Momentum.

I was talking with Grampá over the weekend and we made some very important decisions concerning the special comic book we're planning for San Diego this year. I still have to check all this out with Becky and Vasilis, but I guess they'll be just as excited as we are. I'm very happy to see Grampá's enthusiasm over doing comics at last, and that's the kind of people you should have at your side if you can when you're going after your dreams. Likewise, Becky and Vasilis share this kinetic energy on their personal projects, one that sometimes gets lost on other endeavors, and one that should be nurtured and watched closely. I know a lot of people who want to do comics, but just a few that really love to create them. Becky was one of the first I met, and she introduced me to Vasilis. And, once Bá and I met Grampá, all fell into place and it was just a matter of time until we decided to do something together. Here we are, trying to capture this momentum, this time in all our lives where we simply love what we do, and we do it the best we can.

Before all that, I have to finish my robot story.

I've been drawing at a much slower pace than usual, and that's not what I originally planned, but at the same time that got me much more time to think about my future projects - or the ideas I have and the hope they'll become future projects. Risking to spend more time on the future than o the present, I can't help but to feel happy that I'm doing comics, I'm creating stories and I have friends to do all these things with.

And I work everyday with my brother. That alone is a priceless experience, one that I can't describe and that you wouldn't believe me if I did.

Umbrella factor.

Gerard Way and Scott Allie talk about the first Umbrella Academy comic, debuting on FCBD, showing some of Bá's artwork. Since big publishers try to save their news to "break" them at conventions, I already expected NYCC to have this one. Here's one sentence I liked, from Scott:

"The way we generate pages has been that Gerard and I work out the script with a certain amount of back and forth and discussion, then that goes on to Bá, and he does real rough layouts. We give him feedback on that, some notes, maybe ask for some layouts to be redone but not much, then he goes straight to inks. With other artists, I'd want to see pencils before inks, but Bá's process is so organic, it only makes sense for him to go straight to inks… he gets this stuff intuitively, and brings so much style and character to it."

Ballet.

Drawing is like dancing, an art, and, like dancing, everybody can do it.

To dance well, just like drawing well, comes from practicing, but there's also those who have that something else already on them, those who catch faster. Art is in each one's point of view, in what we bring and carry, in what we show, be it your "point of view", your "opinion", your "something extra". Call it talent if you will.

Comics are more than just drawing. It's more than just dancing, it's like an performance, where there's an structure, a choreography that leads the eye and goes through the music, the story, and various elements must be combined to build the picture you want during the performance.

You'll learn, during the music of your story, the steps of this choreography, you'll improvise along the way, you'll come to trust your partner (your art), your colleagues, yourself. Once you trust yourself, you stop worrying about what you're capable and then the challenge of what's the next step begins.

There's a new music beginning, and I wonder who are we going to dance with next.

Carnaval

Did you ever wondered "what does it look like at the twins studio"? Wait no more and check it out. Even if all those pictures are two weeks old and now the studio looks completely different (messier) and so do we (we look prettier, if that's at all possible).

And while I'm still in storyboard hell, my robot story is waiting. Looks like I'll have work to do during Carnaval, all of that so I'm fresh and free to begin my project with Matt Fraction after that. Good thing I have a drawing board at the beach.

Set up after a set back.

Looking through some old stuff, I found the thumbnail sketches from another story I haven't done yet. It's was very inspirational to look at those thumbnails and realize I wanted to know what happened next on every turn of the page. That story wasn't abandoned at the time (it was, but not on purpose, as I got another project that had to be done right away and took me six months of last year) and I realized it's still the kind of story I want to tell. If I can handle that story as well as my next project, I might be able to finish it before my next birthday. We'll see about that as the days go by. Right now, it's all about robots.

Except that, right RIGHT now, the robots are waiting. I got an advertising agency call yesterday and had to do something for today, but it's done already, but in the middle of yesterday's new job, I got another call from a big brazilian magazine asking for another job for wednesday, so that's what I'll do now. I expect to at least ink the page I did yesterday today, to keep things moving - and because I just want to do a little comics every day that I can, even if it's just inking one panel.

Today's robot.

In order to draw robots, I had to create them. I realized that once I finished the thumbnails and the pages stood there, blank, looking at me. It's not going to be the same as drawing people. It's not something I do all the time. Every time you have to do something new, you should prepare, study, get comfortable with what you're going to do. When you get confident, you'll transport this confidence to the page, and say it like you mean it.

This robot, I created right after breakfast. I hope it was the coffee running through my veins that helped me, for I drank a lot of coffee this morning and I'll sure need it today.

Today: page one. And two, if possible.

You never know.

Casanova News:
Clicking here you'll find a preview of Casanova 7, out this wednesday. We got or copies on friday, and the last chapter of this first album looks beautiful.
Reads beautifully as well.

Also, Christopher Butcher is doing a review (or analisis) of every issue of Casanova this week, so that should be fun.

Looking at today's day.

Here we are, researching robots again. Yesterday, we finished the new script, so it's just a matter of doing it. A hope to finish the artwork at the end of next week - before Carnaval - so don't expect me to be talkative during robot production. These creatures (machines?) demand much more attention than my regular characters, as they're all too unfamiliar.

Our box of Casanova 7 arrived today on the mail. This is a beautiful issue, and a great finish to the first album. As a reader, even if a very close one, I can't wait to the next one. I feel like I know these characters, and I don't want to see them go.

Bá, artist extraordinaire, will finish his first Umbrella Academy adventure today. He's on the last page. It's all very dramatic, dysfunctional and epic. Like Casanova, Bá's work on this is very different, very fresh, and fun.

Oh yes, fun.

Figure Drawing.

For a little more than two months now, Bá started attending live figure drawing sessions, and it's refreshing to be able to exercise this side of the artistic creation. Most poses would be only one minute long, with some three or four minutes exceptions. In this time frame, it's impossible to think too much, to analyze, and it's much more a matter of putting pen to paper and seeing what appears. Even the mistakes have to be incorporated into the drawing, for you have no time to erase, and Bá uses just some pens so he wouldn't erase even if he could.

I'm amazed at the complexity James Jean does his sketches, and at the same time it's fun to watch Bá's pictures, fast and energetic, and both capture the essence of the gesture, all the curves and folds and imperfections. It doesn't really matter your style. Everybody has something to learn and absorb when figure drawing.

What is the most fun in most figure drawings is how much we learn drawing those who will deviate from the current model of beauty or perfection, as they give you much more lines to work with, much more curves, and you realize how how much real all your drawings will get when you start to practice on the full range of the visual spectrum.

It's not necessary to do figure drawing, but it's good to be able to do it. If you have done it, you'll know how much you enjoyed, or how much you suffered, only showing how much you need it. At art school, it was one of my favorite classes (and I always drew an old lady with tits down to her knees - literary!), and I missed it for a long time, and it's good to be able to do it again.

What lies ahead?

This is a detail of an illustration I did last week for a brazilian magazine. And that's pretty much all I drew last week, as most of the other projects included thinking, and I'm always finding myself guilty for spending the entire day thinking. A little writing, to put thoughts to paper, but mostly thinking. Mostly in my head.

The good side of only thinking is that, if you need to have ideas, they'll come. You can have ideas all the time, when you're having fun at night, in the middle of a cold shower, any where, any time. But sometimes you NEED to think of something. If you haven't a drawer with ideas stashed for emergencies, there's nothing better than simply stop everything and think.

And think.

And think.

You'll either have an aneurism, or an idea.

This weekend, I had the idea I spent the entire week after. I had it on the beach, while looking in the distance while floating peacefully in the sea. I had it after an entire week talking with Bá every chance we got about it, throwing ideas back and forth, discussing what was exciting about what we wanted to say, and what did I wanted to draw on that story. We would talk on the car, during lunch, in front of the tv and at the studio. We had several good ideas, but not that one I was looking for.

I had to go swimming to find that one.

At the bottom of the ocean, I found out what do robots look forward when they get old.

Grampa.

Grampá is a friend of ours. We just talked about him a few days ago, as he worked with Bá on that giant wall thing. He did most of that. He's awesome.

The first comic book story he EVER drew was four pages long and it's feature on the Gunned Down anthology book, published in 2005 by Terra Major (get it here). We would never believe it was his first pages ever if we didn't know him. After that, we were constantly asking for more, for the next one, for something bigger, longer, bolder.

It's coming.

This year, as an way of committing to his story (or maybe as an necessary excuse to finish it), he's going with us to the San Diego Comicon, and we all will share a booth with the also awesome Becky Cloonan and Vasilis Lolos. Such an international roaster called for an extra effort, so we are all doing special stuff just for the booth. And Grampá is doing a brand new story, a brand new book.

And he created a blog to talk about it!

And here's the first image:



This post won't allow comments, so you can rightfully go to Grampá's blog to comment there.

An arrow from the past.

In 2001, I made some submission pages of Green Arrow to send to the then editor of that title. I did four pages in about a month and a half. Even if the actual time spent on the drawing board came closer to a week, that week stretched itself into all that time, and even with all the effort I put on those pages, you could see the inconsistency this lack of routine leaves on your work.

But something changed on those pages. There I was, trying to come up with a heroic situation, a interesting villain (I created a big robot) and one simple action that would lead the reader (aka the editor) panel after panel, page after page. It was more than just making the art "readable". I was thinking about how to make the readable art the most interesting way I could.

I'm not cut for super hero work, as far as I'm concerned. At least, not right now, and specially not then. But it was then that I started to focus a little more on the art, or try to focus both on the art and the writing, and my style started to grow on me. I was interested on the results of some of the panels of those submission pages, panels that nobody would ever see, but that fueled stories that I did afterwards, or even stories I'm still going to do. As I watch Bá hard at work on his Umbrella Academy pages, which many will call to be "super-heroes" pages, I think how much his style have changed since 2001, how much mine changed, and how much we changed the way we work. Since our days now consist basically in drawing comics all day long, our speed of work is much different, and the way our brain thinks about each page is different as well, and not only faster, but better. It's easier to create pages when you're creating pages every day. You do it without noticing, without that much effort, and the link between the thinking and the doing becomes a much peaceful one.

Brazilian.

Today, we celebrate the "National comic book day" here in Brazil, as it was on this day, in 1869, that the first brazilian comic, called "As Aventuras de Nhô Quim", was published on the newspaper "Vida Fluminense".

The more my brother and I continue to work around the world, the more we want to keep publishing in Brazil. There's so much to say about all things, and certainly there's a lot to say about our country, our people and our friends. I came to realize it's more interesting to talk about what you know (and sometimes, to the people you know) than to try to talk about something you don't know, trying (again) to be someone you're not. The best way to make people notice your work is to be yourself, and be brazilian if that's what you are. They already have enough japanese in Japan, enough americans in the US, enough french in France.

Find out who you are, and how that's interesting, and it's much easier to tell stories all around the world.

And to your friends, who were there when you started.

Becky and the president.

For the portuguese speakers, an interview with Becky Cloonan where she spreads her enthusiasm for making comics.

For the rest, something I did last week on my sketchbook that "could" be a drawing of the current brazilian president, who just got reelected.

Hidden.

Sometimes, you're at risk of hiding yourself behind your work. If you're not doing something which tells the world what you think, what you believe and what you want to say, you're basically being somebody else, other than yourself, that is appearing while you keep yourself hidden.

If you stay hidden too long, you might be forgotten.

What makes your work yours? What makes you recognize yourself on your work, even if year have passed and you're a different person?

I have come to realize not all comic-book artists are storytellers in terms of wanting to write their own stories. That does not mean they're hiding behind somebody else's stories, for what they want to do - which is draw, and draw stories - is what they're doing. They could also just do illustrations and wish for comics, and then they too would be hiding.

That doesn't come to say we can't do several different things, write, draw comics and illustrate pieces, but instead I just think that one should try to find out what it is that really makes one tick, feel alive and makes one want to do more. All this creating, no matter in what form, takes time, takes energy and creates a road, a map and a portrait of each artist. Let us travel the right road, drawing the right map so the portrait we create are of ourselves.

Figueroa Hotel

I hear from Matt that Casanova 7 will come out February 14th. A week before carnaval here in Brazil, and a great way to start the festivities. If you think Bá's artwork has only been getting better, wait until you see the entire new level of awesomeness issue 7 brings. But, while we wait, what can we do?

One of the most different things Bá did last year was collaborate with Grampá and Denis on this huge triptych image on the walls of the Figueroa hotel, in L.A. Grampá did the players and the colors, Bá did the buildings and Denis directed the animation spots for TV, which Grampa did concepts for.



It's strange how this things happen worldwide nowadays. While Bá and Grampá worked together all night long on several nights, they were talking with Denis, who is living in Barcelona, to do this work for a client in New York for something that would be seen and done in L.A.

Last curtain.

If you really like something you did, you feel like you're still working on it in your mind. Every time you look at it again, you are either retouching a brush stroke, or creating an entire new image that continues where you had left off. You are discovering it as if you were the reader, and yet you recognize yourself and all the hours you spent working and creating.

It has been more than six months since I've worked from anybody else's scripts other than my own, and it's nice. At the same time, I see Bá working on Casanova - or on the Umbrella Academy, as is the case this week - and I wonder what would I do differently if I had read that script. A lot of the stuff I think Bá came up with was actually on the script, but I can't imagine myself doing it like that even if that was asked for.

All scripts I read so far in my life were hard to read. They were not prose, nor poetry, nor plays. They were comic book scripts, and they were very mechanic in format. I'm still not used to that, as I tend to only write dialogues on my scripts, like a play, but eventually I get it's rhythm and then everything is okay.

Identical.

Over the weekend, a package arrived with some gifts from Dark Horse, so now my brother and I have identical car key-chains, and it's almost ridiculous how nice it is to have something identical again. Long gone are the days when we were dressed by our mom in identical clothes, and it's been a while since we had just the identical amount of friends, and thank God we don't have an identical art style anymore.

Not that we ever have an identical art style, but I copied Bá's style for a long time and it took me years to find my own look. As I think back, it wasn't so much a matter of imitating him, it was just the easier way to draw and a faster way to worry only with the stories and less with the art.

I only started worrying about the art midway through college, and I only got any good at drawing after the first 1000 pages of comics.

Wait.

I haven't reached 1000 pages of comics yet.

Suddenly, I feel I should be back at the drawing board.

Past and Future.

After working on O Alienista, which takes place in the nineteenth century, I want to do the present or, even more, the future.

One of the greatest things about comics is this possibility of creating, or recreating, worlds. There's no boundaries as where to go, what to write about, what to draw. The only starting point, if any, is a story to be told. Wherever this story takes us, we'll go.

Cortina and the colors.

Working in color is so much different than working in black and white. I'm coloring this story I did last year and, since I knew from the get go that I wanted it to be in color, I left a lot of white on the page. When you're working in black and white, this white means white, or space, or air for the black to breath. Now, this white can remain all that, but it can also become an entire new world.

Very colorful indeed.

My plan right now is to finish all the colors this week, and considering it's just a 5 page story, it should be doable. This year, I plan on doing a lot more comics, so it's essential that I determine schedules even for the more independent projects and try my best to stick to them.

Ba will return tomorrow from Bahia after ten days of beautiful beaches and paradise refueling. Gerard already touched base from Tokyo, so Ba has a script waiting for him when he arrives.

Beginning tomorrow, the twin-machine gets back to its regular working routine, and it's time to start creating more stories.

Out of fin air, if needed.

In color, if necessary.

And lovely, as usual.

2007.

I love the city, its complexity, its rhythm and its memory of all the lives that have passed through it every day. That's probably the reason it's featured in so many of my stories, or it may be just the fact that its such a big part of my everyday life, and of the lives I see go by my eyes every day, being myself a citizen of the city.

But the city doesn't give me everything I need, especially when what I want is precisely not need anything. In times like this, we need to get away and look for another place, far from the city, from the noise and from the rhythm. When you get there, listen.

The silence, at first. The lack of cars, smoke, lights. Then you'll notice what's below this surface: tranquility.

At the turn of the year, I took a few comics with me, but I didn't read them all. Too much time I spent looking at the horizon, in silence, listening the sound of breaking waves. I took some books as well, but I didn't read them all. Too much time I spent walking barefoot, without my shirt. I took my sketchbook with me, but I drew very little. Too much time I spent thinking about the future, smiling for no reason and daydreaming.

It's good to be back.

We all have a lot of work ahead of us.