROCK 'n' ROLL. Scroll down a little, this guy reads a lot of comics.

Run down for the next two weeks.

We have been working crazy around here. On an feature animation project. All to be delivered by the end of the week. It's a lot of work.

And then there's Christmas.

And in between Christmas and New Year's, there's that zombie story I was warming up to do. The script was a little late, but it came, and I"m having fun doing the thumbnails. The actual pages should be equally interesting.

And then it's 2006.

Kind of sad looking.

More new characters. That's the only thing we seem to be doing these days. At least, that's how I feel. And the hardest part of it is to make sure all these characters - regular people, all of them - don't look generic. They're not the crowd, they're it. Once you see them surrounded by other people, they're the interesting ones, the ones you're suppose to look at, the ones who actually have something to say, even if it's something uninteresting and boring.

Because boring people say boring stuff.

No sitting around.



We have been really busy. Which is good, if you ask me. I rather have one hour of free time every day than just one hour of work done. I can really enjoy my free time if it's a rarity. And I really love my job.

So we have to finish some pages for next week. Ba has, not me. But we're a team around here, so I'm using the plural to keep him happy. To keep us happy.

Also, a cover needs doing.

Out of thin air as of right now.

I'll try to help as much as I can, but it's his show and I'm only enjoying the show from a safe, yet near, distance.

We're planning on drawing some 80 pages before the end of January, between him and myself, and some of it in color!

Right now, we're just happy that ROCK'n"ROLL is out and about in this world, meeting new friends. It's like we had a big baby to go with our smaller brazilian baby, and now we have twins. One is a bit bigger, but they're both beautiful.



It's a nice way to finish the year, and a great way to start on the next one. About the latter, it's going to be a killer.