Monday, April 30, 2007

Good crazy.



I can start by saying it has been interesting. This whole monthly gig thing. Entirely different than working on a Graphic Novel, sometimes easier, sometimes harder. Knowing you have less pages than days in one month isn't always a good thing when you're used to squeeze pages to fit the workload and meet the deadline. Free time is addictive, and it leads to no good.

One thing we're doing here on our free time is write a lot. More than sketching (which we're coming back into doing), we talked a lot about ideas and stories this month, and we're putting it down on paper. Hopefully, new stories will come to life before the end of the year, and then we'll schedule the whole thing to release it as soon as possible.

May will be a funny month. Both Bá and I will be working in more than one project at the same time to finish our special San Diego comic (which we have to coordinate with the other equally busy artists), and we'll likely come up with some other stuff just because we can't sit still for too long. May is going to be crazy, but good crazy.

Back to work now, and here's to the good crazy.

Saturday, April 28, 2007

Morning fiction.

Suddenly, it's like we've woken up in the middle of the winter. It's cold and it's grey, and my bones feel like staying in bed. My mind goes through the workload of the weekend to determine how much time left I have, which is never enough, and I decide it's time to get up and take a shower.

Mind made, it's just a matter of turning to the other side of the bed to find the door to the bathroom. That much I do, still under the blanket. I then fall back asleep and continue the dream I was just having, hoping to find another girl to talk to.

Maybe when I wake up it will feel like summer again.

Sit.

Wednesday, April 25, 2007

My lesson for today.

I gave a lecture at the university this week. The same college I graduated in fine arts ten years ago. There I was, talking about comics to people studying architecture, fine arts and graphic design, and fashion and cinema. After the strangeness of being the teacher instead of the student was gone, I realized how much work I have done all these years, and how much I had to change and grow up since my college days.

Isn't it nice to see that you've actually learned something? And, better, that what you have done can teach others, and they can learn from you?

As I returned to the studio, I was, just as my brother, filled with ideas, with experiences we collected from all those eyes and from all those questions. And the smiles.

I love teaching and this feeling that we're telling our own stories and we're all learning what happens next as we go.

Monday, April 23, 2007

Thinking, drawing, choosing.



I'm always thinking about the stories I've told and the ones I'm yet to tell. I'm always thinking about how much time I spend on the drawing board, and how much time must I spend outside, talking, interacting, living, in order to fuel my next stories. I think a lot about which stories I'm willing to draw, and that counts most when I'm drawing something I'm not writing. The answer isn't always the same. It shouldn't be, really. There're a million reasons to choose one story, to choose one character, to choose one writer. We're always choosing how we're going to spend the next year's worth of work, so we better think a lot before choosing.

This weekend, besides drawing Casanova pages, I came up with my pages for the super comic book we're doing for San Diego. Bá already thought of his story two weeks ago, so I had this feeling I was dragging my feet for the last two weeks. I did the thumbnails and I'm happy about them. They make me want to draw this story, so they did their job well. Now it's time to do mine.

Thursday, April 19, 2007

De:TALES - Eisner nominee!



The list of nominations for the 2007 Eisner Awards is out and we have been nominated in the category Best U.S. Edition of International Material with our De:TALES.

Nice.

Wednesday, April 18, 2007

short stories.



The image above comes from yet another story about dance I just finished. I do one of those once a month, for a dance magazine. As I love dancing, and as I find it is easy to talk about almost everything in life using dancing as a metaphor, I really enjoy creating these stories. It's an exercise which reminds me of my early fanzine days.

Today, I'm drawing the longest page in the history of Casanova. It also might be the fastest page to draw. We'll see. Well, I'll see, you'll just have to take my word for it until the new series kicks off in August (yes, I'm also in pain knowing what I'm doing today won't be in the hands of all my three fans - hi, Becky! - until August).

Bá's hard at work on the Umbrella Academy. As we look at each other's drawing board, we can assure we're drawing two completely different books, but both are fun to draw.

They'll be fun to read as well.

Friday, April 13, 2007

Fabio's monthly book.

I'm completely out of time. I'm working like a dog, sick like a pig. Good times. Between writing and drawing my own stories, I decided to take a new side job, one that scares the shit out of me for several reasons, the least of it because it's a monthly book. But it's monthly, after all, and that should be interesting in itself.

You all know this book. If you don't, you should. It has everything from guns, action, romance, SEX, naked people all around and a monstrous lady sidekick. Lucky for you, I hear the first trade is out any minute now, and my first issue is a great starting point as well.

My brother is doing the covers for my book, which is more than natural, since he did all the covers of the series so far.

Here's the one he just did:

Tuesday, April 10, 2007

New Terra Major comic!



Phineas Poe #1
writer Will Christopher Baer
artist Jefferson Costa
publisher Terra Major
32pp / No Ads / BW / $5 US
DCD Code: APR07 3955 / Page 342

We started our international career in comics with Shane Amaya's Terra Major comics. He wrote Roland - days of wrath and we did the artwork. We got a Xeric Foundation Grant for it back in 1999. After that, Shane continued producing more historical fiction books with other brazilian artists like Bruno D'Angelo and Kako, until finally in 2005 we released the big book of brazilians doing westerns: Gunned Down (okay, there were two or three americans involved on that book).

Now, Terra Major is back, publishing their first mini series. Adapted from the best seller Kiss me Judas, Phineas Poe has the outstanding artwork of fellow brazilian Jefferson Costa.

Order this book from the Diamond catalog and wait for it in June. Or click here to know more.

Saturday, April 07, 2007

Monday, April 02, 2007

FLIGHT preview.



Newsarama has a very nice gallery preview of the next issue of FLIGHT. Lots of pages from, I guess, almost all the artists involved. If I was already excited about FLIGHT before contributing to it, I'm even more excited now that I have done something for the book. All the serious talks about the process of making comics, all the time showing previews, all the sketches and the different styles, all that "behind the scenes" part of making FLIGHT just made the book better to me. It's hard to make an anthology with so many artists involved, and I really admire Kazu for making it so well.

FLIGHT volume 4 will be released on July 10th.

Click on the images below to see bigger versions of two of my pages for this album.