CHINA!

There're no words to describe the thrill of having your book published in China. Or maybe there is, but it's in Chinese.




That's the beauty of telling stories. There's no limit where they can go.

谢谢

CMYK- Farewell

Over the last three volumes of these color themed anthologies, I’ve told the story of these characters who, faced with the inevitability of change, have to reflect about what they do, and the importance of where they are, or how they got there and, the power of the memories that the objects we keep can carry and, finally, in the end, where they’re headed.

I came up with the idea to tell a story about change the moment the editor, Will Dennis, told me about his desire to put together this four anthologies based on the primary colors. And, I don’t know exactly why, I never imagined that I would choose only one color. I already thought that the best way to explore the artistic possibilities of this approach to the story would be to think of four stand-alone-yet-somehow-connected tales, so I could show how to change gears as we moved from one “color” to the next, and so that we could really reflect a little longer over one subject as seen at four different lights.

Tomorrow, Vertigo will publish CMYK-K, the last issue of the anthology, and with it, the last chapter of my story. It’s called “Farewell”. I hope you pick it up.

Here’s the first page.

There’s a nod to one of the very first Vertigo stories I ever read on this page. There are others, throughout these four little stories, but this one is pretty easy to spot.

Not all references need to be obscure, or hidden.

Wear your passions on your sleeve, I say.

We’ll be all right.

the cars that drives us.

I drew this car on the first page of my story for the cyan issue of the CMYK Vertigo Quarterly anthology.
Two weeks ago, I saw a car just like this parked on a street near my house.
"A reminder", I thought.
The car I drew is calling me back.

San Diego Comic Con 2014 Schedule

 Another year, another San Diego Comic Con. The convention keeps taking over the town, so there's stuff going on everywhere around the Gaslamp quarter. If you want to catch up with me and get somes books signed, this is my schedule for this year.

Wednesday July 23 is Preview Night! Show Hours 5:00pm-9:00pm
Before preview night actually starts, I think the action happens at the Hilton Bayfront, where there'll be an Image Expo presentation starting at 2pm. Image has been releasing so many great new books by some awesome creators, that I'm really looking forward to what they might announce this time.
After that, I'll probably hit the Con floor for preview night and, as I leave the original art we made for the CBLDF at the CBLDF booth, I'll get the Casanova and Spaceboy prints and leave them, along with the original art we have, at the Beguiling booth (#1629)

Thursday July 24 Show Hours 9:00am-7:00pm
- Signing 2:30-3:30pm – DCE Booth #1915
I'll be signing all the books you can bring at the Vertigo signing table, so don't be shy.
- Art Demo 3:30-4:00pm – DCE Booth #1915
You know those art demonstrations they have at the DC booth, where they interview an artist while he/she's drawing, right then and there, and they shoot the drawing being made and project it live on a big screen? So, those. With me.
At night, probably around 8pm, there's the traditional CBLDF party at the terrace of the Westgate hotel. Many artists will attend and it's a great chance to meet and talk to them, and to look at a lot of the great original art  that will be available at the CBLDF auction over the weekend.

Friday July 25 Show Hours 9:00am-7:00pm
I don't have any signings or panels, so I'll be free to actually see some stuff at the convention. I plan on catching up with some friends and seeing some panels.
At night, I'll go to the Eisner Awards ceremony, which starts at 8pm at the Hilton Bayfront. I have a bunch of friends nominated and I'll be rooting for them while we all join in the celebration of our medium.
Whatever happens, afterwards we'll party!

Saturday July 26 Show Hours 9:00am-7:00pm
- Signing 10:30-11:30am – DCE Booth #1915
Hangover signing! I'll be signing all the books you can bring at the Vertigo signing table, so don't be shy. I'll be shy for the both of us, okay? Also, this is my last signing this year, so don't leave anything for Sunday.
Sunday July 27 Show Hours 9:00am-5:00pm

Another day without signings or panels for me, so I hope you enjoy the last day of the convention. I know I will. And I'll definitely do an "art hunt" on Sunday for those who stick until the end.

DELUXE

At last, the Daytripper Deluxe Edition HC is here! We're very proud of it and we know how much the readers have asked for a premium version of our beloved book.




You can see a step-by-step of the new wraparound cover image here and Comics Alliance has a preview of the Sketchbook section here.

And a little video of the book.




We couldn't be happier. This really push us to keep telling our stories. We love comics.
And a big thank you to all our readers. They made this possible. This book is for all of you.

Daytripper in the University

I love surprises. They fuel my creativity and challenge my work. I love when things I could have never imagine happening do happen. Daytripper keeps surprising us.

University of Tennessee has chosen Daytripper for the 2014 Life of Mind program, a program to help first year students transition successfully into college. All freshman students – around 4500 – will get the book in August, then be asked to present a little essay about it and then participate on small group discussions about the book and its themes.

Daytripper is the first graphic novel ever to be selected for the Life of Mind program.

The official announcement has been done last monday, April 7th.

I love surprises.

2014 after a long day and a bottle of wine.

I will be done with the artwork of the Hellboy story I’m drawing this week. Today was a long day in order to finish inking two pages from it. I planned on finishing this pages much earlier, but life got in the way – in a good way, at least – and I had to pull a late night shift in order to keep up with my self-imposed schedule.
After I finished inking the first page, I made myself dinner. I opened a bottle of wine to relax a bit, and the fact that the bottle had “Aragonez” written in it struck me as a good sign. Not quite Aragonés, but close enough. I wondered if drinking would help or ruin the inking of the second page. It didn’t do any of the above, I guess, but I did relax as I worked well after midnight.

I’ve been working, on and off, at this Hellboy story since the beginning of the year, but the very first page of art I made this year was for something completely different. If you follow the news or attended the Image Expo convention that happened in San Francisco on January 9th, or if you follow this blog, you already know.



I got the following email from Matt on December 28th, already at the beach house:

“With the Image Expo coming up, Image is wondering if we (you) can generate a promo image they can reveal. Even if we just end up showing the logo and everyone’s name and a date that works but, y’know, art is always preferred.”

The page above was the result of the email exchange that followed, talking about the plot and the visual influences Matt wanted for the new arc. Even in the middle of my vacation, I decided to put in the extra effort and make this page. It was worth it, and it was a good reflex of one of my new year’s resolution:

-This year, I want to produce more.

If I focus, I know I can do more than what I’ve been doing. I know answering emails is part of the job, and making decisions and signing contracts and going to festivals around the world where I meet wonderful people and have incredible experiences, but I know I can produce more if I put my heart into it. An I plan to do it this year. The Hellboy story is part of it, as is the new Casanova arc. As is a short story for a Vertigo anthology, a one page Little Nemo homage piece, and some other secret projects we can’t talk about it yet.
We can do more stuff outside the “comics” realm: an music album cover, more live drawings, a tour poster, and whatever feeds our muse.

A recent email I received fed my muse in ways it haven’t been fed in a very long time, and it helped everything make sense.

As I finished the last inking page I set to myself for today (tonight), I went back to the bottle of wine and started thinking about my upcoming trip to India. I’m sure many stories are waiting to be discovered there, and Bá and I are counting the days.

We’re counting the days, and we’re making plans, and we’re dreaming of stores yet untold.

Daytripper Deluxe Edition HC - the cover

We couldn't be happier with Daytripper. It became everything we believe comics can be and it has been reaching people all over the world. We really enjoyed its run as a mini-series, but the collected edition is the one really going the distance. We love this book.

It took us long nine months to get the first cover of Daytripper right, making a lot of sketches, having to lots of different approaches, but in the end we couldn't have done a better job. The cover for the first issue had to portray a little of the whole series as it could be used as the cover for the trade. Well, it did happen and it has become the "face" of the book all over the world.




Except for the American edition, in every country it has been published, it got a harcover treatment. The same book, nothing different inside. Well, if we would have the american hardcover edition, it should be special, since this is such a special book.

And it will be.




It was very hard coming up with a new cover for the new edition, because I really love the old one. So the new one had to be special, to tell more than the first one, to embody the whole story. Four years have passed since I've done the first cover and this book became something larger, so the cover would have to step up too.




With the release date of April 2014, the Daytripper Deluxe Edition HC will have a dust-jacket wraparound cover, three piece case, better stock matte paper and 16 extra pages sketchbook section. Go to your local comic store and make sure you order it.

Sélection Officielle - Angouleme 2013

Daytripper just made it into the official selection of the Festival International de la Bande Dessinée d'Angoulême 2013.

The festival will take place from January 31st until February 3rd, 2013, and we will be there! When the time comes and we know more about it, we'll put our whole schedule over here.
Thanks everyone for this never ending amazing ride.

Merci beaucoup.
Nous sommes très heureux. 
Nous voyions en Angoulême.

DAYTRIPPER!!

THANK YOU!
THANK YOU!
THANK YOU!

FODA!!

DIGITAL TWINS!

We love comics. And we consider ourselves old school, because we like comics made by hand, on real paper, to be printed on paper and read on book format by people. Although we will keep making our comics to be printed, digital comics are here and the tablets and readers are also becoming a growing reality that we can't oversee.

Every publisher is putting their comics out there to be read on digital readers, and our books are among them. So now you can buy and read our comics online or on the device of your preference, and take them with you whenever you go.

Now you can get Daytripper on Comixology here.
You can read Daytripper #1 for free.

You can browse Dark Horse Digital and get all the awesome comics they publish.
Regarding our comics, you can now get Umbrella Academy series 1 and 2, our Eisner nominated De:TALES, or our horror comic PIXU, made with our good friends Becky Cloonan and Vasilis Lolos.

The important thing is that people can read our work. We'll keep writing, drawing. We'll keep telling stories.

We love comics.

Daytripper links

There have been great reviews and interviews about Daytripper all over the web, and we couldn't be happier about the response from everybody. Over at the Vertigo blog, Pamela Mullin gathered most of the links in one nice post, and one of the links even includes the wonderful introduction by Craig Thompson, a treat all in itself.

Also at the Vertigo blog, in order to celebrate the release of the Daytripper trade, Bá and I wrote some blog posts, telling a little about the influences, the process and the some of the events that inspired our little tale, and we also showed a lot of sketches. So, click on the links if you want to hear about a trip that inspired and guided one chapter of the book; or if you want to see sketches of the characters and the settings; or maybe if you rather hear about how characters getting a life of their own.

I read a nice write up about Daytripper on a NPR blog here. We gave more interviews recently, so more of these things should pop up here and there. I hope I remember to link to them, but if I forget, I'm sure Pamela will.

So, back to work in here, hoping a lot of people are discovering Daytripper, and curious to see how many will really answer our Daytripper challenge and send us pictures of the bookstores and comics stores and friends shelves and school libraries where they found our book.

CASANOVA

Today, Casanova: GULA #2 comes out in comics stores. It's one of my favorite covers, featuring that crazy couple, Zeph Quinn and Kubark Benday. You have to pay attention in this issue, as important information is shared that relates to the brand new Casanova stories Bá and Matt are working on right now.

Dream come true.

My brother and I have been wanting to tell stories in comicbooks for as long as we can remember. At first, we just wanted to copy what we were reading, as a way of being part of that magical universe of super-heroes, barbarians, space guardians, street punks and pirates. But soon the need to tell stories became stronger than the simple act of drawing.

We have told lots of stories – well, a few – from princes and fairies, to young people in love, to robots and waitresses. All these stories came out of our need to tell them, without any requests, any pressure, straight out of our heads. All those stories were building the ground for us to be finally able to tell Daytripper.

Daytripper is not a project we have had for a long time. It came from an idea I had some 8 or 9 years ago, but it was not more than that. It was one of the ideas we pitched to Vertigo when Bob Schreck asked us for ideas. It was the one they liked.

However, ever since we started actually working on this comic, it has become the story we have been waiting to tell our entire lives.

Issue 9 just came out, one we're really proud of, and next month brings the conclusion of our story. This has been a terrific journey. This is what comics mean to us. A real dream come true.



Daytripper 9
Written by GABRIEL BÁ and FÁBIO MOON
Art by GABRIEL BÁ and FÁBIO MOON
Cover by GABRIEL BÁ
Brás is going through one of those days that seems like a lifetime; when so many things happen and change so fast and so dramatically that he can't keep track of what the hell is going on. In this penultimate issue to the acclaimed miniseries, can he figure things out before it's too late?

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?

Daytripper 7, their best work to date.

We are on the second, most intense half of our story. The rules have been set, the players are all there and one might think it's all figured out.
But the beauty of life is it's unpredictability, it's capacity to surprise us at any moment.



Daytripper 7 hits the stands on June 7th, and we're only going forward with this. There's a nice preview over at the Vertigo blog. Check it out.

You don't wanna miss this journey. And it's almost over.


Written by GABRIEL BÁ & FÁBIO MOON
Art by GABRIEL BÁ & FÁBIO MOON
Cover by GABRIEL BÁ

What's life without your friends, right? The good ones will stick with you through anything, won't they? Find out here why Brás' best friend has given that up and how far Brás is willing to go to get him back.

"This latest from Bá and Fábio is surely their best looking work to date. In DAYTRIPPER, they give us a glimpse into an exotic yet believable world. It makes you want to be there with them...!"
-- Paul Pope

Daytripper and Casanova solicitation for August

Busy month for us. Exciting.



DAYTRIPPER #9
Written by GABRIEL BÁ & FÁBIO MOON
Art by GABRIEL BÁ & FÁBIO MOON
Cover by GABRIEL BÁ
Brás is going through one of those days that seems like a lifetime; when so many things happen and change so fast and so dramatically that he can’t keep track of what the hell is going on. In this penultimate issue to the acclaimed miniseries, can he figure things out before it’s too late?
On sale AUGUST 11 • 9 of 10 • 32 pg, FC, $2.99 US • MATURE READERS


CASANOVA #2
Written by Mat Fraction
Art by Gabriel Bá
Cover by Gaberiel Bá
CASANOVA: LUXURIA continues! Strange, sweaty, naked things are afoot deep in the jungle metropolis of Áqua Pesada. A rogue E.M.P.I.R.E. agent has gone mad and, in between throwing the most decadent parties the world has ever known, spills his spy-guts out in the pages of a breathless, confessional, comic book... and Casanova Quinn is given orders by his father to bring the agent in... but Newman Xeno wants Casanova to kill him instead. Bloodshed, betrayal, a trial, an exile, a Paco Rabanne dress made entirely out of credit cards, and a shocking twist that sets Casanova irrevocably on a path of no return. 32 PAGES OF COSMIC COMIC SPY-CHEDELIA. All new back-matter! Soul-elevating colors! Staples and paper! READ!
32 PGS./Rated T+ ... $3.99

Daytripper 8 in July in London and San Diego!

We were not born to be alone. Well, I have a twin brother, so I really take that seriously from very early in my life. The more people we can count on, the better our lives can be.

We're drawing the last two issues of the series, our journey is almost over. The end is near and it's hard to let go. Also, it's very liberating.

On the eighth issue of Daytripper, as readers, we already know Brás, we already trust him. We count on him to lead the way on another story. He already has a place in our lives, that's for sure.

Daytripper #8 comes out in July, on a week we'll be away from home, in London, during a big Festival. Soon after that, we're going to San Diego. Comics have been taking us a lot of different places and, sometimes, away from the people we love and care about.

Well, this is a very strong story and the cover adds even more intensity to it.

See you in 2 months in London, San Diego, and everywhere else.



Written by GABRIEL BÁ & FÁBIO MOON
Art by GABRIEL BÁ & FÁBIO MOON
Cover by GABRIEL BÁ
Brás is constantly on the road, but that doesn't stop a caring husband and loving father from having a big role in his family's daily life. Do they miss him? Can they manage well enough while he's away? And how large a hole would he leave if he weren't there anymore?

Daytripper 5!

We're on full speed here, driven by all the good words and good numbers of our little tale. The story is only midway through for you, but it's reaching the end for us. The next two months will bring the last chapters of the story to life, and I'm dying to get there.

Meanwhile, Daytripper #5 is on the stands and it's the most beautiful of all so far. You don't wanna miss this one.



Written by FÁBIO MOON and GABRIEL BÁ; Art by GABRIEL BÁ and FÁBIO MOON; Cover by GABRIEL BÁ
At 11 years old, Brás's world was only as big as his house. But that changed when his family headed to his grandparents' countryside ranch. And there – at a place where the sun was stronger and the stars shone brighter – Brás would suddenly see everything under a new light!

Daytripper 4 ever.

Moon and Bá have crafted a frighteningly human story, winding together the moments that define who we are to weave a tapestry of life and death. Lyrical, poetic, and haunting, Daytripper is an experience that will resonate with you long after you have put the book down.
-- Becky Cloonan (5, PIXU, DEMO)



Daytripper 4 is out now.

Don't miss it.

Brás

Find out more about Daytripper here.