Challengers before Peru

We leave tomorrow for the Lima Comics Festival in Lima, Peru. Before we finish packing, I wanted to put our latest entries on the Daytripper Challenge.

Elisio da Costa wrote from France. He stopped at Album Comics in Paris on his way out of the current Moebius Exhibition and bought his copy there on a Saturday. Apparently, he also bought the first Casanova trade that day, and these two books came home to keep company with the first two Umbrella Academy trades.

J.E. Latosa is yet another Phillippino fan and got his copy at the National Bookstore at the Sangri-La Plaza mall in Manila. He joins the shy rank of challengers, but we like him anyway.

So, here we go again on the road. We'll be part of two panels in the Lima Festival, one on the 19th and one on the 20th, so if you're in Lima, come check the festival out. More informations on their facebook page.

See you there, or somewhere along the way.

Challengers no hablam inglês

It's strange that these last three Daytripper Challengers do not have english as their first language (but I guess I'm exaggerating if I consider that one of them found the book in Washington). Also, all three of them know us personally or have met us before.

Loris Z. is an argentinean artist from Buenos Aires. We met him at the CRACK BANG BOOM convention in Rosario last year. He has a very strange project regarding a book about sex, written by a priest many years (centuries) ago, and people draw on its pages inspired by what is written on that particular page, and both Bá and I have contributed to the project.

Natasha, a brazilian friend of ours who went to university with Bá a long time ago, was traveling and found a copy of Daytripper in a Barnes&Noble in Washington, DC. It was on the "new releases fiction" stand, alongside other "regular" books and in prominent position, and not hidden in the sometimes obscure Graphic Novel section of some bookstores. I hope this placement worked for our book and for Barnes&Noble. Thanks, Natasha.

Carla Rodrigues sent her picture from Portugal. I'm not sure if she lives in Lisboa or other portuguese city, but she met us also last year during our stay at the Beja Festival. She hasn't read the book by the time she sent the email, so I hope she likes it when she does read it.

For the third week now, Daytripper has been on the New York Times Best Sellers list in the graphic novel category, and for the third week, it appears on the list at #1. We're very happy and grateful, and hope that many more people still have the chance to discover our story and, maybe, send us more pictures.

Back to work, we all want more comics, right?

A sketchy girl

This was my warm up sketch this morning. I got a little carried away, so it took me the entire morning.
I liked it, though.

Figure drawing 2011

Every chance we get, we go back to figure drawing sessions. It always helps, no matter what style you have. We have been fortunate to have found a great group that gathers every week, and with a great and diverse rotating team of models.

These are from some of the latest sessions.

International women's day

GULA inking and the DHP variant

I love inking.
I made a video of some of the inking on my new Casanova GULA cover.
I hope you like it.


Also on the cover front, the folks at Dark Horse Comics announced my variant cover to the second issue of the new Dark Horse Presents anthology. I'm thrilled to do a cover for this comic book. I still remember how hugely influential it was to me to buy Dark Horse Presents when Sin City just appeared on the anthology, or when I read a Hellboy story in it. And then, when the anthology relaunched online, I was super happy to be part of it with Sugarshock, and now it seems the anthology's path crossed with mine once more. I really like the fantasy and science fiction feel of this cover, an homage to some of the greatest things to explore in comics form.

Here's the sketch and final version side by side, to show how much I really saw on the initial idea, and before that doing the final version was way easier.

Monday challengers

Way to start a monday, right? Comics to read, comics to write, comics to draw. And, all around the world, the notion that something you did is being read.

Hubert Pacheco (or Hub, as he signed his email) is a photographer from Manila, and gets his comics at the same Planet X comics store that Danry, our first Challenges, goes to. Because he already had all the individual issues of the mini series, he decided to improvise on the challenge picture. Nice work. The comic he's reading in the picture is a printed version of the webcomic he's doing with his friend Teddy, called Work in Progress, so I'm including the link for those curious to check it out.

Alan Hess got his copy of Daytripper, and mostly all of our previous work. He's a fan from Boston, so he might be glad to know we'll attend the Wizard World New England Comic Con in September 17-18th.

Ryan Claytor got his copy at 21st Century Comics in East Lansing, Michigan, right on the first day it hit the stands. For someone so fast on the draw that day (look at his flash-like pictures), he sure took his time to send us a picture, but I'm glad he did.

Finally, Taylor Pithers sent this from London via twitter. A pure act of unthinkable impulse, typical of twitter.

We're three weeks away from out first big trip, our convention trip to the Lima Comics festival, in Peru, so we'll need to focus more on the working and less on the blogging to get all this stuff that needs doing done in time for the trip. February is over, and it's time to switch gears in our production speed.

Thanks for all of you who sent pictures, or who reads the books or who love comics. All of the above, separately or together, are enough reasons for us to keep doing what we do. We like to tell stories and we're happy to have people to tell them to.

Back to work.

Out of the ordinary challengers

We had an incredibly diverse week here at the Daytripper Challenge centre, receiving letters from all over. Some of them included details or stories of the wheres and the hows and I'll do my best to incorporate it in here somehow.

Rémi Gérard-Marchant sent his picture from Paris. He ordered it online, so he decided that the perfect setting for a picture would be in front of the Centre Pompidou because, in his own words, "it would be perfect to have a contemporary art-form together with a contemporary art centre". It made for a really graphic picture, and the blue on the pipes goes really well along with the blue on the cover.

Andreas (on the left) and Sebastian are brothers and they ordered it online through Amazon.com. Andreas had to wait 23 days for his copy to arrive to Sweden, so he already read it several times to make up for lost time, and then he made his brother read it as well (as a form of punishment?) and now they agree it's one of the best comics they've ever read. I like when brothers agree on something.

Rana is still waiting for her copy of the Graphic Novel, but decided to take a picture in front of Mega-City Comicon, in Camden Town, with her copy of issue 10 of the mini-series. Good luck with your mini-series, Rana, and continue to have fun doing comics.

Melissa Evans lives in Adelaide, Australia, where she said that every comic book store in town (there are three) had sold out of Daytripper. She made a reservation on one of the stores for the next batch of books, to make sure she wouldn't miss another chance.
The day came and she got her copy at Pulp Fiction Comics (and she wanted to mention that she would like to thanks Adelaide Comics Centre too, because she bought the single issues of Daytripper there, and that's where she buys most of her collection), but you'll notice in her picture she's holding two copies of the book, so there's another story to go along with the second copy.

She bought a second copy to give away, and not to a friend, but to a total stranger as an out of the ordinary act. Quite the romantic. As she wandered around her small city, she found this young man sitting under a tree, eating his lunch. She went to him, said hi, he said hello back. When asked, he told her he didn't read comics (which is what she was hoping for), so she asked if he would consider reading one and, when he accepted, she said "Well, I have a comic for you" and gave him the second Daytripper book.
He asked if she was the author.
"No, it's just a really great story and I'm hoping you'll enjoy it", she answered. They both smiled, he said thanks, and she left, leaving me (yes, me) and everybody reading this curious to find out what will the mystery stranger guy find of the book he so kindly got.

Here's the picture of the stranger. I hope you'll enjoy it, too.


It's great to see our books in places we've never been. It's the power of stories. Hopefully, one day I'll go to Sweden, Australia, or back to London or Paris. For now, as long as my books get to travel, I'm happy.
And thankful.

The Buddy challenger

The Daytripper Challenge continues. We're happy that our book is getting in everybody's hands, and we're thrilled people keep sending us pictures.


Jeremy Holt sent us his multi-picture-tale of how he got is copy of Daytripper via Amazon.com, and that he was greeted with it by his girlfriend and their dog, Buddy. As he tells on his email, Buddy is also a great fan of the story and hears it with great attention as Jeremy reads it out loud on the sofa. As the picture show continues, Jeremy reminds us that he also met us in NYCC, where we gave him great advice about self publishing and creator owned comics. I'm happy to see that the interaction with fans and creators in conventions is still a great way to keep people inspired and hungry for more.

Back to work around here. I just finished a new cover, and now I'm on my way to do another one. Bá is making some magic on his new Casanova pages, but there are so much to do that it might be a few days before we have enough time to post again.

A first.

Yesterday we were informed that our Daytripper album debuted in first at bookstores, according to the New York Times Best Sellers list. We were so happy we didn't even mind that they spelled the name of the main character wrong. This is just wonderful news.

This is our book, about a regular guy in Brazil without super powers, that's not a zombie and that have not been turned into a major motion picture. It's just our book, and apparently people want to read it.
To all of you, thank you.
It's been quite a trip, one day at a time.

The challenge to inspire

The Daytripper Challenge continues. After an entire week receiving pictures from our readers, I can't help but think that comics, being such a personal reading experience, should inspire an equally personal reaction and response, and I think anybody who can lose a little bit of the day to take a picture and send over the internet across the world when they didn't have to, and to somebody they never met, is creating this wonderful aura in which we can all appreciate comics and the power that stories have to make us want to do something, do better, and do more.


Jamie Heron bought Daytripper in a Kinokuniya bookshop in Sidney, Australia. Apparently, he liked the book so much that the tried to smile. Do you think he was successful? Thanks anyway, Jamie.


Dave Trendell lives in Buckinghanshire, in the UK, and was bummed that there wasn't a Hard Cover edition of Daytripper, but he was happy when he discovered Gosh! Comics, a great comics store in London, had an exclusive bookplate edition, so he ordered his online. And he works on a school and will, according to his words, "make sure all the English Teachers at the school I work at get a chance to read a copy!", which I think is awesome. You're awesome, Dave.

Back to work, then.

Have a great weekend.

The amazon challenger

Yeyé Agudelo lives in East Hampton, NY, and sent a picture of her Daytripper book, which she ordered through Amazon. As you can see in this black and white picture I included to go along with the picture she sent, she's friends with Ana Cristina, one of our earlier challengers, and we had met them both at NYCC last october, but since at that time they were disguised as Umbrella Academy kids, it took us a little while to put two and two together here. I look at their pictures in NYCC and the pictures they sent us and them I start to think if only a mask can really change somebody's face and appearance so much as to protect their secret identity.

What do you think?

Valentine's challengers

Today is Valentine's day, day for lovers and for love in general. When we came up with our Daytripper Challenge, we did it to spread the Daytripper love, to make people curious about our book and, maybe, curious about other comics in general. You never know what you'll discover when you go looking for new things.

There was no better way to celebrate our fun challenge in Valentine's day than to receive another picture, one that is actually two, and that came from a lovely couple.

Rose and Eric took this picture at a Barnes and Noble somewhere in sunny California, and I'm really happy they decided to send it together. Even with a shy out of focus Eric in the background, don't you think they make a cute couple?


In a more mysterious answer that came via twitter, Timmy Fisher apparently got his Daytripper as a side dish for his omelets and bloody marys at the La Guardia airport, on his way back to KC (Kansas City?)

Do something romantic tonight. Buy somebody flowers, smile at a stranger, give your girlfriend a naughty blink of an eye. Tomorrow, grab your camera or your phone and come join us on the fun.

Challengers all around

This is fun, and interesting. We put the first picture of our Daytripper challenge up, and then we got three more pictures. None of them come from the same city, state or even same country. That's the daytripper love spread all over the world.


Ana Cristina Muñoz sent us a picure from her favorite store, Showcase Comics in Bryn Mawr, Pennsylvania.


Paul Hardaker sent us his picture from his local comics shop, Destination Venus in Harrogate, England. And he has the cutest kids.


Michele Foschini, from Italy, sent us a picture of the Italian edition of Daytripper, for which I believe he was the translator. A shy guy, he kept himself away from center stage and shot only the shelf, which make us appreciate that the italian edition has a nice hard cover. And he sent his picture via Facebook, and so can you if emailing sound too complicated.

Thanks to all of you who have sent us pictures. You're beyond great.

So... Anybody else?

The first challenger

Some times we get more than we asked for.
As this week saw the release in book stores of the Daytripper trade (that has been available in comic book stores since Febuary 2nd), we decided to have a little fun and we made our Daytripper Challenge video, inviting people to take a picture of themselves at the place they found and got the book and email it to us. We would put these pictures here on the blog.
Fun, right?
Well, we got our first picture.
It came from the Philippines!

Danry Ocampo took this picture on his local comics store, PlanetXComics at the Trinoma Mall. I have never been to the Trinoma Mall or anywhere else in the Philippines, but it's great to see our books have crossed oceans and one very distant fan got us really excited sending us a picture. And how cool is it to see a copy of Casanova:GULA #2 on the shelves behind him? It's a bonus.

Thanks, Danry.

Well, who's next?

Au revoir, and hello Cass

Above, the last page of my sketchbook. Below, a sketch Bá did this week as a preparatory study for a scene on Casanova. It's good for us to be drawing at the same time, even if in completely different things.

Daytripper links

There have been great reviews and interviews about Daytripper all over the web, and we couldn't be happier about the response from everybody. Over at the Vertigo blog, Pamela Mullin gathered most of the links in one nice post, and one of the links even includes the wonderful introduction by Craig Thompson, a treat all in itself.

Also at the Vertigo blog, in order to celebrate the release of the Daytripper trade, Bá and I wrote some blog posts, telling a little about the influences, the process and the some of the events that inspired our little tale, and we also showed a lot of sketches. So, click on the links if you want to hear about a trip that inspired and guided one chapter of the book; or if you want to see sketches of the characters and the settings; or maybe if you rather hear about how characters getting a life of their own.

I read a nice write up about Daytripper on a NPR blog here. We gave more interviews recently, so more of these things should pop up here and there. I hope I remember to link to them, but if I forget, I'm sure Pamela will.

So, back to work in here, hoping a lot of people are discovering Daytripper, and curious to see how many will really answer our Daytripper challenge and send us pictures of the bookstores and comics stores and friends shelves and school libraries where they found our book.

CASANOVA

Today, Casanova: GULA #2 comes out in comics stores. It's one of my favorite covers, featuring that crazy couple, Zeph Quinn and Kubark Benday. You have to pay attention in this issue, as important information is shared that relates to the brand new Casanova stories Bá and Matt are working on right now.

Daytripper challenge

Last week, the Daytripper collection came out in comic book stores, for everybody to find, buy and share with their loved ones. Some people ordered it through Amazon, and then they saw that it was only going to be available on February 8th. In the same fashion, regular bookstores would only get the book and start selling it on the same date.

Today.

So, the direct market gets a one week head-start, and we should take care of our direct market and the comic book stores, but now there are a lot more venues where you can find Daytripper. Now, people who doesn't usually buys comics - or who at least usually doesn't go to a comic book store - can bump into our book and discover it for the very first time. I believe there are a lot of potential readers in bookstores, in movie theaters and everywhere in general, and they just don't read comics because they don't know the variety of stories that are being told in comics form, some of their liking for sure, so the more we can have our book along with other books, the better.

I think that that's what Steve Niles called "reaching out of our bubble" on this blog post, and I couldn't help but agree with him that there must be a more positive approach to our support to Creator-Owned stories than just complaining.

That's one of the reasons I made this video.

I also made this video because it was fun, and it reminds me that making comics is also fun, and it's supposed to remind readers - and specially those who venture themselves to bookstores with their cameras and phones in hand (I trust you, guys!) - that reading comics and discovering new stories is also a lot of fun.

The challenge has been set. I hope a lot of people join in.

So, what do you think?
Are you ready?
Go!

Odoyá, Iemanjá. Thank you for Daytripper.

February 2nd, Iemanjá's day.
It is also the day that the collected edition of Daytripper comes out.



There's not much left to say about the story, about the book. People love behind the scene facts and informations, and that's why we keep this blog, but I don't feel good about explaning the stories, telling my reasons for doing this or that, because I believe it weakens the story. I tried to say the least I could before the series started in December of 2009 and I didn't want to keep talking about it during the series. Today the book will be at the stands of comicshops throughout the USA, a few days later on every major bookstores of the country and soon enough world wide.

I'd like to think the book can speak for itself. That's what good stories do.



I hear about authors who don't read their own stories once they're ready, directors who don't watch their movies. I love comics and I look back to everything I do. I love what I do. It helps me keep track of where I came from. If I do these books I do today and tell the stories I do, it's because of all this other stuff I've done before and I can never forget that.



If you have read the series and liked it, tell a friend about it, or even give it as a gift to someone you know. If you haven't read it, I hope you do. This story represents our love for comics and I'd love if you could help us spread this love. All we need is love.

And then...

I'm writing something for another blog that I could have easily written for this one. It's about our work and about our love for comics, and about our inspirations and influences for Daytripper. We've said something about it in here before, and I guess we could talk about it for days, months, even years. We love what we do and, if we're not careful, we talk about it ALL THE TIME.

Kinda boring if you're in a conversation circle and it's not a hot topic.

Luckily for us, since Daytripper is coming out next week as a trade in comic shops, we had the opportunity to talk about work a lot in half a dozen interviews, so we're more than satisfied in that area. Let's turn our attentions to another area, then, called "future projects".



I did this sketch at the beach while thinking about this "future projects" area.

It's a nice area.

A secret area.

Kind of like Area 51, you know. Secret. If you think that 51 is the brand of strong pinga here in Brazil (not the best one, I'm afraid), then I think we have the perfect mix of influences to try to start to explain our future projects.

Except that we're not going to explain our future projects.

No.

That would ruin the fun, now wouldn't it?

We're just going to go back to work.

Right.

Disclaimer: the picture above has nothing to do with the so called "future projects". I just thought it looked nice.

Work awaits

A quiet picture.
The calm before the storm, almost.

The Sandman

I remember when I first read a Sandman comic. A girl in my class at freshman year of College lent it to me when I told her I wanted to do comicbooks. I had a huge crush on that girl, so I would have read anything, I guess, but I'm glad she had the entire Sandman collection up to that point to lend me.

To think that I have, in recent years, met Neil Gaiman, Dave McKean, became friends with Jill Thompson (who I have shared a booth with at SDCC in the past two years, but have met and admired since 1998), all that makes something inside my chest go warm and happy.

Dream big, dream always, and go after your dreams.

Who knows where life will take you.

Reading

When you're writing a script, it seems you only read and write all day long. And, after you had spent so much of your time over the past few years drawing page after page in a frenetic pace, this new routine appears to me to be a deceivingly easy. Writing is not easy at all, and when you have to read for research, it's not as relaxing as reading for fun, but just the lack of drawing makes me feel I'm not working.
It's a silly thought.
A recurrent silly thought.
A daily one.
...
Back to work.
Or back to reading and writing.
Whatever.

CASANOVA-2006-2007-2008-2010-2011

Well, CASANOVA is back on full throttle. The marvelous LUXURIA TP is out and the brand new edition of GULA 1 is out there to show how awesome Fábio is and how he managed to kick my ass on the art – AND ON THE COVERS!!!. New interviews, new back-up stories, new mind blowing colors and handwritten letters.
What are you waiting for?

Oh, and yeah. New material is coming out this year. You won't wanna miss that.

And to start the new year with the coolness expected from the realms on the Quinn family, here's the cover of GULA 4. Pa-ZOW!

Our big book arrived

It's beautiful.
Craig Thompson's introduction is also beautiful.

Happy.

Lima Comics, PERU!

Our first international commitment of 2011 will be Lima Comics, in Lima, Peru, on March 16th 'till the 20th.
Other international guests include Horacio Altuna, Eduardo Risso, Ariel Olivetti, Gustavo Sala and Martin Canale from Argentina, José Villarubia from Spain, and Vertigo editor Will Dennis.

See you guys there!
More information on the festival's Facebook Page
---

Nuestro primer compromiso internacional del 2011 será Lima Comics, en Lima, Perú, el 16 de marzo hasta el día 20.
Otros invitados internacionales son Horacio Altuna, Eduardo Risso, Ariel Olivetti, Gustavo Sala y Martín Canale de Argentina, José Villarubia de España, y el editor de Vertigo Will Dennis.

Nos vemos allí!
Más informaciones en la página de Facebook del festival.

Going... Bang bang!

2010

2010 has been an amazing year for us. It's really awesome to see how much has changed in the last 10 years of our career, everything we have accomplished. Also, how the comic book world has changed in that time. We're feeling really good about comics right now, about our profession, our market, our peers, and it's a heart warming sensation to realize we are part of all this process of changes.
2010 can't really be summed up on a list, but here we go:

- Daytripper is a reality. One that we are really proud of, one that shows what we really want to do with comic books.
We couldn't be happier and it's still calling the attention of everyone on several "best of 2010" lists (When Words Collide, Weekly Crisis, TIME and MTV Geek for example). If more people end up reading it because of these lists, we'll be more than happy. I can't wait for the collected edition to come out next February.
- Casanova is getting the chance to freak out more people through ICON now, in amazing full color and skillful hand-lettered glamour.
- We have been to several conventions and fairs all over the place. Beja, Porto, London, San Diego, La Paz, Rosário, New York and Rio. It's always incredible to get in touch with our readers, meet new authors, see the how different the world can be and how much the alike we all are.

2010 was good for a lot of my friends too. Everyone is doing good. Comics are good, people. Let's make them better!

It's a long process in the making and it's far from being over. And that's the best part of it.

In Brazil, we draw in bars

Convite Mercearia São Pedro from FILMA_FILMES on Vimeo.

Etrigan