BPRD Vampire #4 is out today

I took the picture above in a hot November night as I worked my way into the third issue of BPRD Vampire. I tried to find a picture of the period I was working on issue 4, but there wasn't any. When you have to focus on producing the stories, and every day can seem like the previous or the next as you just have to draw and draw and draw until your story is there, in front of you, it's hard not to forget about other things, other people. You dive into the world of your own creation and, for a while, you live in it.
BPRD Vampire #4 is out today in comic book stores and through the Dark Horse internet store. "After what we've put Simon through on issue three, what else could we possibly come up with to top that?" was the question our editor made when we delivered issue three.
I hope you like the new issue.
We did.

Cycles

We still didn't have time to write down the incredible experiences we had in our trip to Portland  - you can have a glimpse of it in this report from Craig Thompson - but I wanted to put this picture of our white board in here to mark the end of a cycle and the beginning of the next one. It takes a long time to make comics, and a lot of planning is required, and the artist just hopes there's no loss of quality when you have to worry about deadlines and schedules. We feel we reached the end of one cycle as our BPRD-Vampire mini-series is done, and as Bá finished all his six KillJoys covers, and as we just delivered our short story for the American Vampire anthology. We're starting a lot of new projects right now, and it's an exciting time, maybe the most exciting time in every project, when we watch these ideas as they are born and start to take shape. This initial energy will feed us for the next days, months and years as we work on these stories.
Back to the drawing board.

VAMPIRE 5

As we're currently finishing the art of the last issue of our series, the last cover is unveiled.


And here's the solicitaion for this issue.

BPRD: VAMPIRE #5
Mike Mignola (W), Fábio Moon (W/A/Cover), Gabriel Bá (W/A), and Dave Stewart (C)

On sale July 31


After the bloody encounter in the woods, only Professor Bruttenholm himself can put an end to this vampire hunt and get to the bottom of the mystery of the undead of Český Krumlov.

BPRD - VAMPIRE cover 4

Here's what the solicitation of this issue says:
"Plagued with two vampires trapped inside his chest, Simon Anders struggles to keep them under control before they can throw him into a bloodbath with an army of witches."
We're finishing this issue this week as we also finish the script for issue 5. It has been an incredible ride and I can't wait to see what people think of it in two weeks when the first issue comes out.
Back to the drawing board.

VAMPIRE, VAMPIRE, VAMPIRE!

We're finishing issue 4 of VAMPIRE this week, but here's the cover and solicitation information for issue 3, out in May. (Issue #1 will be on sale in two weeks!)




B.P.R.D.: VAMPIRE #3 (of 5)
Mike Mignola (W), Fábio Moon (W/A/Cover), Gabriel Bá (W/A/Cover), and Dave Stewart (C)
On sale May 29
FC, 32 pages
$3.50
Miniseries
A nobleman vampire’s life is spared after a horrific bargain made with the evil goddess Hecate, and now the bloodthirsty Simon Anders will put that deadly deal to rest.
• A direct sequel to the critically acclaimed B.P.R.D.: 1948!
• From the Eisner Award-winning creators of Daytripper—Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon!

BPRD: Vampire cover 2

This link, where we first talk about the new mini-series, already had this image, which is the cover of issue 2, so I guess it's ok to show it here as well even if it's not in solicitations yet.

BPRD: VAMPIRE

Some years ago, we had the gigantic honor of being invited to work with Mike Mignola on the series BPRD 1947 (along with Josh Dysart). We have been huge fans of his work for more than two decades and he's a massive influence.

After we finished that series, Mike and Scott (our editor) wanted to make more comics with us, but we didn't really know what at the time. A couple of years later, we finally finished Daytripper and we started talking about what this next thing could be.

What it turned out is this:
BPRD :VAMPIRE



On 1947, we were only the artists on that series. This time, we talking closely with Mike and Scott and we are also writing the story.

We are really thrilled to be working on the Heelboy universe once more and I can only hope the readers like what we will show them.

It will be a 5 issue mini-series and it'll begin in March. You can read a little bit more about it here, and see some pages as well.

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.

San Diego bound!

We had a wonderful time in London. The weather was incredibly sunny and everybody that we met were adorable. I joked I brought the sunny weather over from Brazil, but the warmth from the people was the nicest surprise of the trip. We certainly left wanting more, so thanks to all of you who we met, who we talked and who we touched during the past two weeks. The fact that I finished the very last page of Daytripper on my last day in London made the whole experience all the more special.



Now, the time has come again for that crazy thing (which I love) called SDCC. Many people are going, and once again we're excited and ready to rock it brazilian style. We'll share the same booth we had last year, booth #1320, with our usual pals Cliff Chiang (artist on the recent Greendale graphic novel) and Jill Thompson (the über talented artist of the recent Beasts of Burden series), and this year we'll be joined by Rafael Albuquerque (who's really showing some artistic skills on American Vampire) and Cris Peter (our colorist on our revitilized Casanova series).

We'll be there most of the time, signing books, selling copies of the new first issue of Casanova, and selling original art from series we've been working on, such as The Umbrella Academy, BPRD1947, DMZ and Sugarshock. Come around and look at all the lovely things everybody from our booth will have this time around.

Also, we'l be selling a limited signed giclée print that I made on our recent trip to Portugal, which comes in three sizes and looks like this:



Here's a detail. The prints come in small, medium and large sizes (come by the booth, they look sweet):



Our signings and panels schedule is quite full this time, jumping around all publishers we're currently working with. Here's the complete rundwon of where to find us when we're not at the booth:

Wednesday
6:60-7:30 - the EXCLUSIVE all-in Casanova signing with Matt Fraction, Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon

Thursday
11AM-12PM- PIXU signing with Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá at the Dark Horse booth
2-3PM - Signing at the DC booth
6PM - BPRD meet-up for BPRD members (at the Hilton Gaslamp - Terrace Foyer)

Friday
11AM-12PM - Signing at the DC booth
12-1:30PM - Hellboy and BPRD signing with Mike Mignola, Duncan Fegredo, Gabriel Bá, Fábio Moon and Patric Reynolds
5:30-6:30PM - Vertigo: on the Edge panel (room 6DE)

Saturday
11:15AM-12:15PM - Spotlight on Gerard Way with guests panel
1-2:30PM - Umbrella Academy signing with Gerard Way and Gabriel Bá (ticketed event: See Dark Horse employee for details)
3-4PM - Signing at the DC booth

Sunday
1:30-2:30PM - Signing at the DC booth

So, here we go again. I hope to discover a lot of new books, new artists, new people. This trip, for us, is always about discoveries. Are you ready?

Lovely interview on A Comicbook Orange!

Awesome Casey McKinnon interviewed us during this year's San Diego Comic Con. Here's the treat!

Brazil keeping us busy.

Dash Shaw came to Brazil last month (and he talks about it here and here) to promote Bottomless Belly Button and we ended up participating in two panels with him. After one of them, I drew this sketch of him while he was signing (above). the publicist from the publisher took a picture while I was doing the drawing



This week, we're busy (when are we not?). Bá is working on the third Daytripper cover, I'm drawing interior pages and we're getting ready for FIQ, a festival that happens in Belo Horizonte every two years. Ivan Brandon, Craig Thompson and Ben Templesmith are some of the guests this year besides us. Also, we're releasing the brazilian edition of The Umbrella Academy this week, and also the brazilian edition of PIXU. Vasilis and Becky are coming for the party, and they're staying so we can cook something up while we're here.

I hope that, before the end of the year, we'll have plenty of news to share of the possible future projects, but right now we're very excited with the projects we're currently working on, and we just want to focus on making Daytripper as great as we think it can be. From now until December, make sure you make your retailer order Daytripper, 'cause you won't want to miss on this ride. Two issues left on BPRD 1947 for the readers, so that's probably the Moon/Bá art fix until Daytripper hits. And the end of BPRD is totally worth it. It's AWESOME! Don't miss it.

BPRD 2 is out.

The second issue of BPRD 1947 is out, and we're working hard on the last two issues. If you liked how the story is going, it only gets better.

Simon and Katharina are my favorite characters. Lucky for me, they're the ones I'm drawing. But that's all before I started drawing the whole Hecate festival. Now, that's fun. This is the kind of story where the artist can play around, and the festival is the kind of scene we wait in a story like this. And it only gets better.

Back to the drawing board now. It only gets better, but not by itself.

July has begun with horror!

Our new enterprise into the helms of horror will hit the stores this week.

PIXU: Mark of Evil!, the collected, hardcover edition of our Harvey nominated mini-series done last year with Becky Cloonan and Vasilis Lolos. Beautiful book!
And BPRD: 1947 part 1 of 5, the dream of every cartoonist, working with Mike Mignola on the Hellboy-verse, and there're Vampires!

As the publishers start to announce their panels on the San Diego Comic Con, we start to have a notion of how busy (or not) the convention will be for us this year. Since we won't have a table anywhere, if you want to find us you better go to these panels.

So far, That's what we know:

Thursday, July 23rd:
- 6:00 -7:00 Vertigo New Ongoing Series/Crime Line
It's a new beginning for Vertigo with the launch of new ongoing titles such as The Unwritten, Greek Street & Sweet Tooth. In addition to these titles we will be launching the highly anticipated Vertigo Crime Line with some of the top talents in the industry. Hosted by Senior VP - Executive Editor, Vertigo, Karen Berger and Senior Editor Will Dennis, this panel is not to be missed, especially considering the talent present: Peter Gross (Unwritten), Jeff Lemire (Sweet Tooth, The Nobody), Jason Starr, Chris Gage, Gabriel Ba, Fabio Moon and others! Room 5AB

Friday, July 24th
- 5:30-6:30 Vertigo: View of the Future
Vertigo, DC's edgiest and most provocative imprint, returns to San Diego! Come and discover what's going on at the imprint that birthed The Sandman, Preacher, Y: The Last Man, Fables and more? Wait 'til you hear about what new projects the Vertigo team is going to thrill us with next! Hosted by Senior VP - Executive Editor, Vertigo, Karen Berger, Group Editor Shelly Bond, and Senior Editor Will Dennis, with Jason Aaron (Scalped), Mike Allred, Mark Buckingham (Fables), Josh Dysart (Unknown Soldier), Peter Gross (Unwritten), Amy Hadley (Madame Xanadu), Jeff Lemire (The Nobody), Chris Roberson, Matt Sturges (House of Mystery), Matt Wagner (Madame Xanadu), Bill Willingham (Fables, House of Mystery), G. Willow Wilson (Air), Brian Wood (DMZ, Northlanders), and others (that's us)! Room 5AB

Ther'll be the first ever, awesome Spotlight on Fabio Moon
Friday, JULY 24
12:30-1:30pm
ROOM 10

We'll have some signings as well, and we'll post them here closer to the event.

inbetween

It's coming.

Have you pre-ordered PIXU 2 already? You should. The story unfolds, the characters interact, everything comes together and the story ends. It's coming and when it arrives nothing will ever be the same.

In case you're not following us on twitter, here's the latest:

-Finishing an issue of Umbrella Academy tonight (which means inking several pages), and doing a cover tomorrow.
-Working on Daytripper script over the weekend, and going back to drawing pages during the week.
-Reading the BPRD 1947 script. Read it once already, and it's good.
-Thumbnailing the "one page a month" story we do for a brazilian magazine so we can draw it tomorrow.
- We started a weekly comic strip in one of Brazil's biggest newspapers and the first was published today.

And you know what? That's just the beginning.

Why Comics? - part 2

Why Comics?

answers by:
Gerard Way (Eisner Award winner, writer of The Umbrella Academy);
Gabriel Bá (Multiple Eisner Award winner, brazilian storyteller, author of De:Tales, 5 and PIXU , artist of The Umbrella Academy and Casanova);
Dave Stewart (Multiple Eisner Award winner colorist of BPRD, Buffy the Vampire Slayer, Cut, Hellboy, Lobster Johnson, The Umbrella Academy (Dark Horse); The Spirit (DC))

Why comics - the preview

Today, we finished the breakdown of one issue of Daytripper. Bá is already moving on his Umbrella chapter, and we're trying to get as many PIXU pages done as we can before things get crazy once the BPRD 1947 arrives and we have to do it all at the same time.

When we're this busy, working like crazy, staying awake around the clock, we sometimes wonder "why comics?" Why do we have this need? What drives us? What drives anyone to go out there and do comics, out of all things?

We started thinking.

And then we started asking around.