Bá joins in on the hunt

This saturday, Bá joined in on the "art hunt" game, doing the image below and hiding it somewhere in São Paulo. The clues to the hiding spot weren't the easiest ones – it was hidden on a subway station, and there are a lot of stations that look alike in SP – and we were happy that the drawing was found nonetheless.

My girl

A detail from a larger image.
Every character looks better when I'm using a new brush.

Yet another art hunt girl

I did another art hunt this week in São Paulo before I did a presentation in a theatre. The last hunt of the year.

The art hunts

Inspired by friends who did the same thing, and wishing I could do something fun to interact in some real way with many of the fans and readers that I have only reached virtually via twitter, instagram or facebook, I started an "art hunt" game during the last two big festivals I went. The first one, FIQ, happened in Brazil, in downtown Belo Horizonte, and I tested the waters for this game first there because I was more confident my brazilian audience would responde to it. Brazilians spend a lot of time on the internet (maybe too much time, in my opinion), so I decided a brazilian festival was a good place to start.



I did one drawing each day at FIQ, which is a five days long festival, so I had to find many different places for the drawings, and also I tried to make drawings that would always be worth looking for.
The one that took the longest to find was Jon Snow, hidden inside the beer fridge of the bar of the festival.

  


It worked out so nice that I did it again at Thought Bubble, the festival that happens in Leeds in the UK. I also did it daily, for three straight days, but this time, since it was my first time in that place, it was harder to choose where to hide the drawings. Two of the art hunts happened at night, since it gets dark at 4 PM around this time of year.
All the same, I think the english crowd also had fun, and all the drawings were found.


These two conventions happened in two consecutive weekends, so after that I was beat and had no energy left to continue my art hunt game during the four days I spent in London.

I had a great time doing this game, and I hope to do it again.

Casanova: GULA in France

This is Bá's brand new cover for the french edition of Casanova: GULA, the second album published in France by Urban Comics.
Pa-ZOW!

Don't open it yet

Not yet, anyway.
We're preparing some nice stuff for our next conventions and appearances. We have a great brazilian festival next week (FIQ), and "Thought Bubble" right after it. And, since "Thought Bubble is in Leeds (in the UK),  before we go back to Brazil we couldn't help but do a little something in London as well.
We'll post all the info soon. Keep your eyes open and let's rock the comics world.

Super sketches

We're back from Germany, and we survived. Thanks to everybody who stopped by to talk, to have your books signed and to ask for sketches. We don't usually do super heroes sketches, and I'm not entirely sure why we decided to say yes to all these requests for super heroes, but I'm glad we did, as we liked most of the drawings we made, and they seemed to make those who asked for them happy.

Thanks to everybody from Panini Germany (Alex, Rebecca and Gunther in special) for taking good care of us, thanks also to Pipo from Cross Cult for a great job with De:TALES and Umbrella Academy, and for being such a nice guy not only to us but to all the other brazilian authors who needed translation at the Frankfurt book fair.

It was great to hang out with Scottie Young, Phil Noto, Esad Ribic, Bill Morrison and Nei Ruffino during the convention. Great conversations about the love for the aesthetics of Tony Scott's movies, TV series, cats and dogs, meeting your idols and who drinks manly drinks or girly drinks.

Back to the drawing board.

Girly sketches

Some of the girly sketches we made during our German tour.

Jon Snow

Looking at my facebook page, or at my instagram feed, a german fan discovered I'm a Game of Thrones fan. When we met in Essen, Germany, during the Comic Action convention, he asked me for a Game of Thrones sketch. Not just any sketch, he asked me for a sketch of Jon Snow and his wolf, Ghost.
Little did this fan know that, of all the characters he could have asked me from GoT, these were the only ones I would certainly say yes.
And so I did, and I'm very happy with this sketch.

Space Boy

Spaceboy sketch Bá made for a fan during our German tour.

Daytripper

Daytripper sketch Bá made for a fan during our German tour.

Oktoberfest! Taking over Germany!

Finally the time has come to talk about our trip to Germany! We are very excited, as we are about to discover the world of book publishing and its renowned Frankfurter Buchmesse, the Frankfurt Book Fair, largest book fair in the world.

We will stay for 20 days in Germany, the entirely first week in Frankfurt as part of the big group of Brazilian authors present in the fair (because Brazil is the homage country on the fair this year), and then we will tour through some cities promoting our books, signing and talking to the audience. And the best part of it is that we will do all that with two of our books freshly released in German! Daytripper has been published by Panini and De:Tales by CrossCult. 

Ever since we started publishing in the U.S. market, it has been easier to find our books all around the world, but often only in English. Some titles have never been published even in Brazil (even though it has been changing, there's only Smoke and Guns, Sugarshock and BPRD left). It is always better to go somewhere where people can find your book on their own language. Germany has seen the publication of BPRD and Umbrella Academy, and now we can land there with our two most personal books published on their native language. That's really priceless.

So, back to our trip, I'll list here all our commitments during our trip, so maybe you can find us, listen what we have to say, learn a little bit about our work, about Brazil and the special connection these two elements have in our hearts.

First of all, we're really proud of being on the selected group of authors Brazil is taking to Frankfurt, as part of being this year's Guest of Honour country. I love the fact that comic have taken me all around the world, but also they're still a strong connection I have with my country and my culture and that's something I take everywhere I go.

So, we recently discovered the Book Fair is open for the public only during the weekend. During the week, it is only business between publishers and agents, bidding, gambling, buying and selling titles and moving the entire reading market forward. During the week, we will have lunch with DC and their partner publishers around the world, which will be very educational. And we will be part of a celebration on the Kobo booth, since we also discovered De:Tales is available on Kobo. But it is only from friday on that our agenda with the public really begins.

11/10, friday:

17h Signing session on Comics Shop X-Tra BooX 

(Berliner Straße 20  60311 Frankfurt am Main)

It is a signing on a comic book store, outside the Book Fair pavilion, so it's open to the general audience. Anyone can go. 

12/10, saturday:

10h45 – 11.25 Talk: Brazil and it's Comics scene - Gabriel Bá and Fabio Moon

Where: Comics Center, 3,0 K17

11h30 – 13.00 Signing session: Gabriel Bá and Fabio Moon

Where: Comics Center, 3,0 K17

3.30 pm to 5 pm - signing at Panini - Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon (Daytripper, Brazil)

Where: Panini booth Hall 3,0 G & F 143

13/10, sunday:

10h - 11h30 HQ & Graphic Novel: reunion of Generations.

with Ziraldo, Maurício de Sousa, Fábio Moon, Gabriel Bá, Fernando Gonsales, Lelis and Lourenço Mutarelli (these are all the invited Brazilian comic book authors present in Frankfurt, some with over five decades worth of comics work, and then there's us, we're the younger ones among them, the new generation with our 15 years comics experience.)

Where: Brazilian Pavilion

2 pm to 3.30 pm: signing at Panini - Gabriel Bá & Fábio Moon (Daytripper, Brazil), 

Where: Panini booth Hall 3,0 G & F 143

And here's where our book tour takes the road (or should I say the tracks, since we'll be going everywhere by train). 

14/10, monday:

Hannover

16h-18h  signing at Comix Hannover, (Goseriede 10, 30159 Hannover) 

It's a signing in Hannover. We're only passing by the city, so please stop by and say hi, discover our books, get a sketch.

17/10, thursday:

Berlim

19h  Modern Graphics - Europa-Center, (Oranienstraße 22  10999 Berlin)

(the shop Modern Graphics located at shopping mall Europa-Center aside the memorial church in the heart of the city)

We will talk with Lars von Törne, from newspaper Tagesspiegel, followed by a signing session. It will be our last night in Berlin, so come and celebrate with us.

18/10, friday:

Munich

16h - 18h - signing at ComicCompany, (Fraunhoferstraße 21, 80469 München) 

It's a two hours signing in a comics store. Come by, get to know us, and then also go to the Literaturehaus to listen to our discussion panel.

20h - Cultureclubbing Brasileiro

Discussion panel with writers João Paulo Cuenca and Luiz Ruffato and comic book authors Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá. There'll be a signing session after the panel as well.

Where: Literaturhaus München, Salvatorplatz 1, 80333 München)

And afterwards we will all be heading to a club nearby to party, as João Paulo Cuenca spins his DJ set.

We will be guests at the Comic Action, (at the Messe Essen, Norbertstraße 2  45131, Essen), a comics convention that takes place in Essen, and we will have some siginings at the Panini Booth to promote Daytripper. Fábio will have two signings on Thursday, and I'll have just the one in the afternoon. And we'll both have two signings on friday.

24/10, thursday:
Essen

11:30h - 13:30h - signing at Panini Booth (Hall 2, 2-C150) 

14:30h - 17:30h - signing at Panini Booth (Hall 2, 2-C150) 

25/10, friday:
Essen

11:30h - 13:30h - signing at Panini Booth (Hall 2, 2-C150) 

14:30h - 16:30h - signing at Panini Booth (Hall 2, 2-C150) 

And this is it for Germany. There's a lot of places to go, lots of people to meet, lots of different things to discover. We have heard only good things about Germany and we can't wait to get there. German people, German food, German beer, here we come.

Walter White

A Breaking Bad inspired image.
Farewell, Walter.

rehearsing a sketch

The Strain at DHP#28

This is the cover for Dark Horse Presents 28, out in September 25th. In one of our rare art collaborations, Bá penciled the cover, inked the top image, I inked the bottom part and he colored the whole thing. Click here to see the cover with the logo and everything else.

Close up on the process

Morning walk with the dog

Nothing comic-book-related to report this time, expect the impression this photo of my brother walking my sister's dog around the empty streets of early sunday morning São Paulo could have been a scene of Daytripper.
Also, paying close attention to the picture, I noticed Bá is wearing his DeathFace t-shirt, which is the product of Ivan Brandon and Chuck BB's imagination, and should be coming out as a comic from Offset Comics in a not so distant future.

10 times 10

 

The class

    
I can comfortably put ten people sitting in two tables in the main studio room, and that still gives me enough room to stand in front of then and use the white board or the tv to show examples of narrative through the use of images and words. Still, I felt I could have more people, so I opened up two classes, one on monday nights and the other, on tuesdays. Soon enough, I had twenty students enrolled in my two month class on the possibilities in creating visual narratives and, after eight years since we last opened our studio to students, my entire routine changed as I'm starting to get to know each one of them and their particular desires and works.

    
They're a very eclectic bunch, ranging in age from 17 to 37, with a lot of people interested in drawing, but a good number more interested in writing, and all willing to try to merge these two creative activities in the comic form. This week, I'm having nude figure drawing in the class, and it's a very interesting exercise to note how even those who are more used to drawing are not naturally used to paying attention at what they see, as figure drawing is much more learning how to look than learning how to draw (at least that's what I take most from it).

   
Even after we stopped giving classes at the studio, we continued to give workshops and lectures about comics, the narrative form, the history of the medium, our history in it, so there's a lot of subjects I could talk about, and have talked about, when it comes to teaching comics. I'm constantly curious to research new authors and new stories, new styles, trying to know everything great being done in comics around the world, but there's something different in this class now. To balance what I can talk about comics when I use the great comics and great authors as an example and to try to see what the work of the students show, and where it leads, it's sometimes like being on both ends of a road.

An exciting long road, in which I'll be traveling with the students for the next two months.

Liberty, Killjoys and EDITORS

Two of the recent covers I've done.

The first one is for the CBLDF's Liberty Annual 2013. The editor for this anthology changes every year and this one's Scott Allie. I did this cover and Fábio also has a little story in there. It will be out in October by Image Comics.




And also my variant cover for THE TRUE LIVES OF THE FABULOUS KILLJOYS #5, crazy mini series by Gerard Way, Shaun Simon and Becky Cloonan. Edited by Sierra Hahn and published by Dark Horse, this will also be out in October.




There's a lesson to be learned here. Make friends with editors. Get to know their names, what books they edit, who they work with. If they like your work and they trust you, they'll get you cool gigs.

Monster

I did this quick sketch based on a monster character from Gustavo Duarte's new book while I was waiting for a panel we would do together this weekend in São Paulo.
Having a panel and a signing session back home in the same week of Comic Con in San Diego made it just a tiny bit easier for us to miss the convention for the first time in 17 years. Both the talk and the signing were packed and Bá and I love to talk to the fans, and we were happy we could do it this weekend.
Back to work now. One of the reasons we skipped San Diego was to work on the new books, so let's get back to them.