our iGoogle

Here's a video about our iGoogle theme. Also featuring another Brazilian artist's theme, Gustavo Rosa.



Google has invited artists of all mediums to collaborate with them and we were pleased to be part of such a cool pack.

Watercolor drawing.

Sometimes I forget what we can draw while listening to somebody talk. Given the right tools, it's amazing how freeing these "loose" drawings are. Every artist should try it at times, in bars, in school, at conventions.

The "capture the moment" kinda drawing sometimes says more about you than about the person you're portraying.

Umbrella won!

Umbrella Academy just won the Harvey Award of Best New Series.

Vasilis won for Best New Talent!



To see the full list of nominees and winners, click here (Thanks Heidi).

Who will survive?

Some times, the pencil art is almost the same as the final inking, but sometimes it's so loose, and there's so much left only for the pen, for the brush and for the cruel mistakes that we make once we're using tools we can't erase.

Who will survive the PIXU?

You can pre-order both PIXU 1 and PIXU 2 at this link here.

Finally, original art for sale!

Ever since we started working on high profile projects like Casanova, Umbrella Academy and Sugar Shock, we've been getting mail about selling original art. Since we live in Brazil and it's not an easy task to deal with shipping and money transactions, we only have done this sort of thing personally when we go to San Diego.

Well, we're very glad to announce that we have some pages available for sale with the nice folks from Beguiling, in Toronto. They have some pages and art cover from all the projects above. If we like how this goes, maybe it's the way to make everyone happy after all.

For pages of Gabriel Ba:
http://www.beguiling.com/artproductlist.asp?ID=79

For pages of Fabio Moon:
http://www.beguiling.com/artproductlist.asp?ID=80
 

'Daytripper' on Newsarama

There I was, in San Diego, going to the DC booth to check with Bob Schreck what time was the Vertigo panel I was suppose to go to announce that Bá and I were doing a series for Vertigo. As I arrived, to my surprise, Bob had printed copies of the first issue of Daytripper in hand, and he was showing it to a girl. A woman, actually, but I call women girls all the time.

Turns out she was a reporter and she was asking him questions about the series, and since I turned out at that time, I was interviewed as well. Call it fate, I call it strange. It's okay, I'm used to strange. Have you met my brother?

Anyway, the article is up at newsarama, and it's the first time we (I) had to talk about what the series was about and how was it working on it. I think I did pretty good right there on the fly, and I'm sure I was a lot more nervous twenty minutes later on the Vertigo panel. Bob made me look good, though.

So, click here on the link and read alway.

Back to the drawing board.

The girl you'll meet.

It's coming.

Have you pre-ordered PIXU 2 already? You should. The story unfolds, the characters interact, everything comes together and the story ends. It's coming and when it arrives nothing will ever be the same.

In case you're not following us on twitter, here's the latest:

-Finishing an issue of Umbrella Academy tonight (which means inking several pages), and doing a cover tomorrow.
-Working on Daytripper script over the weekend, and going back to drawing pages during the week.
-Reading the BPRD 1947 script. Read it once already, and it's good.
-Thumbnailing the "one page a month" story we do for a brazilian magazine so we can draw it tomorrow.
- We started a weekly comic strip in one of Brazil's biggest newspapers and the first was published today.

And you know what? That's just the beginning.

It's time to do it and it's up to you.

We'll be falling off the face of the world for a few weeks. New comics must be made, and written, and drawn, and it's up to us to do it (our part, at least). A good artist creates art and the art is a reflection of his world, and so we must live in this world and interact with people, but at the same time we must learn to respect the attention that is required to produce new work, and to pay attention, there are times when we must focus. Imagine if we lose this window of opportunity?

We love comics. To be able to draw and write comics every day is amazing. To be able to communicate with others with stories you tell is the best job in the world.

While we're at the drawing board, send your email to us and we'll answer them the best that we can, but if we don't, it's just because we're making new comics and that is what everybody wants, right? Updates will continue when we have something important to say (or to show), even if we have to twitter it.

Some important news:


-Pre-order PIXU 2

Khepri is already taking pre-orders for the conclusion of our little PIXU saga. Don't miss out on this internet bargain, and your best bet to acquire the limited edition of the second volume of this horror curse.

-Eisners:



Since we've been making the Why comics videos, we also meant to show our little participation on this year's Eisner Awards, but when we we're enthusiastically winning the award for best anthology with 5, we didn't film it. Now, more than a month later, we discovered that someone did, and we're finally able to remember what we said up there when we were already high on the happiness of it all.

It's up to all of us to make more, and make it better, and keep going.

Until we're back, behave. And let's make great comics.

Why Comics? - part 2

Why Comics?

answers by:
Gerard Way (Eisner Award winner, writer of The Umbrella Academy);
Gabriel Bá (Multiple Eisner Award winner, brazilian storyteller, author of De:Tales, 5 and PIXU , artist of The Umbrella Academy and Casanova);
Dave Stewart (Multiple Eisner Award winner colorist of BPRD, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cut, Hellboy, Lobster Johnson, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse); The Spirit (DC))

Why Comics? - part 1

Why Comics?
answers by:
Matt Fraction (Eisner Award nominated writer of CASANOVA, The Immortal Iron Fist, Punisher War Journal and Uncanny X-Men);
Ivan Brandon (Eisner Award nominated writer of NYC Mech, 24seven e Cross Bronx);
Grampá (Eisner Award winner, brazilian cartoonist, author of the graphic novel Mesmo Delivery)

The kid inside of me likes toys!

Every kid likes toys. Some of these kids like characters so much they grow up to become storytellers who will create more characters. Some of them will become comicbook creators. And all of them would love to see their characters become little toys.

As noticed on the site TOYSREVIL's I like Toys, there have been spotted at this year San Diego Comic Con prototype PVC figures of Dark Horse's UMBRELLA ACADEMY.



I've been following and aproving every step on the process of making this set and we're all very happy with the results. Soon, all of us will be able to have a litlle set on our shelves at home.





Soon, the little kid inside of me will be a very happy kid.

Thing

There are some reasons to why Bá and I are not drawing Marvel and DC super heroes. One of them is our own feeling we are not fit for it (which is strange, as I thought I wasn't fit for Casanova in the first place either).

Case in point, this drawing I made for Ivan's forum:

PIXU crew at CBR!

There's an interview with all PIXU creators at CBR. It's a nice introduction to what our new story is about, and at the same time it doesn't spoil it for those who haven't read it. There are preview pages from all four artists, like this one from Bá:



Production on the second volume continues steady and on schedule. We're a little bit late on everything else, but it's only for one more week. We can't all be drawing machines like Becky, now can we?

If you still haven't hopped on the PIXU ride, you can get your copy online at Khepri.com. Trust me, you'll want to know what happens before PIXU II arrives.

Back to work.

Back on the horror track!

The response for PIXU has been great and that helps us continue on the horror path we created. We were eager to be drawing again, and I think every time this happens with an artist, it shows on the first pages that come from this creative hunger. The best thing about having a working routine and a daily output of work is the constant feed we get from finishing a page, a feed that only enlarges our hunger and leaves us always wanting more.

There's nothing better.

MySpace DHP cover.

My Space Dark Horse Presents Vol. 1 will finally put on paper my Sugarshock story and it will be out in September. Before the San Diego Comicon, they were advertising the book with my first page as the cover, but I was asked to do a brand new cover for the first volume of the anthology, which they had on display at the convention.

As I just wrote earlier today, doing covers is completely different than doing comics, and you can play on a completely different set of rules.


I had fun doing this cover and I hope you like it.

Umbrella is back.

This November, The Umbrella Academy will return in another 6 issues mini-series. Bá is already drawing it, the first issue is ready and now he's taking over the cover chores. For a bigger version of the cover, click here.

The first issue is bigger and better. 32 pages of story. To celebrate the series return, the first issue will feature a variant cover as well as a regular one, and the variant's artist is no other than Jim Lee, who is a very easy going nice guy. HIs wraparound cover is this:



Doing covers is very different than drawing stories and pages, so Bá is going to try different things on the covers.

Back to work now.

Siamese

I had more fun drawing this preliminary sketches than drawing the cat on the actual story, which was just a one page story. Now I want to think of other stories, even if just as short, and make the cat appear again just so I can draw him some more.

Why comics - the preview

Today, we finished the breakdown of one issue of Daytripper. Bá is already moving on his Umbrella chapter, and we're trying to get as many PIXU pages done as we can before things get crazy once the BPRD 1947 arrives and we have to do it all at the same time.

When we're this busy, working like crazy, staying awake around the clock, we sometimes wonder "why comics?" Why do we have this need? What drives us? What drives anyone to go out there and do comics, out of all things?

We started thinking.

And then we started asking around.

Vote for the Harvey Awards!

Dear Comics Professionals,

Deadlines for voting for the Harvey Awards are due to August 15th.

The ballot is available as an Adobe PDF document or text from www.harveyawards.org.

The detailed links for the ballots are :
PDF: http://www.harveyawards.org/2008ballot/Harvey_2008_final_ballot.pdf
Text: http://www.harveyawards.org/2008ballot/Harvey_2008_final_ballot.txt

Email ballots, using the text file, can be emailed to pjcjmc3@sbcglobal.net. Paper ballots can also be mailed via US Postal Service or sent by FAX to those without Internet access - please call the Baltimore Comic-Con, host of the awards banquet and ceremony, at 410-526-7410 to make a request.

Final ballots are due by midnight, Friday, August 15, 2008.

We got 3 nominations for the Harvey Awards 2008.

BEST ARTIST
Gabriel Ba, Umbrella Academy, Dark Horse Comics

BEST CONTINUING OR LIMITED SERIES
Umbrella Academy, Dark Horse Comics

BEST NEW SERIES
Umbrella Academy, Dark Horse Comics

You can see the full list on http://www.harveyawards.org/. Winners will be announced at the Baltimore Comic-con, September 27.