CASANOVA originals at SDCC 2012

It's sexy. It's crazy. What else can I say for sure about CASANOVA?
It was a very hard year working on this series and juggling it with all the other projects both Matt and I had to do, so I'm really sorry to have delayed issues #3 and #4 so much. But, in the end, it was for the best, because I was more focused and could produce what I think were some of the best pages of my life.
AVARITIA was a crazy story arc that explained a lot of things and left a whole other bunch on the air, but that's the way it is with this book. And what comes next? We'll have to wait and see. Only Matt knows.
So if you're a fan of Casanova Quinn, Sasa Lisi, Suki Boutique and Luther Desmond Diamond, you'll be thrilled to know that we're bringing original pages of AVARITIA to sell next week on SDCC at our booth (#1320). Here's the amazing selection of pages (click on the pages to see a bigger version).
 









Oh, how I loved that Ziggy Startdust reference. It came out perfect. I really love when Matt points at something and I nail it. It's a very hard thing to do. the man is not from this world.

The folks of Beguiling have some other pages as well, from previous stories. So don't forget to check them out. They sell it online and I'm sure they'll bring of of them to the show as well.
AAAAAANNNNND… we will have all three trades of the Casanova series for sale at our booth.
LUXURIA, GULA and AVARITIA. Very exciting! PA-ZOW!

BPRD originals at SDCC 2012

Both Fábio and I have been big fans of Mike Mignola's work for a long time and when he began Hellboy, it just blew our brains with his amazing style and perfect mix of fun story, great characters, amazing design and overwhelming use of black&white art.
It was a great honor to have worked with him on BPRD:1947.
So if you're a fan of the Hellboy universe as well, you'll be happy to know we're bringing original pages for SDCC next week! We have a bunch already with the folks at Beguiling and I'm sure they're bringing them all this to the show, but here's the new selection of pages (click on the pages to see a bigger version).



It's great to create characters that survive your story and move forward on their own. Ota, the priest we helped creating for this series, has new adventures of his own on the series Cameron Stewart is doing, called BPRD - Hell on Earth: Exorcism. Go check it out.

So if you're going to SDCC, stop by our booth (#1320) and check out all the original pages we have there, as well of all the amazing comics too, of course.

Umbrella Academy originals at SDCC 2012

San Diego Comic Con International is just around the corner, happening from July 11th to July 15th and, once again, Fábio and I will be there and share a booth with some amazing artist friends: Jill Thompson, Becky Cloonan, Andy Belanger and Rafael Albuquerque, plus the talented Murilo Martins.
We will have our books to sell this year. Umbrella Academy (both volumes), CASANOVA (Luxuria, Gula and the freshly compiled AVARITIA trade), our beloved Daytripper and more. Please stop by to check out any – or all – of the books.
And, as we have done in previous years, we'll have original artwork for sale ate our booth (and some with the nice folks of The Beguiling store over at the Drawn and Quarterly booth, very close to ours). And other pages I'll have are on this link.
Here's a preview of some of the Umbrella Academy pages I'll bring, from the amazing Apocalypse Suite series (click on the image to see a bigger version).


(this last page, page 07 from issue 4, is reserved already).
We'll put more updates before we travel, with signing information, panels, shows, Trickster and everything you need to know to find us on the big, crazy show. It's so close. Again.
See you all soon.

CBLDF auction at SDCC

Every year, the Comic Book Legal Defense Fund auction takes place during SDCC. We have been doing and donating original artwork for the auction for the last three years, and this year we did again.
1-Just like everybody, Bá misses the Umbrella Academy characters and he jumped at the opportunity to draw them again, Dallas style.

2- Warming up for the next arc, I did Sasa Lisi and Zephyr Quinn from our book Casanova. Pa-ZOW!


The nice people from TFAW even take the artwork we, and several other artists, contribute and make sketchcards for us to give out for free and help promote the auction. If you stop at their booth (#5625) you can get their latest batch of sketches (you can see preview images of the drawings from all the artists here, here and here), ours included. We'll have the sketchcards from our drawings at our booth as well (#1320), so stop by.
Both images will be auctioned off July 14th in room Sapphire AB at the Hilton Bayfront, starting at 8:00 p.m., with all proceeds benefiting the First Amendment rights of the comics community!

Serenity original art at SDCC

July is Comic Con month. SDCC happens from July 11th to July 15th and, once again, Bá and I will travel to San Diego to share a booth with some amazing artist friends: Jill Thompson, Becky Cloonan, Andy Belanger and Rafael Albuquerque. Just like in previous years, we'll have our books there for people to discover. I think we'll have our widest variety yet, from all the Casanova trades to Daytripper, Pixu and both Umbrella Academy trades. If you don't have one of our books and you're going to San Diego, this is your chance to get a signed and sketched copy of any of our recent books.

I'll update the blog with all the incredible stuff we'll have at the booth, so I'll start with the my most recent item: Serenity original pages.

I recently did a Serenity story (published as part of this year's FCBD comic from Dark Horse), working on these beloved Joss Whedon characters, and I'll have the pages for sale at the booth. Mal and his crew had their fun, or at least I had my fun with them.

Here are the black and white versions of the pages. Click on them for the bigger versions:

Excited? Check back for the next post to see which other original pages we'll bring to the show.

Once again, our booth number at SDCC is 1320.

At your doorstep

Tr!ckster Cocktail Hour

Bá and I will participate this year again in the awesomeness that is TR!CKSTER. During Comicon in San Diego, while amazing stuff happens inside the convention center, there's just too much going on, and more and more it's easy to lose focus of what you want, what you love and what you're looking for. For these reasons, some amazing folks created a place outside the convention center where you can focus on creators who do their own comics, and where you can learn and discuss how to become a creator yourself talking with some great talented bunch of authors you admire or soon will discover.
This year, TR!CKSTER is promoting an activity called Cocktail Hour, in which one accomplished creator, or a team of creators, will spend one hour with one person who subscribe, to help develop this person's project. As it's put on the website, "YOU will bring a project you're working on and brainstorm, design, chat, troubleshoot, and create alongside one of your favorite working storytellers. Bring a script, an outline, character designs, comic pages, storyboards, screenplay pages, whatever you need, and experience one of the most focused working sessions of your life as you drink and create, together. Time and day to be mutually determined"

Bá will do one cocktail hour, and I will do another.

What does that mean? What can we do with your project? How can we help you?

- Let's say you're an artist with no script. We can look at your artwork and help you with your technique, with your inking or coloring, with your style. We can tell you what publisher your work fits better, and maybe we can even know who to talk to at the publisher. We can give you advice on how to start writing your own stories, and how that can be different than working with other writers. We can give you tips and advice on self-publishing.
- Let's say you're an artist with a script or project. We can look at your script, your story, your project, and help develop it further, see where it can be improved, talk about schedule, talk about craft and how the art and the words work together to tell your story. We can look at your character designs and help out create the look of your story, help you make your art your own.
- Let's say you're a writer with no artist. We can give you advice and tips on how to find artists, we can look at your script and tell which artist or style to look for, maybe we even know somebody who really fits your project. We can help sketch the characters, think about covers, design, how to package your story to propose your project to a publisher, and what publisher does the kind of books you want to make. We can go over your script and polish it, maybe tell you what artists like to see in a script and what doesn't help the artist to understand what that scene/panel is about, we can help you break down a scene in panels and pages.


If I got yourself interested in learning while helping out TR!CKSTER, go to the TR!CKSTER indiegogo page and subscribe to one one hour of intensive learning. It will be tons of fun, guaranteed. There are other amazing artists offering the same Cocktail Hour workshop, so maybe you can also have an amazing time with Jill Thompson and her storytelling and watercolor skills, or you can get expressive, cartoony and funny with Scott C (just to name two), it's your call. While you're checking the link, see all the other ways you can get fun stuff and help maintaining this amazing creator friendly space, buying prints and books.
Let's all meet up at TR!CKSTER and celebrate the art and love of making comics.

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(sketchbook doodles. Click on the images for bigger versions)

2012 Around the world - part 2

We make comics, and we like to tell stories, because we love the medium and we really believe comics are a wonderful and unique special way to tell all sorts of stories. In recent years, more diverse comics have been made, seen, read and celebrated, and one of the greatest ways to discover what comics have to offer is by getting out of your hole and being open to the different.
The different is awesome, and it's all around.
That's certainly one of the best advantages, for us, to travel to conventions and comics festivals. Around Brazil, in the US, all over the world, nowadays you'll certainly discover one aspect of the comics world you just didn't know before every time you go to a comics festival. There's always that book, that artist, that panel, that event or simply that vibe that will inspire you and make you want to create that same awesome feeling in your work.
That's how we felt after going to TCAF, the Toronto Comic Arts Festival.

Very different from the Napoli Comicon, which in its own way were more similar to bigger more diverse shows like SDCC in San Diego, TCAF was a festival to celebrate creators and their comics. "Do your own stuff, make your own comics, have an individual voice", these seem like the mantra not only of the festival, but of all the exhibitors who travel from all over to show their new books in Toronto. And what wonderful work is being produced these days.
We were talking to Jeff Smith during the festival (he was another guest of honor, and we shared the opening event on Friday night, as you can see on video on a previous post) and it was just amazing the amount of new cartoonists, some much younger, and the raw energy they paraded around, as if screaming "my work is awesome and I just won't be ignored". If someday we hoped people believed comics were cool, and were the most wonderful job in the world, those cartoonist at TCAF believe it with all their hearts, and they'll fight for their comics, even if it's a Scott Pilgrim's kind of fight. Last year, at San Diego, I had the same great impression and vibe with Tr!ckster and both the creators and the audience who circulated on that wine bar for those days and nights: They were there brought together by their love for good comics, creating a serious place to discuss how to make the work better. But, if Tr!ckster were a store/bar/party place, TCAF was an entire festival with more than 350 exhibitors, half of them women cartoonists, and they were all loving to be there selling their comics. You felt the love, all around, and you were intoxicated with that urge to create something new, something fresh, something your own, and to share it with everybody around you.

And then there were the night parties.

(me, Cecil Castellucci, Jeff Smith, Bá and Kazu Kibuishi at the TCAFÊTE at Pauper's Pub)


Another important part of the whole festival experience, parties, dinners and night time activities are great so you can talk a little more with you friends from distant places, or you can make new friends and get to know new people who, in their own way, love the same things you love. Toronto didn't disappoint in this category, and the festival organizers threw very nice parties all three nights. Popping in and out of various places portrayed in Scott Pilgrim (both in the comic and in the movie) only made it feel like the never ending night life of Toronto (maybe I'm stretching it a bit) was tailored maybe for cartoonists and comics fans.
Just like in Italy, we left filled with joy, eager to tell new stories and completely inspired by the places we visited and the people we talked to, and I'm sure someday people will recognize a little bit of our canadian experiences in one of our stories. And, just like in Italy, we put together a small video to try to explain, or at least show, how TCAF is a festival every independent creator should go. It's that awesome (don't mind the subtitles, they're for our brazilian fans).

Thanks to Peter and Chris, for inviting us, and for Krystle and Miles and the entire Beguiling staff, for being really nice and helpful and awesome, and thanks for all the cartoonists we hung around during TCAF (Becky, Andy, Jeff, Kazu, José, Jason, Mark, Cameron, Bryan, Vera, Matt, Dustin, Emily, Nathalie, Clark and I'm sure many more I'm forgetting right now): if we keep doing the comics we love the best way we can, nobody can stop us.

2012 Around the world - part 1

The convention season has started for us, and it keeps reminding us how many people love to read and to do comics in all its forms and shapes. And the more different these conventions are, they show us how much the comics world can grow in all these different directions.

One page short of finishing the artwork on Casanova: Avaritia #4, our first convention was Quantacon, a small convention here in São Paulo which, in its fist installment, burst out with creative energy and all around happiness. Fun and interesting panels, great range of authors and their individual little booths, and a great amount of fresh new material. It's a great time to be a comic book author in São Paulo and the convention did show how much the city needs an event to put everybody together more often.

After that, Bá finished the last page of Casanova and we left for two international conventions.

First stop was Toronto, only for two VERY cold days. We were guests of honor for TCAF, so it was great to come to the city one week before the festival to get an idea of the city and where everything would take place. Since we were there, we went to visit the CN tower and we made a video calling people for the festival, which you can check out clicking here.

Then we left for Italy.

We went to Naples for Napoli ComiCon and had an incredible time. Everybody we met there were awesome people, from the cute frenetic loud-talker-guest-relations-organizer Viola, to mexican Artist Tony Sandoval, Swiss artist Frederik Peeters, canadian artist David Finch, almost all our italian editors, german artist Line Hoven and so many more. Claudio Curcio created a great festival that puts together everybody who loves comics, games, cosplay and pop culture and, on top of that, made it in Naples, which is an incredibly beautiful city in a very chaotic way. For me, big cities are fascinating, I love when a city has this kind of energy that oozes from the people, the rhythm and the chaos of any place where you can find any type of person, and you look around and you see history in every wall, every building, every hill with a dormant volcano. And all those scooters! The stuff we saw during our short stay in Naples will surely influence future stories, future characters and future situations.
Thanks to all the girls responsible for the the guests who took care of us and make sure we survived the incredible experience: Viola, Chiara, Alexandra e Giovanna.
Thank to our french editor, François Hercouet, who travelled to Naples just for one day to meet us and gives us copies of the just released beatiful french edition of Daytripper. Merci, François.
Thanks to Claudio for inviting us.
And thanks to Italy, for preserving its history in ways many (if not all) cities in Brazil don't even bother to try. We had an incredible time in Naples, and then visitng Pompei, and finally visiting Caserta and the royal Palace, the old medieval town and the incredible Caserta comicbook store, Comix Factory. Thanks to Steffano Perullo for the Caserta portion of the trip.
You can see some pictures of our trip clicking here.
Bá put together a video with images we made during our incredible italian trip. That's just the first offspring of our short italian love affair.



After Italy, we left back to Toronto and for TCAF, thinking there wasn't much Toronto could do to impress us more than Naples.

We should have known better.
(to be continued...)

TCAF 2012 May 4th kick-off event

For all of you who couldn't be there, here are four videos that cover almost all of the TCAF 2012 kick-off panel with Jeff Smith, Fábio and me, mediated by Mark Askwith. It was a great weekend and we'll write all about it soon.