Dallas #3!

While I'm deep in the jungles of issue #5 (yeah, I'm kinda late), Umbrella #3 comes out this week.
There's a preview here.
this is the cover. It's one of the covers I like.

Fight sketch

2009

Let the season begin.

Let us all find more time to work on what we love, to spend time with our friends, family and lovers, let us read more and learn every day something new. Let us all start the new year in a new way. Let's just make something we're proud of.

Let us all do something that matters.

Let's hunt our dreams with our art, let's put down our fear with our love for challenges. Let's challenge ourselves. Let's grow.

Dallas 2 preview, and the guest.

There's a preview of Umbrella Academy - Dallas, issue 2 at CBR. Here's the link. Check out one of Bá's great sequences in terms of character acting, "carema placement" and page layout. All that enhanced by Dave's suberb coloring and Nate's sharp lettering.



In other news, I've been invited to be a guest at next year's San Diego Comic-Con, which will happen from July 22nd to July 26th. You can view the current guest list at this link. I was asked to provide a picture of myself or a self portrait to include in adversiting programs and sites and such, and I couldn't resist the opportunity to do a new drawing so, even swamped in work, I did this watercolor to send them. I even liked this one, and I like it much more than any picture I have here. Once I have more news about that, I'll post them in here.

Back to work, and thanks for reading.

BOOM!

Counting down and looking ahead.

This past weekend, surrounded by the dearest of friends in the comic world, we talked about our work and what drives us forward. Our little circle was surrounded by a bigger circle, of interested fans, and during two hours we were in a bubble of greatness.

I left certain I'm on the right path, and that I'm not alone in believing in what I do.

This year's countdown has begun, and soon we shall celebrate another year well spent, working hard and opening doors. We've been working more and more, as we should, and the work never felt more gratifying. If this is what my life will be, working in comics 24/7, writing and drawing and creating and putting out great stuff, than I look forward to the future. If the future is like now, it will be glorious, but we should always aim a little higher, so I expect the future to be even brighter. And so should you.

It seems like ages ago since the last issue of Casanova hit the stands (even more since I finished drawing it). It also seems like forever since we finished PIXU. Bá finished the first Umbrella series almost one year ago, and the new series just started one weeks ago. This notion of never-ending work leaves little room in our lives for our work to breathe and exist, as we very fast have to turn to the next project. And then, when we're working on several projects at once, the ones recently finished have to vanish from our routine as fast as we have to keep producing pages. Some projects come back to mind every once in a while, and those are the ones I think are not over yet. Those are the stories I think are still incomplete, and sometime in the future these stories shall continue.

We are still searching for our place in this medium, telling our stories and drawing other's, and our quest has taken us to very interesting places. The future points to new and exciting ones, and some familiar ground.

Back to work, and thanks for reading.

Wizard names PIXU Best Self Published comic of 2008

The indie collective of Becky Cloonan, Vasilis Lolos, Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon upped the ante on the self-publishing end with this minicomic chronicling the lives and deaths of the residents of a haunted house. With each horrific chapter created by a different artist, PIXU (Pee-shoo) holds together incredibly well and has us salivating for the second volume.

-Wizard #207

PIXU is still available at Khepri.com, so get'em while they're still around!

New Umbrella Academy series starts TODAY!

The first issue of the new Umbrella Academy series hits the stands today.
I've been working on it since May and it will finally be seen. There's a lot of crazy stuff on this series, much more than the first one.
Go grab your copy NOW.



And take a look at the most amazing thing Paper Action Figure Man sent me:



And while you're at it, what about pre-ordering the PVC Figure Set, due to hit the stores on April 2009?

Sketch

Faces

Looks.

Watercolor studies is about all I have time to do these days besides drawing our awesome new comics. It's a good break from the daily routine of the pages, and a good way to warm up as well as cool off.

When

PIXU and 5 at Floating Wolrd!

Floating World Comic, in Portland, will host this amazing exposition of original art form all the awesome creators of the Eisner Winner 5 and the new face of terror, PIXU!
Can't miss this event!
And if you haven't ordered PIXU yet, do it while you can. Our very limited 1000 copies print run WILL END FAST.
Click HERE and guarantee your copy!

PIXU 2

Click HERE and order your copy TODAY!

Watercolor at the garden.

automatic Cafard

Done today while teaching some brush techniques.

layout

My page layouts are the size of a postcard, and Bá and I solve all the storytelling and design "problems" of a page right there and then.

We used to do them smaller, the size you expect a "thumbnail" to be (hence the name), but doing them slightly bigger allows us to really see the story flow and imagine the layouts as smaller versions of the page instead of doodles.

PIXU 2 is coming

With some delay, the art is done. When you read it, i hope you agree it was for the best. We self publish this thing, we do it because we love comics, we love to tell stories and we really believe in the work we do. At the end of the day, we are not a big corporation filling the monthly market of comic books, where the most important thing is to hit the scheduled slot on the comic-book shelves. At the end of the day, we do this because we love it and we want to share it with as many people as we can, and to better express our love we have to give it our best. Sometimes, our best takes more time than we anticipated, but it's something we'll be proud of. We already are.

The printer people are our pals (we have been using the same guys for three years now), so we'll try to get it done faster, so it's just a matter of time now. The hard work, the good work, the "I still can't believe I do this for a living" work, it's done.

And it's coming.

If you haven't ordered your copy, you can still do it online at Khepri.com ( click here). It's your safest bet to grab you PIXU, so hurry to get it before the PIXU gets you.

Doodling

The drawings above were made on the actual pages of my script yesterday while Bá and I were talking with Grampá and Rafa, who were visiting (by visiting you can read "using our scanner"). These fast sketches, the kind you draw while you're talking, are good studies, and good fun. Seeing Grampá's new pages was also great fun, and following the more than 100 pages Rafa had to show was mind blowing. It's great for an artist to see other artist's works, there's a mutual inspiration, an energy that we don't get only looking at your own work. When you see greatness, you want to do great things.

Bá and I are always talking that we don't sketch often enough anymore. Simple drawings are delicious and we should fit them into our daily breaks.

Yesterday, we were on a meeting and there was paper and pencils on the table. It was just a talking kind of meeting, but I grabbed a piece of paper and started doodling. I drew the woman who were doing most of the talking, who had a big ring on her right hand, and who smoked a lot. It was cold, and her coat looked warm. For woman's standards, her hair was short.

After the meeting, I folded the piece of paper and put it in my pocket. When we came back to the studio, I saw the sketch again and decided it was okay. It felt nice to do it, because I did it for kicks.

We should all do some things just for the fun of it.

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.