"Deux Frères" French Tour 2015

We're leaving for France. The Salon du Livre is around the corner, and we're releasing our new book, "Deux Frères" with Urban Comics at the event. Afterwards, we'll be touring the country for the following week, visiting cities, bookstores and signing your books. Come meet us somewhere along the way. Here's our schedule:

-- March 20th-23rd - Salon du Livre de Paris

-- Friday, March 20th, Urban Comics stand (H29): signing (from 16h to 18h)

-- Saturday, March 21st, Urban Comics stand (H29): signing (from 14h to 16h)

-- Sunday, March 22nd:

1- Stand du Brésil, 12h30 to 13h45: Conference "Deux frères: liens déchirés en bande dessinée" - Fábio Moon, Milton Hatoum and Gabriel Bá

2- Salon littéraire CNL, 14h to 15h30, conference "L'âge d'or de la BD brésilienne" - with S. Lobo, Marcello Quintanhila, Daniel Galera, Fábio Moon et Wandrille

3- Stand du Brésil: signing from 15h30 to 16h30

After the Salon du livre, our tour begins.

--March 23, Paris

Signatures at the bookshop Bulles en tête, 15h to 18h
( Librairie Bulles en tête 54 Rue des Dames 75017 Paris)

--March 24, Bordeaux

Signatures at the bookshop Mollat, in the afternoon
( Librairie Mollat 15 Rue Vital Carles 33080 Bordeaux)

--March 25, Pau
Signatures at the bookshop Bachi-Bouzouk, 14h30 to 16h30
(Librairie Bachi-Bouzouk 7 Rue Latapie 64000 Pau)

-- March 26th, Nantes
Signatures at the bookshop La Mystérieuse Librairie Nantaise, 14h to 17h
(Librairie La Mystérieuse Librairie Nantaise 2 Rue de la Paix 44000 Nantes)

--March 27th, Lille
Signatures at the bookshop Librairie Astrocity, 12h30 to 14h30
(Librairie Astrocity 74 Rue de l’Hôpital Militaire 59000 Lille)

--March 27th, Paris
Signatures at the bookshop Librairie Les Super Héros, 17h to 19h ( Librairie Les Super Héros 175 Rue Saint-Martin 75003 Paris)

Two Brothers at work

Bá draws the characters of our new book, Two Brothers.

Bá and Moon fonts

There's a much bigger text to be written here, about the time we started lettering our photocopied independent comics in the computer, about when we started having our comics lettered by other people, one of those being Nate Piekos, of Blambot fame (who, as we came to learn, had designed many fonts we were already using), and about the moment we decided to have our comics look a little more ours by lettering them by hand again.
Hand lettering a comic is a lot of work. And, when you're publishing your stories in at least two languages (english and portuguese), it's impossible to do it all on the page. Because of that, even if we started hand lettering our comics, we decided it was time to turn our hand writing into computer fonts. And that's when we came back to Nate.
Besides being an awesome letterer (he lettered Umbrella Academy and Sugarshock for us), he also is a great font designer, and has made a lot of custom fonts for artists.

First, Nate turned Bá's hand lettering into fonts. We were on the final stages of our new book, "Two Brothers", which we were already negotiating to be published in portuguese, in french, in english and in italian, and we really wanted it to have Bá's lettering in all versions.
Both Bá and I have been hand-lettering our weekly strip at the brazilian newspaper, "Quase Nada", since 2008 (even though we replaced the letters with computer fonts for print), but since 2013 I have restarted to hand letter some short stories I was doing, to get better at it, and do try and really define my style. After the incredible results of Bá's custom font, we knew it was only a matter of time until we would hire Nate to do his magic on my font.

I plan on continuing to hand-letter my comics whenever I can. More and more, I'm trying to make everything blend a little better, from the drawing, and the inking, and the balloons, and the letters, and the colors.
Now, with these custom fonts, we can do that all around the world.

Two Brothers

After 4 long years working on this book almost in secrecy, we can finally talk a little bit about it. 

Our new book, TWO BROTHERS, is an adaptation of the novel “The brothers” (Dois Irmãos, in Portuguese), by Brazilian novelist Milton Hatoum. It’s the story of twin brothers Yaqub and Omar, and their family of Lebanese immigrants living in the port city of Manaus, on the riverbanks of the Amazon. It’s a story about identity, love, loss, deception, and the dissolution of blood ties. A strong story worth the huge challenge of adapting it.

It’ll be publisher by Dark Horse and it’ll come out only in October, but you can see a 10 page preview at Publishers' Weekly.

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.

Once you get it, it works.

I like acquiring a rhythm as I draw new pages every day. Each new page gets easier and flows better as I get into the zone, and by drawing every day, working on the story and seeing it grow in front of my eyes, my hand remembers the characters, the places, the mood. Still, working on a deadline can have its disadvantages, and I worry that sometimes having to finish a book that month, or even a page that day, might hurt your story in the end.

Wednesday, I went to sleep at 2AM because I stayed up late inking a page to finish that day's work. I usually work during the day, and my usual long days of labor end around 10PM, so Wednesday was a very long day even for my standards.

Yesterday, having a penciled page ready to ink if I had another very long day, I wasn't so sure finishing a page that day was the best choice for my story.

I wasn't happy with the last panel, and with the main character on that panel, to be precise. He wasn't badly drawn, he worked on the scene, but there was something weird about the body language. Something off. In a failed attempt to convey a natural pose, I ended up stiffing it, and had I inked it, it would be forever there, not quite there, not quite the pose that the character was supposed to have at that particular time. And one of the things I like most when drawing is getting the body language right, it's one of the strongest visual tools a storyteller has (one of the reasons Frank Quitely is SO GOOD is his complete control over the most sutil movement of his characters), so I decided, around 10:30PM, to stop drawing and rest. The next day I'd try again, talk it over with Bá, maybe do some preliminary sketches, or take some reference pictures.

That's what I did, and today, after going in and out of my "drawing zone", and indeed talking it over with Bá AND taking reference pictures, I finally got the pose I wanted, one I think tells the story even if there were no words on that panel.

It is almost 1AM. I am tired again, but happy. I don't think I'm going to ink any of these pages tonight, because I can still mess it up with the inking, and I also really enjoy inking and want to have fun while doing it, so I'll probably ink three pages tomorrow, and I'll be much more inspired because I got it right, and I waited and erased and redrew it over and over, and then I got it.

Once you get it, everything else works.

Helping you find us

In an attempt to help you find us, I have created a page inside our tumblr called "FIND US -APPEARANCES". I'll do my best to keep it updated, and I'm sure I'll end up missing something somewhere along the way, but it's a start.

Right now, there are only three events in there: The Salon du Livre in Paris, in March, San Diego Comic Con in July, and Comic Con Experience here in São Paulo, in December.

We'll have more french dates in March soon, as soon as we lock our little book tour for the french release of our new book, Deux Frères. I'll even put the dates for the brazilian release of the book here in São Paulo pretty soon.

We're in final talks about some other US conventions, so stay tuned.

If we bump into your hometown, come say hi.

Choices on Paper

I could already see, with the first new issue of Casanova going to the printer last week, how much more hands-on we’ll be on the production side of our comics once more, just like the way we used to do on the comics we did independently, like 5, Rock’n’Roll and Atelier. I like knowing all aspects of comic making, and I think people can see a different side of your book when every inch of it reflects a decision you made. You’re the author, and it’s your story, your art, but you’re also helping to tell the story by choosing the paper, and thinking about the design that will fit the world you’re trying to create, and carefully deciding the order of the ads you’re putting on the eventual free extra pages inside your book.

On a similar manner, Bá and I are overlooking and, in some parts, working on the design of the brazilian edition of our next book, Dois Irmãos (Two Brothers, in english). Later this week, on thursday, we’ll have a meeting with our editor and with the art department at the publisher to try to make the final decisions regarding the book. Sometimes it’s easier to make books trying to make them look like the books you know, and then it can be more difficult when you want to make your book a little more special. I don’t think overworking the design helps the book, because “too much” will distract the reader from the story, so it’s a matter of finding the right balance.

And sometimes finding the right balance is a simple matter of choosing the right paper.

2015 and forward

We've been working on many amazing comics, and have almost abandoned this blog. Also, because of the easy interactivity with instagram, twitter and facebook, we have been posting stuff more frequently on our tumblr page – YES, we have a tumblr page – and I'm debating if I should cease to write stuff here and just migrate there altogether. One of the surprises 2015 will bring, I guess.
Be safe, be happy, and dream.
Let's continue making dreams come to life next year.

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.

Dark Horse Presents #200

Dark Horse Comics will publish the milestone 200th issue of its Eisner and Harvey Award-winning comic book anthology DARK HORSE PRESENTS in February 2015, and Bá did this awesome HELLBOY cover.
His story inside, also featuring HELLBOY, was written by Mike Mignola himself, and it's a direct sequel to THE COFFIN MAN (the story I drew and Mignola wrote).
Also on this issue, Gustavo Duarte tells a story about mermaids, and Sergio Aragonés draws GROO. What else could you ask for?
For more info, click here.

The candle lit cover

As the solicitations for all Image comics coming out in January 2015 went online, some people noticed (and helped spread the word) that Casanova is coming back with the first issue of our forth volume, Acedia. I'm again handling the art, trying to out crazy my brother's pages from Avaritia while at the same being time haunted by his presence as he'll also contribute to each issue drawing the back stories (written by Michael Chabon). Things will be crazy, and they'll get crazier, and here's the cover of issue 1.



CASANOVA: ACEDIA #1
STORY: MATT FRACTION & MICHAEL CHABON
ART / COVER: FÁBIO MOON & GABRIEL BÁ
JANUARY 7 / 32 PAGES / FC / M / $3.99
Marooned in Los Angeles with no memory of his past, Casanova Quinn takes on the mystery of his criminal benefactor’s tangled and bloody history—as strange occult forces from the future conspire to… do stuff? To him? To Los Angeles? To you? YES.
Featuring the first in a series of backup stories by Pulitzer Prize winner MICHAEL CHABON and CASANOVA co-creator GABRIEL BÁ.

Bright yellows and oranges, and a lot of greys. That's what you can expect on the inside.
The funny thing about this cover is the fact that I drew it during a blackout. I was hard at work on issue 2, but the cover deadline was looming on me, and I ended up leaving it for the last minute (as most of us do), so I was drawing it one night and my entire block went dark.
I waited for a little bit, no sign of the lights coming back, and I started to worry.
The lights didn't come back, so I had to improvise. Luckily, I had some candles at home.



Not ideal, but I made do. Later, Matt wrote me and said:
"jeez, you should work in the dark all the time."

Two Brothers' "suit day"

We've began this tradition in 2005, when Fábio finished Smoke and Guns. On the day he drew the last pages of the story, he came wearing a suit, as a way of remembering that day, making it special. He did it again in 2006 on the last day drawing The Alienist. Again in 2008, when he finished Casanova: GULA. Every new big story he finished, he'd have a suit day on the last day of the work. Our last suit day was July 19th, 2010, in London, when he drew the last page of Daytripper.

Today is another memorable day, as we finished our new book, Two Brothers. Both of us dressed accordingly. It's a very special day.

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.

At the end of today I looked at my desk

Bá and I work on many projects at the same time. Part as a result of being a freelancer and thinking we have to accept every offer we get ( dreading not having any after we finish the current book), and part just because there are projects, invitations and people who want to collaborate with us that we can't simply say no – they're too good to pass –, we end up working on many things, some big, some small, some writing for ourselves to draw, and some drawing what others have written.
So, from time to time, when we finish something and have a little time to step back and look at what we're doing... well, to look at our drawing board, then we get so see some of these many facets of the delicate crystal we work on.
Tonight, I finished the first draft of a new script and sent it over to the editor.  That's the high point of my week – the awful game on tuesday being the low – so I stepped back and tried to look at my drawing board.

My sketchbook has a figure drawing of a woman from last year's class I gave (I have something I can't show yet on another page, so I flipped it to that page to take this picture).
On the top left, I have some bookplates left for the BPRD: Vampire TPB that we did for Gosh.
I started to sort out original art to take with me to San Diego for Comic Con, and that's why the Killjoys variant cover I did is there, looking right at us.
The bottom left is what's left of color studies and preparation for coloring my story for the Magenta issue of the CMYK Vertigo Quarterly anthology.
On the right, the script and the layouts of Casanova 4.2, which I'm working on and am afraid I'm a little late.

Boom!
Pa-Zow!
Back to work. It doesn't really matter if you work on one project, or on many. If you believe in what you're doing, it's all worth it, and you should give it everything you have.

Explorers

At the end of next week, once again we'll go exploring.

Casanova step-by-step

This week, both Bá and I did new original drawings for the annual CBLDF auction that takes place in San Diego during Comic Con. We took some time from our crazy-busy schedules (made even crazier by the fact that World Cup is going on just outside our studio window) and created two new images with characters we have created. TFAW, who always helps coordinate this, will make prints of the images that the artists will be able to keep and sell, so I decided to make a full color image that would make a great 10 x 17 print.

My first idea was to do a Sugarshock image. Everybody seems to really love those characters, and you could say that right now Joss Whedon, writer of Sugarshock and nowadays writer and director of the Avengers movies, has never been as popular. I sketched the characters on my notebook and started working on the final image, but something wasn't clicking and I wasn't happy with where I was going with the drawing. I decided to call it a day and get back to it the next morning, and I'm glad I did.
Next morning, I went looking for inspiration at one of my sources: Pinterest. I used to keep thousands of images in folders on my computer, but nowadays it's much easier to keep everything I think might inspire an illustration or a story on my Pinterest page. If you go check it out, you'll find elements of my recent CMKY stories for Vertigo, as well as research for the short Hellboy story, and many other images from across the internet that I keep in handy to mix up in my head when I'm at the drawing board.
The new wave of inspirational images made me decide to change characters, and the drawing became a Casanova image. It's easier to imagine Casanova in any situation, anywhere, with anyone. Much more pleased with this second sketch, I showed it to Bá:
"It's great", he said, "but lose the cheetah and the boat". I agreed and started working on the final piece.

I took pictures of the process to post on twitter, and it's a great way to see the way I was thinking visually, how I left many decisions for the inking stage, how I helped to make the characters pop by using cool darker colors on the background, how the red elements united the characters, how dripping and large expressive brushstrokes help give it a "drawing" look, a "hand-made" look.

After it was done, dry and ready, I scanned it, adjusted the colors on photoshop and sent it over by email. The original will be going with me to San Diego, where I shall say farewell to this painting, hoping it will find a great new home on the collection of some lucky fan.

Fábio's Usagi auction to help Stan Sakai

Usagi Yojimbo.
Ink and watercolor, 2014
The original is being auctioned to help Usagi's creator, Stan Sakai. 9 days to bid on it and take the piece home and help out on a great cause at the same time.
Details of the auction here.
This artwork will be published in the upcoming Dark Horse Comics special book, "THE SAKAI PROJECT; Celebrating 30 Years of Usagi Yojimbo", Being release in July, 2014 (at San Diego Comic-Con) with all proceeds also going to Stan & Sharon Sakai.

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.