Thirty.

Yesterday was a great day. We're now thirty. We're now old.

I don't feel old, really. I have more energy than ever, as so many stuff is happening. For starters, we just got this on the mail.



Nice.

But now all.

We also received another package in the mail, the same day, as if they all knew.

Inside detail - Late for coffee

De:TALES comes out on wednesday. Because of that, I'll write something about some of the stories, and why this book exists.

I think that personal contact is important when you're trying to sell your work, your story and your art, but the story is, in the end, the most important point of the equation. No matter how many conventions I go, how many editors I meet, how nice or good looking I am, it's the quality of my story that will get the job done.

And that's exactly what happened.

My brother and I had met Diana Schutz when we finished Roland, as we gave her a copy of the story for her to read - and then for her to give to Frank Miller, who had also just finished 300. That was back in 1999 or 2000 (my brother remember these things better than me, but anyway).

A year later. we had Ursula to show, and she noticed how much better the art had gotten, but since it was only the artwork we were showing, the conversation could go only so far.

Back in Brazil, in 2001, after meeting her and so many other editors, we started working on other stories, and trying to come up with more serious ones. At the time, we were contributing to an brazilian anthology, and we focused our efforts into stories for the anthology. Out of that effort, we did Late for coffee.

I'm very proud of that one. It was probably the only time we completely divided roles, as I wrote everything without Ba's help, and he then drew the entire thing himself. We talked a lot during the process, which is one of the advantages of working side by side at the studio, and we found the best angle for every scene.

After we were done, we translated it and, alongside with the next story we did (Other Words), we sent it by mail to Diana Schutz. Some months later, we received an email from her

She had read it, and, aside from how much the art had improved, she was impressed about how much she liked the story.

The story.

That's the most important point of the equation, in my opinion.

But the art in this story is one of the most beautiful things Ba have ever done.

Makes you want to fall in love and makes you want to cry.

I noticed a detail or two just now.

If you click HERE, you can see the Dark Horse page for our beloved upcoming De:TALES, and I just noticed it contains a four page preview of our first story.

The book is coming out next week, and from there on, nothing will ever be the same.

We have been working with Diana Schutz to get this book out since 2002, so most of the stories we did since then are on the book. Now, with the release of the stories, we have only an open road to travel, in which new stories (yet un-written and un-drawn) will emerge.

GO! NOW!

The year is running fast and May is GONE!
What can YOU do? PRE-ORDER!

1- Freshly out of the tin box, 11 new pages from the up-coming 24seven anthology. Click on the link below and enjoy.
24SEVEN

Wanna see our 8 pages story for for this book? Click HERE.

Pre-order code MAY061717.

2- Ready for the action-fun-sexy super-spy event on black, white and green? Pre-order CASANOVA #1 NOW! While you're at it, do it for #2 and #3 and keep doing it.

7 pages preview of issue #1 HERE.

Pre-order code APR06 1763

3- These dudes can draw and they sure talk a lot about their work, but do they really know how to write? Find out what kind of stories the wonder twins ? us ? have to tell that make them so unique. Order your copy of De:TALES right NOW! It is going to run out, and then you can't blame me for not telling you beforehand.

Pre-order code MAR06 0038

What are you doing in front of your computers? GO! NOW!

Revolution, one, two, three.

Why should we try to follow someone's steps? Why should anyone? Shouldn't we all try to make our own decisions and tell our own stories?

New stories are on their way.

By us, at least, but I hope we have company. We're only two, and we need much more for the revolution that is coming.

(sometimes I walk the dramatic road and write like that. I'll come to my senses soon.)

More ROCK 'n' ROLL!

I wonder what would people think of more Romeo and Kelsie stories, and of more ROCK'n'ROLL goodness. We have been thinking of new stories with these characters, so now would be a nice time for the readers to say what they would like to see.

Wonder twins' plans

The weeks pass and the time for new comics is approaching. De:TALES is scheduled to hit shops in two weeks, and it's supposed to look beautiful as hell. It's the work we're most proud of, and in two weeks people will see why.

Casanova will follow shortly, showing us and the world how fast an artist improves just by working every day on comics. Ba has become an amazing force of nature of an artist, and Casanova is the perfect vessel for his transformation.

We cannot stop. Not now, when stuff is actually happening, or ever. But specially now, we must put our twins heads together and come up with exciting new ideas, new projects, new stories. If we had projects waiting a perfect time to begin, now is the time. As good a time as ever, but now we cannot go back.

We're standing at the edge.

We're looking down.

One.

Two.

Three.

JUMP!

Casanova's roll call.

If you CLICK HERE, you can read yet another big interview with Matt Fraction about the soon-to-be-released Casanova, and you'll find out more about each character of the story, about the joys of this kind of story and you can get to the nice part when Matt's compliments the giant skills of the awesome brazilian power that is Gabriel Ba.

Issue three is awesome, by the way.

Plenty of images on the above link, but if you're not satisfied and want some candy right here, than I guess I have just the thing for you.

Ba just finished a cover for a newspaper special here in Brazil, about The Lord of the Rings. There's a double spread inside, but I'll save that for another occasion.

Around Comics review.

Oh yeah, the art. For anyone not familiar with Gabriel Ba?, I suggest you remember his name. While his brother Fabio Moon was the first choice for this book, it is obvious Gabriel was meant for it. His fluid lines, wonky perspectives, and ability to go from funny to scary to sexy to weird, in the same panel, are not only perfect for this title, but absolutely necessary. I can think of few other artists that have the skill to pull off a story like this. And much like the story itself there are deliberate influences aplenty, the likes of Kirby, Steranko, Toth and others. Yet, at the same time Ba? takes chances and experiments not only with the format but with basic sequential storytelling techniques.

Click above to read the rest, or just enjoy the page below.

You got to love this page.

Boom today.

artwork from Smoke and Guns

A bomb exploded today at a subway station. Other station was shot with guns.
More than10 buses were set on fire.
The bus lines have shut down.
The subway have shut down.
The trains have shut down.

Everybody went home early.

Schools are closed.

Not everything you hear is true, but I'm sure everybody around here is scared.

Should we love comics?

Should we love comics?

Yes, we should. We can read all the comics we'd like, and there'll always be more, such is the energy behind every creator working (or willing to work) on comics. More than movies or books, comics can reach all corners of the imagination, mixing visual experimentation, creativity control (and decontrol) and artistic freedom.

Should we love comics?

Yes, we should. Comics makes us laugh, Comics makes us cry. We fall in love with characters we want to meet and introduce to our parents. If we create comics, we create experiences that will reach other people and those experiences will become a part of those people's life FOREVER. Even if your story suck, and specially if it doesn't. We're all sharing a world in which we create the rules, we break them, we make people believe they can trust us their hopes.

We're trusting them our dreams.

Should we love comics?

Yes, we should. The stories told are stories lived in everybody's minds. Now we're all friends, we all belong to the same community. Now we only care about the stories we read on comic books, and we forget that the world has such bad writer to come up with so much tragedy, disgrace and greed. Those people never read enough books, enough comic books, to know that all material things will become dirt and vanish after you're gone, and those things won't remember you if they are the things you care about. The only thing worth caring about are our friends and our loved ones and our family. They're the ones worth remembering. They'll remember you. Write for them. Write for yourself. Write for someone to read, instead of writing for someone to buy.

Should we love comics?

Yes, we should.

shout out for the brazilian illustrator!

I inked this drawing from a published piece by my friend Gustavo Duarte, who's a great brazilian illustrator I'm trying to convert to inking with a brush.

Casanova previewed!

CLICK HERE to see the first seven pages of the first awesome issue of Casanova, the new (hell, the FIRST) monthly book drawn by Gabriel Ba.

Lots of action! Lots of girls! Lots of fun!

If you haven't ordered this book yet, go to your comic book store and give them the order code: APR06 1763

While you're at it, give them the order code for De:TALES as well: MAR06 0038

Beginning in June, the comic book world will be pure brazilian twins paradise, so don't miss out on this bus!

More Comics

I'm not drawing enough comics. That's the truth. It's kind of sad, actually, but it's how things are right now.

The positive side of this harsh reality is the fact that I'm not drawing shitty comics for money. After the pages were ready and the money got paid (and spent), I would be left with nothing but shitty comics, so I'm glad I'm not doing those right now.

A friend of mine did this character's design and I decided to that a crack at it and do my version of his design. As much as the final drawing was still miles away from good, it was really fun to draw something that was not so "real" and ordinary. I really like to draw strange fantastic stuff, even if it's not what I like to write about.

What do I like to write about?

That's a question I ask myself every time I have to start a story, and since my last efforts at that have been short stories, I tend to get to this starting point more often than not. I guess I'll always ask this question.

And I'll probably spent the rest of my life creating stories to figure out the answer.

first CASANOVA review.

Ian Brill wrote the first review of CASANOVA #1 on his blog, with no big spoiler.
Click here to read it.

Cover up.

At a certain point, at the beginning of the year, I was going to be the Casanova cover artist, for no other reason than to work with my brother in some way on this project. I love doing covers, if they don't quite turn out the way I wanted. I'm always learning and, sometimes, I have an idea for a cover and don't have the skills to pull it off.

I think the first problem I faced trying to do the cover was the fact that I haven't read the script and, as much as I know most cover artist do not read the actual script, I felt I wasn't really familiar with the story. I had a notion of what the story was about, but had no idea how complex it was, and I chose cool elements from the story for the cover, but they didn't actually had a real importance to the story.

Another problem was a choice of style. Cover art is not internal art, and I really wanted to try something different. I wanted the picture to look like an art poster, like a painting, like a sketchbook drawing, like a movie poster, I don't know, but it shouldn't look to me like a sample from the inside art. That's where I failed completely, as my lack of technique created a hybrid drawing, neither artistic or comic-book like, and certainly not worth of a cover.

The positive note of my tale is, of course, the decision my brother made to do the covers. Seeing how I was not really going anywhere decent with my cover, he decided to do it himself, and do it better - much better. Not trying to be some kind of artist he's not, but still reinventing his art for the covers, he created already three Casanova covers, and they totally rock!

My brother used to say he didn't liked to do covers, and that he didn't know how to make a good cover.

It took me a very bad cover for him to see how wrong he was.

Forse e perche siamo gemeli...

Our stories are told to the world. As much as we think about our life when we create our tales, our life isn't that much different from the life of others, no matter where they live and what language they speak, so we know that, as long as we deal with people, feelings, emotions and relationships, our stories will travel far and find someone who likes them in every corner of the world.



This week, we received our italian copy of Autobiographix. Slightly bigger in shape than the american edition, the book of real stories from this great team of cartoonists has now a new language, and the same characters have now learned new words.

24seven.

My brother and I love New York. It is, by far, the closest we found that feel like Sao Paulo, our hometown. A city that never sleeps, where you can find the most different people, from the most unusual places, and where people work hard and meet and make things happen. Our kind of place, that's for sure.

When we were asked to be a part of an anthology of stories set in NY, we were really excited, and then we heard there was a bonus: NY with ROBOTS. How could we say no to that? Even if we could find some impossible reason to decline the kind offer, there was still the company in which we would be in case we were to be in fact part of this work. And, as much as it was an honor to be in the same book with Frank Miller and Will Eisner in Autobiographix, so it is now to be in the same book with Becky Cloonan and Eduardo Risso, the most talented artists working today, and also our friends. There's no saying no to that.



Today, the first official press release went out at Newsarama, offering as an preview one of the short stories from the book, and what was my surprise as I discovered which story it is there for the world to see. Click here for the Newsarama preview of the book, which features none other than our robot story.

This sweet baby will be out in July, in time for the San Diego COMICON, so grab your copy and go to San Diego to get it signed by us.

Together.

The best thing about working with my my brother is exchanging ideas all the time. The excitement we're always getting when we have a good idea is doubled as the other also likes the idea one has.

We have been coming up with a lot of new stories and it feels great to create.

I now remember why I want to do this for the rest of my life. Sometimes, I forget.

But I remember now.

Women on the cover sell more books.

So...

Fabio tells me I'm not contributing a lot with this blog. He tells me I gotta say more things, write more texts, show more images. Fabio tells me I'm gonna be a star and people will come here to see what I have to show. Well, I don't know about that, but lets try to show some stuff, then.

As you might have seen all over the web now, the cover for the second issue of Casanova is out there. So I decided to show 3 steps of its production.

1. The layout - I did a small sketch and scanned it to try on the colors and the logo. Note the resemblance with the first cover: purple figure, with orange elements over a white background.



2. The B&W art - I just love black and white. Don't you?



3. The final version - so, those "feathers" on her back were not working and the white cover has already been done on issue #1, so I tried the black background and it actually worked a lot better, making the main character pop up. Black is your friend, it is what I always say.



I am keeping my palette restricted to the oranges and purples for now, because I want all these covers to have this unity. Although the covers have to work for every single issue, I want people to realize it is all part of a bigger story.

So, I hope you like these images, 'cause I don't know when I'll be back here again.

Who's reading?


I often think about who reads what is in here. Chances are that, after the first issue of Casanova comes out, more and more people will end up here, but still we already have some visitors and they - you - are quite shy.

Don't be.

Here's a question: From what you already heard, saw and read, what do you think of Casanova?

A present for a friend.

A just made this drawing for a friend, and since I did the water-colour version on a different sheet of paper, I had various stages (three, actually) of the same image to show. So I'm going to show them here.

First, there's the thumbnail, where the idea just born in put down on paper so it won't get lost.

After that's done, and after the idea is approved by my brother (just because we were going to share the present), I went to pencil it. I usually do very loose pencils, but not completely messy. If I were going for just a black and white piece, I would ink it on top of the pencil, using the same paper, and then later I would just erase the pencils that were still visible.

This being a coloured piece made me use my light-box to "clean" the pencil on a different piece of paper.

I coloured the drawing first, then I went over the colours with my brush and inked it. I something ink before colouring, but I find it that, this way, the colours end up leaving the black "less" black. Dirty black, so to speak.


We (my brother and I) are huge fans of black and white comics. However, I have to admit that sometimes it's very nice to play with colours. Specially if your making a drawing to give as a gift to a child.

Small fiction.

"Do you know what day is today already?" , the brother asked his twin.

"I know. we're taking too long", replied the twin.

"We're probably gonna blow our chance", they both thought at the same time, in silence, afraid that, if they said it out loud to one another, they would be done with and all would be over.

"It was a nice day", one of the twins thought. They were both looking at the sky, and they were walking close to one another, so it was really hard to tell their thoughts apart. "Today's a good day for new stories" was something that came out from one of the twins heads. "That girl coming our way is kinda cute" was another. Many other ideas were thought that afternoon, and for a moment they were good ideas, but somehow, by the end of the day they all seemed silly. The twins called it a day when a dog barked at them from a fence. It was such a small dog which considered so little of the two brothers that they realized they weren't in very good shape to impress anyone.

"We'll think of something tomorrow", said the brother to his twin.

"But... Do you know what day's tomorrow already?", replied the twin.

Working.


Sketchbook drawing to leave this place alive while I'm still working on some boring storyboards.

LET'S ROCK THIS PLACE!

Over at the ENGINE, I've started this discussion about how much do artists leave on their pencils to be completed on their inks. I do that a lot, and some others seem to do it also. It's very interesting to see different pencils and even more different inks.

The picture above is a great page from Smoke and Guns and, as you can see, a lot of the light and shadow work on the background was done straight with the brush. There was no reason to do all that twice, now was there?

One gesture.



I love how expressive thumbnails can be. If you can narrow down gestures in a few small lines, you'll know your drawing will work when you actually do it.

. . .

Ba and I have been thinking about what to do next. Mini-series, graphic novel, one-shot, mini-comics... we don't really know yet. We have until next week to come up with a good idea for a short story, and that has been the main subject on all our conversations.

We have been looking for our cheat tickets to San Diego for SDCC, but so far the tickets are not that cheap. Since we already know where we're staying, the plane ticket is the only remaining detail left.

Well, that and to get there already knowing what to do next.

before we close for the day.



Here we have the pencil art and the inked version, side by side. I have planned to paint the background black from the start, but it's good to see how it works and how it really bring the characters up on the viewer's eyes. The black background frames the characters nicely.

I ink with a brush. The Winsor & Newton series 7 number 2 brush, which is a rather expensive brush, if you ask me. But there's just no equal. I've tried, and I keep trying, different brands and types of brush, and what I can achieve with one single brush is just incredible. In the end, it pays off to buy this brush.

Ba inks with those disposable ink pens, which he's great at (and is always improving), but that's no brush. We've been talking about finally trying to do something in which he pencils and I ink, instead of just collaborating on the story. It surely will look nothing like we have made before, and we'll finally be able to say we had a third twin brother that also writes and draws, but was kept secret since his birth, just working and eating some strange tropical brazilian fruits from inside our basement (which we don;t have, but we would if we had a third twin brother) . He grew up to be quite a strange twin, pale and silent, and his art style was unique and yet similar to both his brother's works. His first work would be no longer than 10 pages long. His next story, however, would have more than a thousand pages.

Faced with such a talent, we would again hide our third twin brother on the basement and keep doing comics just the two of us, at our own rather slow pace.

To begin the day.



This was the way yesterday ended, actually. Ba was doing the colors on some Casanova pages and I was working on some storyboards. It was well past midnight and we were tired. I decided it would be better to go to sleep, but not before capturing that strange moment working side by side in the middle of the night.

I was going to ink it this morning, but I decided (just after beginning to ink that face) to show some pencil work here. My work looks so much different when it's inked - which is okay with me, I like that way - that I realized this was a good example of how many decisions I make only when I'm inking.

Later on the day, I'll post the inked version. I just have to do some more storyboards first. Before that, I must have some lunch.

Must. Have. Lunch.

I drew one of the stories on this anthology. Most of the fun was trying to draw in a more "horror comic" style, with a lot of blacks, a lot of mood and a lot of zombies. I'm not sure I did so well regarding the amount of zombies, but the ones that do show up looked great. The second page is my favorite and the last page has the best zombie I ever did.

With the undead out of the way, I can go back to love stories, fantastic realism and the fairy tales of modern life.

. . .

Out this week is the new book by Becky Cloonan, East Coas Rising. I can't wait to see it, and none of you should wait anymore either. She's a great talent and I want to read everything she does.

The middle of the road.


First, you have nothing to show. You start out just because you want to tell stories. Maybe you want to draw them, maybe you just want to write them. Maybe, just like my case, you want to do both. Either way, you start from scratch.

Notebooks are filled with drawings, characters you're so eager to create, to draw and show the world. Most of them are drawn only once, without any story behind them. They were made because you start out making everything you want to make at the same time.

We all start out of control. Control is not a very artistic thing, one may think when picture him or herself as an artist-to-be.

You then realize that you have started more stories than you'll ever be able to finish in about one week, so you probably give them all up and start from scratch once more on new stories you think you'll be able to finish. Eventually, you finish your first story.

And it sucks.

I don't care if my first story did suck, I did it from beginning to end and I was proud of it. You should be, too. But, if it really did suck, I had to do better the next time. And so should you.

That's what I did. I hope.

Many stories later, you'll find yourself in the middle of the road. And that's when you realize you're not waiting for it to happen anymore. It's already happening. Wait no more. You're waiting thing to begin, maybe you're waiting things to end, but you're never waiting things to continue. They continue if you continue. You have to carry on on your own, for yourself, or it will all be over.

The middle of the road is the place where you'll find yourself an artist. You can either be the artist you became, or you can be someone else. Those are the paths, but you have to follow those paths, and not wait for them to follow you.

Life follow the ones who walk, not the ones who keep still.

Out.

I saw this on The Engine and it made me smile.

As long as it takes.

Some times I worry I'm not telling enough stories.

Which I'm not.

Then, I think that I rather be telling good stories, even if they take a long time to come out in the open. A good story lasts forever. That's worth all the time I have.

So I wait. The time for each story will come.

Differences.


Everybody looks different, and that's the best part about drawing people. When it comes to drawing, there's no such thing as "ugly" people. They're all "interesting". Most of the times, the more "abnormal" the person, the better, which just means that these people have more personality in it's features.

Maybe that's why drawing girls is so hard. Their soft skin and delicate faces are so hard to do and still mold to the emotion you're trying to convey. A wrong line can turn your princess into an old witch, or even worse, into a man.

But I love drawing girls.

And, if there is just one reason why I ink with a brush, it's to ink women.

End of the day, end of the story.



It's five in the morning and I'm wide awake since yesterday. I just finished my new story and, as the tradition I started with Smoke and Guns must continue, I worked on my last day on this story wearing my best suit.

I'm not sure when this new story will be published, or in what language it will come out first, but it sure feels great to be done with all the pages.

Off we go to more and more stories.

Oh, and since Casanova will be ON THE COVER of this month's PREVIEWS for books arriving in June, I think it's okay to show it to you the way it will come out.



I answered some questions for Publishers Weekly also, but I'm starting to gat sleepy and can't trust my fingers anymore, so no more typing today.

The spy and the fat hero.

the Image Comics solicitation for comics shipping in June is up on the net. There, you will finally find the solicitation for the first issue of Casanova, along with the first cover.

Which is this:



Two articles down on the main page (for now, as the internet moves so fast), you'll also find a preview for a comic book called Planetary Brigade, written by Keith Giffen and J.M DeMatteis. It's like their own Justice League. It's published by Boom! Studios.

Oh, and I'm one of the artists in it.

It's the first time I ever drew super heroes outside of my childhood's sketchbooks, and I did it out of curiosity. What would a script from Keith Giffen look like? How would I handle super heroes, action and those strange clothes? Could I do the pages no matter what I thought about the story, about the characters, about the book?

I mostly do my own stories, which means I mostly draw stories I believe in. I tried before to be just the artist and, in most cases, my art suffered a lot just because I didn't quite liked the stories I was drawing. One of the consequences of that was my giving up on trying to do the super heroes I grew up reading. I just didn't like the stories anymore, it all went too stupid and too different from the way I read it as a kid, that I felt I wouldn't like to draw those characters in such idiotic scripts.

Things chance and people grow. I still don't think I'm the kind of artist who can draw every story and make it look awesome, and I'm still pretty sure super heroes are not for me, but I can now work on somebody else's book without a sweat. Smoke and Guns, as much as I enjoyed it, wasn't my story, but I think I did a pretty good job in it. And I did it fast. After Smoke and Guns, I did not have any more problems finishing one page a day, at least. There was a pleasure hidden in working on somebody else's story, a challenge all it's own. "How will I make this work?"

Drawing other people's stories will make you a better artist, for it will make you draw things you wouldn't draw normally, just because you tend to write your stories having in mind what you already know how to draw. When you drawing for others, you have to draw the most unimaginable things.

That's the best part of it.

Planetary Brigade was work for hire. I was paid to do the pages, I received the scripts and I did the pages. I didn't create any characters (except for the monsters with wings, but they all die) and I didn't suggest anything regarding the script. I think the pages turned out okay as well, and it was very strange to see other people coloring my pages and lettering them. I'm very used to being a one-in-all kind of guy, and that was something new (or, at least, something that had not happened since 1999 when I finished Roland).

Here's one page.



You're always learning. You should never stop, or you'll be forgotten. Time waits for no men.

Neither do women. If you're stuck, they'll move on.

Everybody gotta keep dancing.

Let's tell more stories now, shall we?

Favorite subject.



Continuing our never ending study of the woman's form, here are more studies done by my brother for an upcoming issue of Casanova. Probably, none of these poses will be in the actual book, but it's always nice to get the hand warmed up on the smoothness of the woman's body before creating your characters out of thin air.



This week, it's all about the comics. I'm finishing the new story we're doing, Ba is doing Casanova and we have to start thinking of a new short story for an anthology. And we're already making plans for San Diego, or at least trying to find cheap plane tickets.

Day of the woman.


Every day, the woman is queen. Even if she doesn't know it.
Today is the day to remind her she's beautiful.

Raw words.
Read yourself RAW, which seems to be a virtual magazine, has some small words for our De:Tales book. After you're done with the small words, then you can go and read all the Alan Moore related articles in there as well.

Sketch.

I'm doing a new story, and I've made some sketches before I started. This is one. I'm pretty much doing two pages every day, and the story should soon be done.

Things would be much simpler if we didn't have to make money all the time and could just create stories for the joy of creation, and for others to read.

They won't understand.


It feels great to finish a comic book and start the next.
It's like nobody can touch you.
You're in the zone.
You hear the music.
You live the life.

And the work begins once more.


Ba started working on Casanova 2 today.