We were on the road, back in June, promoting our new book TWO BROTHERS here in Brazil, when we received an email from our friend Gustavo Duarte inviting us to collaborate with him on a page of an upcoming issue of his Bizarro series.
It is the first time either Bá or I have drawn on a super-hero book from DC or Marvel.
This issue comes out today.
I've known Gustavo Duarte for a long time. We're good friends. I admire his work a great deal and try to support it every chance I get. It's original and it's funny. We've shared booths and tables in several conventions and festival around the world, always a great experience, and it's wonderful to see this collection of his work be published by Dark Horse.
This book will be out tomorrow in the US, UK and Canada. Go out and get it, and start laughing.
I did this quick sketch based on a monster character from Gustavo Duarte's new book while I was waiting for a panel we would do together this weekend in São Paulo.
Having a panel and a signing session back home in the same week of Comic Con in San Diego made it just a tiny bit easier for us to miss the convention for the first time in 17 years. Both the talk and the signing were packed and Bá and I love to talk to the fans, and we were happy we could do it this weekend.
Back to work now. One of the reasons we skipped San Diego was to work on the new books, so let's get back to them.
Who's going to NYCC?
Wanna know the release party to attend during the convention weekend? Bergen street Comics has the answer for you.
Don't miss this opportunity to get Gustavo Duarte's new book.
This year, we did Atelier, our new experimental indy comic, to sell at conventions and events around the world. It may take a while until we travel abroad again, since we have entered a new period of heavy production, so there's basically just one place you can get Atelier outside of Brazil right now:
At Khepri.com, clicking here.
With Khepri, you can even choose between signed and unsigned copies, and have your comic delivered to you at your own home. So convenient. We've been counting with Brian (Khepri's main man) to help spread the love for our indy work for a long time, and he never let us down. If you want good comics, he's the guy to go to get the best deals in the internet.
He also have our friend Gustavo Duarte's new comic, TAXI, so when you go grab your Atelier, get a TAXI as well. It's awesome. (I've talked about Gustavo's first comic here)
It's hard to keep secrets. What's the fun of knowing something only you know? You gotta tell someone, let somebody knows how special you are for having a secret, and how special the other person is if you decided to share that secret with him/her.
At the same time, we do comic books and, as such distinguish creators, we practically live in a cave when we're working, so while we're actually working, it's very easy to work and keep it secret. Comic book artists are crazy scientists creating time machines or interdimentional portals inside their studios, and at some point in the story, we reach the moment for that surprise turnaround scene where we see the scientists actually built two machines instead of one.
We've reached that moment.
We started doing this two months ago, when we were thinking about our convention trips to NYCC in New York, CRACK BANG BOOM in Rosario, Argentina, and Rio Comicon in Rio de Janeiro. We realized we didn't want to go to three conventions in three different countries where three different languages were spoken and have nothing that could be presented, read and understood at all three. We travel to talk about comics and to meet the readers, sure, but the primary point of interest in the comic's world is the work, and we wanted to have work to show (we always want to have work to show and stories to tell). In the spur of the moment, we decided that, in one month, we could crank out a new comic that by the power of comics could work in three different languages, and if we could finish it in a month, we could send it to the printer and have in ready in time for our first stop: New York.
One month later, we were calling the printer to check out if they got the files.
What else can I say?
It's at the printer, and should be ready any moment now. And then it will be real, in my hands, and soon enough. in yours. That's how's supposed to work, and it's the beauty of it. We've just built another time machine and it's time to put it to work. Can you feel the turning point coming?
Now, it's great to have friends, specially if they're in the crazy scientist profession like ourselves, because it's always better, when you're alone at night drawing endlessly and with little to no hope, to know that, if you look through the window at the tower of your friend's castle, lightening bolts and explosions can be seen, heard and felt, and you know that, by the time you finish your monster, there will be a monster friend to keep it company.
As we pack and get ready to travel with our new comic, we know that we'll be in great company as we saw our friend Gustavo Duarte produce his second comic, also in the dead of night, also in secret (not really, but let's keep playing our roles), and also in time for NYCC, where he'll share a table with us to present the world TAXI, his brand new thing. Let me tell you, it's beautiful, but don't believe me and go see for yourself.
We'll be at table F4-F9 on a giant booth at artist's alley, along with Ivan Brandon, Rafael Albuquerque, Ariel Olivetti, Andy MacDonald, Leandro Fernández and the incredible Becky Cloonan. we'll have copies of ATELIER, CASANOVA, and stuff. Fun stuff. Check it out.
See you in a week, or in another convention, or soon.
"This doesn't look like someone's FIRST comic at all!", I though as I read it. I wish all first comics looked this good, this crisp, this funny.
Có is Gustavo Duarte's very first comic, and it's amazing.
I know Gustavo for many years now, and we met in a Caricature event. I was doing caricatures for free at the park for some event, along with my brother and another friend, and when the event asked us to have more people working, our friend brought Gustavo.
And boy he was good at doing caricatures.
I soon discovered he world as a cartoonist on a sports newspaper and soon I realized not only was he good, he was really into comics. As I followed his blog, I kept seeing various comics related cartoons, some that he used on his work, and some he did out of pleasure.
Bá and I, we're stupid. We can't see an itch and we feel this need to scratch it. Somebody can have a very easy going and succesful life, but if we see this person has the "comics itch", we'll go there and scratch it until it grows. Some people want that itch to grow and need an excuse, and we love to be somebody's excuse to do comics.
Gustavo wanted to do comics. He might have wanted to do just one comic book. I told him "Go", and I kept telling him every time I saw him.
Go.
I'm so glad he went. And what an amazing comic he did.
This year, in San Diego, I convinced Gustavo to go to the convention and sell his comic there ( I guess this was another excuse he had to do it) and it was awesome to see the response of the public. Có is a funny comic, and there's nothing better than seeing people holding a funny comic and, suddenly, they would start laughing. Comedy must be immediate, and the response should be equally fast, and Gustavo hit all the right notes in his comic.
His VERY first comic.
He told me he would be happy if he could have done only one comic. And that he did, but soon he discovered what people discover when they start doing comics:
When you finish, it feels great because you did it.
When you finish, you can't wait to start the next one. It's addictive.
While Gustavo is already planning his next comic, you can look for Có at my favorite online retailer, Khepri.com (click here to get your copy). If you don't live in Brazil, Khepri is your best option to find this comic before it sells out.
And then you'll agree with me, and you'll join me as we wait for whatever is next.
note: all the images above on this post were drawn by Gustavo.
