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.

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.

Floating world of original art.

Last month, the comic book store Floating World hosted, in Portland, an art exhibit of original Casanova art (which you can check out on this link of Matt's release of Casanova: Avaritia #1 on the store), and now it's time to celebrate the release of Habibi, Craig Thompson's new book, and again Floating World will have a great art exhibit of Habibi-inspired pieces of artwork from several artists, and Craig invited both Bá and I to contribute.
We felt honored and pumped up with the challenge and, if you find yourself in Portland this month, don't miss the chance to check out the results. And buy Habibi while you're at it, it's a wonderful book. Casanova: AVARITIA #2 is also out in stores today, so lucky you, Casanovonaut who is craving to know what happens next.

Script/Layout

I had this one-page story to do and I usually draw a thumbnail and think just on the key sentences and dialogues. But I realized this one would have so much text that I needed the full text in order to see how much space I'd have left for the art.

So first I wrote all the text for the story. After that, I divided it in small blocks that would end up being the captions and balloons (that column on the left).

Then I started laying them down on the page. At first I wanted to do big panels, some "narrative panels" only with text (just like in Casanova), but I decided it would be best for the story if I did lots of small panels, even if a little art just to make it a real comicbook, you know?

I drew some panels there for guidance and now I'm gonna print this and draw on the remaining space.
I really don't do it like this very often, but sometimes you gotta go with what you get.

I gotta finish it by tomorrow. I'll miss the All-Star game to do it.

PIXU and 5 at Floating Wolrd!

Floating World Comic, in Portland, will host this amazing exposition of original art form all the awesome creators of the Eisner Winner 5 and the new face of terror, PIXU!
Can't miss this event!
And if you haven't ordered PIXU yet, do it while you can. Our very limited 1000 copies print run WILL END FAST.
Click HERE and guarantee your copy!

Watercolor drawing.

Sometimes I forget what we can draw while listening to somebody talk. Given the right tools, it's amazing how freeing these "loose" drawings are. Every artist should try it at times, in bars, in school, at conventions.

The "capture the moment" kinda drawing sometimes says more about you than about the person you're portraying.

Finally, original art for sale!

Ever since we started working on high profile projects like Casanova, Umbrella Academy and Sugar Shock, we've been getting mail about selling original art. Since we live in Brazil and it's not an easy task to deal with shipping and money transactions, we only have done this sort of thing personally when we go to San Diego.

Well, we're very glad to announce that we have some pages available for sale with the nice folks from Beguiling, in Toronto. They have some pages and art cover from all the projects above. If we like how this goes, maybe it's the way to make everyone happy after all.

For pages of Gabriel Ba:
http://www.beguiling.com/artproductlist.asp?ID=79

For pages of Fabio Moon:
http://www.beguiling.com/artproductlist.asp?ID=80
 

Original art for sale at SDCC - second call.

We're almost done finishing up all we need to do before our trip. Two or three sleepless nights and we're set to go. If you're going to San Diego and has that inner desire to buy some original art from either Casanova or Sugarshock, this is your chance, as I'm bringing the pages to SDCC.

I'm not bringing EVERY SINGLE PAGE, so if you have any particular one you'd like, let me know. If you need a hand, click on the images below for a bigger image:

Casanova
Looking at the pages again, I realize I really like the work I've done on this series.


I loved to draw this sex sequence.

The last issue has some of the best pages I've ever done. It was a very nice farewell to this characters, and I miss them as much as you all.

Sugarshock


Pages 1, 3 and 6 are real favorites of mine, and I had no idea where the story was going when I started drawing the series. I thought it would all take place on Earth, for starters.



Action! Fights! Space! Who knew I would draw that some day, with all the down-to-earth relationship stories I like to tell? I really like the way the characters move and behave throughout this series.

I'll bring all pages from issue 3 as well, and a lot more pages from Casanova, but I wanted to give you guys a taste and a reminder of the pages before you can decide to hang some art on your wall.

We'll be at the Image Island booth at SDCC, which is booth 2729, so come look for us there, and don't forget: GET PIXU WHILE YOU CAN.

Monday comics.

Monday, we got together with two friends, Grampá and Rafa Coutinho, and at dinner we made a fast crazy comic at eight hands on my sketchbook. One would ink the other's pencil, and then the next had to continue the previous panel.

Nothing that makes sense, but great fun.,


First panel is Grampá inked by Bá, second panel is me inked by Rafa.

Then, it's Bá inked by Grampá, and Rafa inked by me.

Now, it's Rafa inked by Grampá and Ba inked by Rafa.

Finally, Grampá inked by me and the last panel is Rafa inked by Bá.

Less than a month before San Diego, and we're all so excited.

Fragile

Best CASANOVA EVER written.

"Towards the end of the book there is a real stand out tableau where two characters appear reflected by glass -- and they look like a painted blue Sin City scene. That is the image I would isolate to sell people on the power of the Moon. "

"Even if you have never read a single issue of this title, go get Casanova 14. Volume two may be better than volume one, and issue 14 is better than any Casanova issue before -- and there ARE no bad or even middling issues of Casanova out there."

From Geoff Klock's Blog, about CASANOVA 14, which may be out as early as next week.

Page 16 today.

Matt has some preview art of Casanova 14 on his Flickr. Check it out if your into the whole teaser thing.


I just finished a page. If issue 14 of Casanova was a regular issue, with 16 pages, I would have finished it today. It's not, so I barely passed halfway point. Bá is loving the pages, so I guess this is a good sign. Matt seems to like it too, but he says little praise. He saves the praise for little Henry, who I'm yet to meet. I wonder if he will visit San Diego for the first time in July, or if Kelly Sue will skip this year, or if Matt will stay at home during the summer.

Today was a beautiful day, and I spent most of it working in the shade, in the studio. I also got my Sugarshock/MySpace poster framed after all these months, and I already hung it on my wall.

Putting art in general on the wall makes you want to do more art.

And so I did.

Improving

A doctor has to always be studying, updating his technique, his knowledge. He's gotta be at the top of is game. On that same basis, an artist has to look to other techniques that might enrich hi work somehow.

I'm taking watercolor classes. Not that I see myself making painted albums like the Europeans do (those crazy bastards), nor even do I want to change my "I LOVE BLACK AND WHITE" style. I just always loved watercolors and I think it's the technique I'd like to use if I were to do something hand painted.

After lots of exercises and getting to know the colors a little bit, I decided to dare making a real drawing.



I didn't really like the results, but it showed me all the things I still get to improve and that it's not as simple as it looks. But I'm not in a hurry. One thing I learned already, watercolor is for those who can wait till it's time to do it right.