Another step, and the new breed. - another Rock'n'Roll story.


Rock'n'Roll was the first comic book my brother and I wrote together that others worked on the artwork as well. Before that, we only wrote for ourselves.

When we started self publishing our stories in Brazil, which basically means doing the "xerox, fold and staple" kind of publication, we did some fanzine with other artists, and we soon found out that everybody has a different attitude towards the work. We don't all work the same way, commit the same way, talk about your comics the same way and sell your work the same way. Sometimes, we felt we were working for others, and not with others, when we did a collaborative fanzine. And the differences between everybody involved was the reason all the fanzines we did with them stopped being made.

At that time, everybody did "everything": I wrote and drew my own story, Ba wrote and drew his, and so on. We were all complete creators, for good and for bad.

When we started the next fanzine, in 1997, we decided to do everything, and be responsible for everything, so we would not have anybody to blame. We kept doing everything, but we were the only ones in it. It was our comic, our name, our fault. It worked much better. And we really developed the working relationship between ourselves that to this day we can't find anywhere else.

But things change. We have grown into professionals of the comic book form, and professionals will eventually work with others, so we started talking about it with our friends. And then we made Rock'n'Roll.

Now, there's another thing about working together that's not as bad as different attitudes towards the work: you create an environment and a vibe that you share and that helps your work, that improves your work. We were all excited to be working together, to be seeing the other guy's artwork, his different view, his unique approach. We all wanted to do good, and it shows when you're reading the comic book.

. . .

Now this is something completely different, but since I mentioned it this morning to talk about my journey, here are other people in their journeys:

The Xeric Foundation has announced its most recent grant recipients. They'll receive a bunch of money and some free ads at some important comic book related magazines, as well as a good spot on the PREVIEWS catalog, and will get the attention to publish their independent comics. Let's hope they do well. Here they are:


They are

Catherine Hannah - Winter Beard
Lance Christian Hansen - Don't Cry
Melody Shickley - In the Hands of Boys
Albert Benjamin Thompson - HUSK

And congratulations for Melody, for actually having a website for people to go to in this internet age.

. . .

And to finish up for today, I notice some strange visitation coming from Image Comics' website, which just re-openned, and so I had to check out and discover they already have us listed there with both the Rock'n'Roll credit and the Casanova credit. Now I'll have to tell you all the stories about how I discovered Image Comics when I was a teenager reading comics. But that's for another day.

The ball drops- a Rock'n'Roll story.



I just realize that my Rock'n'Roll comic book is coming out from Image Comics in twenty days and that I haven't been talking about it non stop as I should be. I wonder why that is?

I know that, in the issue of previews it was solicited, it had a big preview (at least that was the impression I was given, as I never really saw the previews catalog), so it clearly should have grabbed people's attention there, mostly the retailers'. Hopefully, those retailers will order a good bunch of the book and everything will be alright, but it's never 100% safe in this world, is it?

Rock 'n' Roll is the closest thing my brother and I ever made to a perfect one shot comic book, it's the most fun idea we could come up with, with the most interesting characters we wanted to use, with the elements we all loved to read in comics as we were growing up.

It is also a big tribute to how much Mike Mignola changed the way we understood comics.

We came a long way since we saw the first issue of Roland - days of wrath go out into the world. Back then, we were completely unknown artists, self-publishing with a completely unknown writer from Santa Barbara, there was no big internet world to spread the word on your work, but since we had won the Xeric Foundation Grant, we had our share of media attention and we got some five thousand orders for the first issue, which to this day I think is a great start.

That was in 1999.

I wonder how many initial orders Rock'n'Roll will have.

the voice.

Today I did the first drawing for one of the projects I'll be working on next year. This will be the "I'm only the artist" project, as I plan to focus on writing more. I miss writing longer stories, as my last writing efforts were not longer than 10 pages of comics, but at the same time I don't want to hurry on the writing just so I have something new to draw. The artist must be drawing so his style stays fresh, so I can't stop. Not now, when I finally think that I do, after all, have a style.

Which is something I'm not so sure when it comes to my writings. I really should write more often to acquire, just as with the art, a sense of style and personal flavor. I feel that every time I start writing, it sounds and reads like the last thing I read, or just like somebody else. I remember feeling that I had a style, that I had a voice. Nowadays I feel like I mostly have a view.

That has to change.

automatic face.


I had plenty of ink on my brush after finishing one page today, so I did this drawing, without any preliminary pencil. It's my automatic Gunned Down drawing, mostly done on the inside of other people's copies, next to a nice dedication joke.

Not that they were any funny, my dedications.

But at least I tried.

I gotta get back to the next page. I have only two left, then the story is done.

Spreading like rats.


artwork by Fabio Moon, all rights reserved.

Comic books are a popular medium. Telling stories are popular, or at least they should be. They should be made for the people, and for as many people as possible.

We should find ways to spread our arms and reach out.

We should always do our best to tell the stories we have.

We should always keep going.

Rise and shine.

No sleep, just keep on dancing.



Dancers.

Done between three and four in the morning, for a job I thought I would hate. I didn't hate it, but I just lost an entire night of sleep to finish it.



Some drawings are ugly. At least, they're meant to be ugly, but in their ugliness they turn into something quite interesting.

Deep.

That's what you'll get after my hands ache because of how fast I had to ink.

I really need some sleep. I'll probably eat breakfast first. I really like breakfast, and I can make some mean fried eggs.

Hungry.

Green gun illustration.


illustration by Gabriel Ba, all rights reserved.

Here's a illustration Ba did for the biggest newspaper in Brazil. The story covered the upcoming election on whether or not selling guns should be prohibited in Brazil.

Black and white with flat colors. That's how Casanova will look like (with just one flat color instead of two), only that it will look completely different since Ba will draw stuff he never had to come up with before.

September Smoke.

Brian, that big Khepri.com guy, just wrote me a note to tell that Smoke and Guns was his top graphic novel of September. It's also nice to see my first american work, the Roland - days of wrath graphic novel, on the same top 10 list, and at number 3 no less. I think that maybe your current work do attract attention to your older work.

Today I shall finish my first set of super-heroes pages. I got delayed by some unexpected family matter, but the pages are now getting back on track. After all is said and done, I'll go back to this first swim to tell you about the fish and the wonders I saw at the bottom of the ocean.

Tapes.

Matt Fraction and Joe Casey talk about Casanova at their weekly Basement Tapes. The pitch, the bible, the choice of artist.

Interesting.

Ba is reading the first issue, Matt is writing the second, stuff is happening.

Interesting.

The monsters you have inside.


I was creating some monsters today. Not as easy as I thought it would be.

Riot.



Just a quick note on how cool that Riot comic book store looks. It makes a good impression on the ladies, that's for sure. My girlfriend, and my sister, would both be vary comfortable in that store, and they would even feel inclined to look at some comics.

It's not bad either that there's a Smoke and Guns poster in there.

Almost spring time.



Unlike the drawing I did today, which i did because it's very cold today, I'm happy. I feel like I'm moving forward, even if only slowly, and that I am, indeed, telling stories.

I did a wonderful page today.

My book is almost ready.

This just in:

I didn't want to create a post just for this, but it's well worth the read: Erik Larsen urging creators to create.

Search for the ARTIST.

other view of the same work.

Funny stuff I saw on the net. I feel like that sometimes, and I'm sure a lot of you also feel the same, so I thought I'd share.

So...

Do you want to see the first scripted pages of Casanova? It sure shows how Matt Fraction writes his comics. If you're interesting, click here.


I can't wait to see Ba drawing this thing.

Practice 6.



For a moment, I thought I was doing this little exercises for others to see what you have to attend to when doing a comic book. After I had fun with the first two ones, I realized that I was doing it for myself.

I'm the one practicing.

I'm the one learning.

You're just watching along the way as I go.

You should always practice. Even if you already have published work somewhere else, if you're not working on something that will make you use a specific kind of artistic muscle, this muscle will lose it's strength.

And the practice I'm doing is the only one we should never stop doing.

That's where the story is really told.

Practice 5.


I'm curious.

When and how did you decide to become what you are now?
When did you decide to become a doctor? A lawyer? A publisher?

Where were you, and what were you doing, when you realized that was the path you should follow?

Practice 4.



There's no easy way to comics. No matter how you get into comics, you'll always have to work hard. Even if you suck at it, you'll have to do it day in, day out, more days than you would want, more hours than you'd like.

Only working hard you'll get anywhere.

You'll fuck up a lot.

That's the only way you'll learn.


artwork by Fabio Moon.

One day late. Remember the mistakes of the past so you don't repeat them in the future.

Practice 3.


I wonder if this could be a trend and if it could spread. A also wonder if, this way, some artists who have no idea of what storytelling means will finally see the light.

I wonder if most people who dream of becoming comic book artists realize it's not a day in the park, it's a life sentence of never ending hard work.

Beaten.

artwork by Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba.

Fight the laziness. You might get a little bruised along the way, but it's worth it.

You'll see. With your good eye, at least.

Ouch.

Practice 2.


I should play more often with letters and sound effects. They can also be very graphic if used right.

Practice.


I've been thinking of doing something like this for a long time, and every time someone starting out complains to me that they only "write" comics and so they can't really show their work, I remember this idea.

Expect more of this soon.

The new wave.

sketchy artwork by Fabio Moon.

I'm doing this illustration about surf. I tried the "comic book approach", but it did not work. They want a single image with all the moves. You know, from the distance. Front view. Tiny little surfers on a big chunk of blue.

Boring.

Not so boring is the super hero script I just finished reading. Quite the opposite. Expect more on that soon, as I start working on these characters.

And, to continue our regular broadcast of reviews, click here for the latest one about Smoke and Guns.

One should have character.

artwork by Fabio Moon.

For me, all characters should look interesting. Everything in a comic book should look interesting. If I'm doing a ugly house, it must be an interesting looking ugly house.

Smoke and Guns has this one particular character which is not a "hot babe", called Big Peach. As it turns out, she's an important character to the story, for she's Scarlett's boss.

But Big Peach is not pretty. Nor is she young, or thin, or hot.

She's kinda old looking, and fat.

That's when you realize that it's not the outside of a person (or a fictional character) that makes this person interesting, it's the charisma this person has, it's the personality, the way this person approaches life and what this person has to say.

Big Peach doesn't say much, but there's plenty of attitude in her.

She was the most enjoyable character to draw on the book just because you could tell what was going on with her just by looking at her expressions and gestures.

Smoke and Guns is out and about by now. Ask for it at your local comic book store. Or buy it online. Or seek for it somehow. ANd, while you're at it, read this latest review of the book by Randy Lander.

Also, check out the Wizard "Secret Stach" featured Smoke and Guns review.

click on the image for a bigger version.

A girl to color my world.


artwork by Fabio Moon.

I guess I'm still drawing hot girls, if the script I'm reading is any indication.

I'm also reading another script. This is a bigger one. A Graphic Novel, if it gets made. I'm really hoping it does get made, as I'm liking it quite a lot. If it all works out (and a big part of me is leaning in that direction) I might be the artist on it.

The problem is, this story is so nice that I'm thinking this is the kind of story I want to do in color.

Process.
Inside the crazy mind of an artist.


artwork by Fabio Moon

I liked this one. It's just for an illustration, but I liked it. Perhaps I can later on create a story for her.

I wonder what's she thinking?

Is she waiting for somebody?

Is she thinking about the same person she's waiting for?

She's in trouble.

note to self: short sentences with good looking drawing are nice and fun.

First thought of the day.

Today, I'm reading this script.
I'm drawing it.
It has super heroes.
Who would have thought?

At least, it has girls in it.

Last days of August.

I'm finishing the last story Diana needs from me for the book we'll have next year. My brother is finishing his as well. As we always say, we truly work better when we're both working at the same time, and that's always in my mind when I think about the workload my brother will have with his new Casanova series. Apart from being just super fun for him, it's going to be a lot of hard work, so I better find myself some candy dandy job as well.

Job.

It's always funny when I talk about comics as job, mainly because almost everyone I know complains about their jobs.

Why should I complain about drawing?

About writing?

About creating the world my characters live in?

I wish more people had the same reaction to their jobs as I have with mine.

We would live in a happier world.

I just read this interview with Becky Cloonan, and it's amazing how it reads just the way she talks. Great interview with completely honest answers. And just sweet looking preview pages from both new projects she's doing: East Coast Rising and American Virgin.

I heard she's a red head these days. Suits her reputation better.

Pin up home work.

Today, I sent Matt the pin up for his coming comic book series, Strangeways, in which I was told I could do whatever I wanted as long at it had one of the two key elements from the series somewhere in the picture: horror (or at least one particular furry character of horror stories) and western.

Easy.

But why should I do the easier thing? Why should anyone do the easier thing? If it's not the best thing to do, there's no good point you could make to convince me to do the easier thing.

Do your best. Always. You never know who'll be watching, who will first get to know your work, or hear your name, because of that one pin up, or that one story. Everything you do reflects what you want and who you are.

Are you easy?

Well, I'm not. I like to give it my best, no matter what I do. So, if I'm doing a western pin up for a story that takes place in Colorado, I'm going to do some research on what I would find about Colorado in the past. Probably nothing I researched ended up on the picture (something did, but a lot did not), but you have more elements to play with if you do your home work.

The pal and the movie.

Dorian chose the very last image I did on Smoke and Guns to illustrate his review of the book.

Marc Mason's Should it be a MOVIE? also reviews the tale of Scarlett and the cigarette girls, concluding that it has all the elements of a box office hit.

Wouldn't it be nice if Smoke and Guns became a movie? If I could help peek the actresses in it, it would be even better.

The near and the not so near future.

So, I was looking around on the internet, checking out what's going on, when I come across the Image Solicitations for November. Imagine my surprise when I got to the fifth comic book on the list:


ROCK'N'ROLL (ONE-SHOT)written by FABIO MOON & GABRIEL BA art by FABIO MOON, GABRIEL BA, BRUNO D'ANGELO & KAKO cover by FABIO MOON
Romeo and Kelsie just want to go home, but life has other plans. Strange things happen all around in a story about that music that follows you wherever you go. When it comes to rock 'n' roll, you don't have to understand what they're saying to know what they're talking about.
November 16 o 32 pg o BW o $3.50

A short time before San Diego, we received an e-mail from Eric Stephenson asking if we wanted to publish our ROCK'n'ROLL comic book with Image, and we were thrilled, mostly because it brought back good memories.

When my brother and I first met Bruno and Kako (he was called Franco at that time), some fourteen years ago, Image comics was just starting and it was the dream of nine out of ten artists: do your own comic book, with your own characters, or just be a big fan-boy and draw whatever Jim Lee was drawing. For the four of us, Image comics was the first venue of artistic freedom we had contact outside the standard Marvel/DC hero comics, and we dreamed of someday working with them.

That dream came true.

Even more than we expected, since there's more tricks from the Image sleeve along with that rabbit:



This is an ad for a book coming out from Image next year, and you'll be able to see it in all it's glory on the back cover of Fell # 1 when it reaches stores in a few weeks.

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.