Face to face.

Another shot on our working arrengement. We work face to face and, as my table acumulates ink pots, Bá's table acumulates tecnical pens.

Back to work, and good week.

Talking out loud.

You've seen our artwork in many places. You've read our stories (maybe) and loved it. Now, it's time to hear what we have to say.

There's an podcast interviw with us over at the Bullpen Bulletins. To listen to it, you can clic here or here.

Now, who can tell who is saying what?

Back to crazy workload, now.

Drawing and Writing

The work never ends, but it's not supposed to. I'm halfway done with my second issue of Casanova, and now I feel I'm completely confortable with the book. Of course, all of this will change as I start my third issue, 'cause it feels like every chapter is the first, but that's not the big picture.

That's my table as it stood today at late afternoon, by the way.

Bá's also done with his issue of Umbrella Academy, and a new issue awaits. When you look at his pages, you realize he's yet to reach his full potential, and every new page is a expectacle. I know I sound like the proudest of the brothers, but wait until you see the pages.

We've been reading all these scripts, but it's hard to say they're changing the way we write our scripts, mostly because we write almost only dialogues and captions, with barely any panel description. One thing I know does happen is that we're constantly increasing our visual vocabulary as we draw other people's stories, and that vocabulary stays with us when we're writing our own.

Writing helps us draw, and the other way around as well.



The first Casanova trade is out today! Go get it!

Thinking.

High goes the passing cloud.
High goes my thought
Slave of your graces
Like clouds the wind paces.

poem by Fernando Pessoa

Casanova cover 9

I'm almost halfway through this issue and, after Bá finished the cover, I saw I had to change something on my pages to match the coolness of the image.

May.

I have this recurrent impression that May is always a super busy month. It's when we really start to accumulate various projects, and work on them simultaneously, in order to finish everything in time for the events of the coming months. In Brazil, it's always at the end of June, or begin of July, that we make something to sell at the HQ Mix, the brazilian comics award ceremony. In the States, we prepare for the San Diego Comicon, which happens at the end of July.

We are hard at work here. Each one of us is drawing two stories, and writing another two (together). It's all worth it. but it takes a lot of our time, and sometimes more than we would want.

The good thing about having a lot of work is that you really learn how to focus. I had a real problem focusing in front of the computer, spending hour surfing the internet, going from one forum to the next, reading the news about comics I never read, and not doing the comics I want people to read. Now, I barely check my e-mails (sorry if I take some time to answer it), and I spend a lot more time at the drawing board, drawing.

It's busy, it's fast, it's hard.

But life is good.

PHINEAS POE!

Santa Barbara-based indie comics publisher Terra Major is set to release its first monthly serialized comic, PHINEAS POE, a graphic adaptation of KISS ME, JUDAS, the first book of the critically acclaimed noir trilogy PHINEAS POE, by author Will Christopher Baer. PHINEAS POE will be illustrated by award-winning MTV Brazil animator Jefferson Costa, making PHINEAS POE the eighth Terra Major title illustrated by an up-and-coming Brazilian artist.

Order now! You won't regret it.



PHINEAS POE #1 debuts JUNE 2007.
Diamond Order Code: APR07 3955, Page 342.
Writer: Will Christopher Baer
Artist: Jefferson Costa
Format: 32pp Standard Size Comic / B&W / $5
For Mature Readers



PHINEAS POE #2 due to JULY 2007.
Diamond Order Code: MAY07 3719, Page 345.
Writer: Will Christopher Baer
Artist: Jefferson Costa
Format: 32pp Standard Size Comic / B&W / $5
For Mature Readers

Step by Step - the art of Umbrella Academy

The Free Comic Book Day was yesterday and I hope lots of people have got their copies of the Umbrella Academy comic. I know I still don't have mine. Anyway, I hope people like it, because I'm really having a great time working on that book.

I decided to show some steps of the production of the pages here, now that I can actually show the pages.



1- Layouts. This is what I do to show to editor Scott Allie and writer Gerard Way. The approve or ask for changes, make suggestions, then I can show them only the final inked version of the page. I make the layouts very small and I don't enlarge and print them like some people do. When I go to pencil the page, I keep the layout next to me and do everything again. A lot of times it is very hard to get the same emotion, movement and expression I got on the layouts when I'm translating it to the big page, but I always end up getting it.



2- Inking. After I pencil everything, sometimes with more or less detail, depending on lighting, planes, whatever, I ink the page. BLACK AND WHITE RULES!



3- Colors. When I'm done, I send the pages to Dark Horse and they send it to Dave Stewart, who does MAGIC on them with colors. People know me for not being happy with color jobs over my pages, but I'm so glad with Dave's work. I could not imagine someone better for the task.

So, let's go back to the drawing board, because lots of Umbrella pages still await me.

De:TALES SALE!

There's a big De:Tales sale at Khepri, as well as other Eisner notinated titles, so if you haven't read our book yet (or any other of the many on sale at Khepri this month), this is your chance. Don't miss out, and hurry, there's a lot to read if you want to catch up o all these books.

I'm in the mood for comics.

So, I finished my first issue of Casanova and currently I'm thumbnailing the next. This is, like I already said, different from what I expected, and I'm learning as I go. I still feel like a reader to this book, just now learning what happens when I get the script, instead of once I got the comic.

And I get to draw the book now, but I'm still getting used to that part, and I guess everybody will also have to get used to that as well.

I'm having fun with the spot color. Not always I go as heavy on the black as Bá, so to be able to have another color to add shadows and mood is good, and I think I did a very good job on my first issue. You can check the image on our left to be the judge if you don't trust me. And, yes, now we're going blue, as long as the second album lasts (second album = Fábio). We almost chose blue for the first arc, but Bá, the genious that he is, chose that weird green, and that was awesome. Now, however, we're doing blue. Blue is the new green.

I gave an idea for the cover of issue 9 for Bá, and he might do the cover this weekend. As for me, it's all about interiors. I'm not doing covers for Casanova, I'm not doing the cover for our special San Diego comic, and I'm not doing the cover for... well, that was it so far.

You know, Matt only writes the back matter after the pages are done, and since now all the pages are done, I wonder what he's going to write about. That's probably the part I'm still a reader of, since I'll only know when the book comes out. In August (the wait is the worst!). Until then, I'll already have three more issues ready and I won't even care anymore. I'll be already waiting for more scripts, and more pages, and more backmatter. I won't even remember I wrote this then, and I'll probably write something similar when issue 8 hits the stands.

Right now, all I can think of is that tomorrow is FREE COMIC BOOK DAY and the first Umbrella Academy story will appear. Bá did a terrific pages on this book, and you'll see that he's keeping busy as well since he stopped drawing the sexy spy book I took over. Gehard Way is turning out to be a great writer, and we laugh out loud and cheer when we read his scripts, so Bá is really enjoying drawing this book. Tomorrow, you'll see just that. And remember, tomorrow is FREE!

I'm going back to the drawing board now, to finish some brain illustrations I have to do, and then I have to draw Ahmed Ertegun. I'll check back once all this overflow of work passes and I'm back into being just a comic book creator.