...Do I need to draw a picture?

Tenho um ritual quando chega o novo ano: é, masoquistamente, programar todo o seguinte no que toca a BDs. Fora desvios e permuta de projectos, impossíveis de considerar de antemão, fica alinhado o que farei e quando; o que tira a espontaneidade à coisa, mas tem de ser assim, para optimizar timings.

Sem revelar tudo, devo participar num punhado de zines, uns editados por mim, havendo a hipótese dessas BD passarem por títulos estrangeiros. Em compromissos mais profissionais, está no horizonte um livro infantil, uma colectânea e álbum de âmbito comercial, para tentativo lançamento europeu. Fun stuff.

Em projectos-hobbie, prossegue a iniciativa All-Girlz, para já concluindo em All-Girlz Sayonara as estórias que começaram em Banzai!, e continua o evento CC:Cadavre Exquis, a aproximar-se da 50ª prancha…!
Fora a habitual intervenção no júri do VIII Troféus Central Comics, a integrar no VI FIBDB, devo participar noutro evento; como diz um amigo, um “nano-mini-micro-pequeno evento”, que é a única espécie passível de ser elaborada hoje em dia dada a escassez de apoios. Veremos

Quanto ao mercado EUA, é cedo para dizer, mas há projectos a rolar… Para já, continuo a colaborar com algumas produtoras, na preparação de arte e design conceptual para filmes. Não frisar “nomes" porque perante as sempre possíveis mudanças de planos ou descontinuamentos, correria o risco de falar em falso. E de resto, lá porque a agenda de 2010 já me guarda poucos segredos, não significa que tenha de vos estragar a surpresa;)

I’ve this ritual when starting out a new year, which is to, masochisticaly, program my comics agenda for the whole year ahead. A few detours side, impossible to consider as of yet, I line up what gigs I’ll do and when; which ‘kinda takes some the spontenaity out of it, but is needed in order to optimize timings.
Without goint into everything, I should participate in a few portuguese comics, some of which I’ll publish myself, with the chance that those works will end up on foreign markets. On professional commitments, there’s a children’s book on the horizon, plus a compilation and an OGN of mainstream appeal, for european release. Fun stuff.

As for hobbie-projects, my All-Girlz initiative continues with All-Girlz Sayonara, and my collective comic event CC:Cadavre Exquis also prossedes, now closing on its 50th page…! After again participating as jury in the VIII Central Comics Awards, I might try to intervene in another comics’ salon over here. We’ll see.

As for the USA industry, it’s too early to say, but there are cool projects looming… For now, I’ll continue to colaborate with conceptual design e art for a production company. Sorry if I don’t say more, but given the possibility of changes in plans or cancelation of projects, I might misspeack. And also, just because my 2010 agenda holds little secrets for me, it’s no reason to spoil the surprises…;)

Death demands

Comissão para a minha amiga Andreia Lopes, com a personagem Death, de Neil Gaiman e Mike Dringenberg.

Commission for my friend Andreia Lopes, with Neil Gaiman’s and Mike Dringenberg character, Death.

Angel tattoo design

Um amigo encomendou uma ilustração para tatuagem, que lhe vai ocupar as costas(!). Depois de uns esboços, deu avalo ao design deste anjo em pedra. ‘Um pouco tramado de fazer, no definir a imagem para ser melhor interpretada pelo tatuador, porque nem todos os efeitos desenhados são adaptáveis ou recomendáveis de reproduzir com tinta na epiderme. Felizmente, as minhas influências Nowleanas e Mignolianas ajudaram.

A friend hired me for a tattoo illustration, which will take up his whole back(!). After he a few sketches, he pinned this stone angel design as the way to go. ‘A bit tricky to do, in defining the image in a way that the tattoo artist could best interpret it, also taking in consideration that not every effect is easily adaptable or recommended to reproduce with ink on skin. Thankfully, my Nowlean and Mignolean influences helped.

20º Amadora

Começa hoje o 20º Festival Internacional de BD da Amadora, o mais popular evento nacional subordinado à Arte Sequencial, com residência no Fórum Luís de Camões, na Brandoa (a escassos quilómetros do C.C. do Colombo, para quem quiser visitar…).

A minha participação no festival este ano cinge-se a integrar o júri dos Prémios Nacionais de Banda Desenhada (PNBD), cuja deliberação teve lugar no início do mês. Apesar da apreciável qualidade dos trabalhos submetidos e respectiva dificuldade em estabelecer parâmetros de avaliação que fossem justos face à disparidade de propostas, os vencedores são das obras que melhor congregaram a arte da escrita e grafismo num todo de relevo. Porém, vão certamente ver por lá outras BDs de grande valor, por vezes mais estético ou textual, e por vezes ambos.

E vou ainda lançar, no último fim-de-semana, o novo comic do projecto All-Girlz, com trabalhos das mangakas Joana Lafuente e Selma Pimentel. Intitulado All-Girlz Banzai! e editado pelo meu selo, Arga Warga (i.e. pronuncia-se “Árga Úarga”), este prozine poderá estar disponível a partir do 2º fim-de-semana, no stand da livraria Central Comics.

(imagens por Rui Lacas e Joana Lafuente)

Today starts the 20th Amadora’s International Comics Festival, Portugal’s most popular comics event, with residence in Fórum Luís de Camões, in Brandoa, in the outskirts of Amadora city.

My participation in this years’ convention was joining the jury of the PNBDs (National Comics Awards), which deliberated contest results earlier this month. Aside from the overwhelming quality of the submited works and respective difficulty in placing avaliation parameters that would be fair towards the disparity of proposals, the winners were some of the comics that best gongregated the art of writting and drawing in one seemless whole. Nevertheless, there were several others there of great value.

And in the festival’s last weekend I will also present the new comics of the All-Girlz project, with works from mangakas Joana Lafuente and Selma Pimentel, titled All-Girlz Banzai! and published by my small-press seal, Arga Warga (ie. pronaunced “Árga Úarga”).

All-Girlz Galore [Arga Warga; 2009]

Apresentado em Maio no V Festival Internacional BD de Beja (FIBDB), este lançamento marca o regresso do projecto All-Girlz às lides editoriais, uma iniciativa começada em 2006 que visa destacar os trabalhos das autoras portuguesas de BD, dando também a conhecer algumas estreantes no sector.

Intitulado All-Girlz Galore, este 2º comic reúne novamente uma dezena de artistas, desta feita elegendo as tendências estéticas e temáticas indie como corrente comum às obras, indo de propostas mais plásticas a técnicas/tecnológicas e passando por uma panóplia de estilos gráficos: do ousado lápis e grafite às colagens, até à sofisticada arte digital, com estilização em line-art a preto-e-branco ou em tonings a cinza.
Tematicamente, o leque estende-se por contos intimistas e humorísticos, mas sempre com teor pessoal e sexualidade à mistura, que duma forma mais declarada ou subtil não deixa de reflectir o cunho autoral destas narrativas.


Participam neste número as autoras Ana Biscaia, Andreia Rechena, Cláudia Dias, Joana Sobrinho, Marta Monteiro, Raquel Alves Coelho, Sara Franco e Sónia Oliveira, mais as estreantes (em matéria de edição em BD) Kati Zambito e Inês Casais, esta última também autora da capa da edição.


Para mais informação sobre a publicação e autoras, visitem o blog da iniciativa em All-Girlz.blogspot.com.

“Hunter” sequential art experiment

Devido à extensão do texto, o post fica apenas em inglês…

This is a very dear short-story to me. I was 16 when I decided to redo a simple story I had from when I was younger, about a space explorer that lands on a primitive planet and, unsuspectingly, goes from predator to prey. The plot was basic enough but called on me to draw various things, from spaceships to dinossaurs, plus had some quiet sequences, which was all good workout.

But right from the start there were problems. I was begining to mature as an artist, so the concept and drawing stages took their toll. Growing incresingly frustrated with less then likable results, I simply started from scratch, over and over again… In the span of a few months, while in high-school, I struggled with it and began the comic 4 to 5 times, sometimes pencilling the full four pages and once or twice even going into inks. But by then the endeavour had become a “doomed” one; I could neither finish it nor was I contempt when working on something else.

That’s when I came up with a different approach: to clear my head for other things but still keep at it, so I could by-pass this block I vowed to produce solely 1 page per year until it was finished. This enabled me to view the story from a different perspective, not as bound by sequential continuity from page to page (meta-sequential art, you could call it), and in the process I'd be able to check whichever artistic progress I’d suffer within that time. The plot itself was kept much the same throughout, but I let myself be carried by the pages themselves.

So, I started out in 1998, while in college, and managed to keep myself in check, doing 1 page each year. It was releaving to face each artboard as one isolated part of the plot (ie. the landing, tracking, the first shot…), and just let the action flow. It was much the same, I think, as when a writer is lead by the story itself in the writting or how an abstract artist gets driven by his work. It's amazing to be able to exert your art that way, to trust your instints and see where they lead!

To my surprise, the story wrapped itself in page 7. In the following year, 2005, by then grown accostumed to that “ritual”, I went back and drew another one, which became the new 1st page (splash-page, really).

Also interesting is that the time in each year when I drew the page varied. I kept studying and making comics, and also working freelance in advertising, but almost never consciously decided to draw that year’s page in this or that week; it was decided for me by building up of anxiety or creativity regarding that respective page. I just began when it felt right, like an alarm going off.

That’s why I perceive this as an experiment in sequential art, of sorts. The script was only improvised later on - I would've prefered to keep it "silence" -, when the chance came to publish the comic, but I kept the same voice as it had at the start and little was changed afterwards. The narrator just conveyd how rotten and vicious the Hunter was, how much he was feared throughout the galaxy, to then, in a twist, suddenly make it all insignificant when he is turned prey to another predator.

The first two pages were published in music newspaper Inside, in 1999. The finished comic was published in 2005, in Sketchbook #1, a comic distributed in stores by Devir Editions. There, the artwork was digitally coloured by Rui “Kid” Moura.

Due to this, I won as Best Portuguese Artist in 2006’s IV Central Comics Awards, with a majority of votes from the readers. Although thankful, I felt the award was ill justified, given it came from a short story (which wasn’t uncommun in the Central Comics Awards, though, where the nomminies were selected and elected by the actual public and readers).

Given that, I later decided to recover this for a black/white work self-published comic, adding to the story with a new prologue chapter, which quickly evolved to a graphic novel (in the works...) ;)

Esboço de Herói I | Hero Sketch I

Alguns esboços soltos, de aquecimento, feitos ontem de manhã no estúdio…
A few random warm-up sketches, done in the studio yesterday morning

Storyboard de "Tu aroma, tu sabor"

Estes storyboards foram feitos em 2008, a pedido de um colega, para o remake do videoclip "Tu aroma, tu sabor", do músico setubalense, Marco Alonso, a filmar na zona histórica de Palmela. Tanto quanto sei, a produção foi adiada.

Embora o storyboarding tenha sido despachado em tempo recorde, tratei também da concepção integral da sequência, que iria usar a figura de um trovador e integrar imagéticas inspiradas em filmes de Jean Cocteau, mescladas com arte urbana. Fora estes efeitos especiais, que trariam um splash de cores, o video em si seria a preto/branco.

Vulcan Java

Ainda sobre o ‘Beja, acordando logo de matina no 2º dia, aproveitei para ir desenhar pela parte histórica da cidade. Deixei este rabisco no refeitório da hospedaria para sinalizar aos meus amigos e autoras que já estava levantado…

Still on the subject of FIBDB, having awoken early in the 2nd day of the festival, I took the oporunity to go around the historical part of the city and draw. Left this sketch in the hotel’s cantina so my colleagues and the All-Girlz’s authors would know I was already up…