Look!! Kids -- COMICS!!!

Another page of my own, this time for the upcoming Kirby Martin Inquest #1, from Nite Lite Theatre, written by Mike Hasseloff, pencilled and inked by me, featuring Mike's creation, The White Ghost. The art is already in the can, Mike's done with his part too and now it's up for the letterer to finish his job. Coming soon!

Musicians we love to hate

- "What the hell does Sussudio mean?"
- "One of the most awesomly bad songs ever..."

Superman

Legend has it that this was the first comic book I had - a reprint of Action Comics#1, the comic which introduced Superman and began all other superheroes. My mind was scarred forever, my destiny sealed. Even today I have a hard time believing it!

The volume is one of those old treasury sized editions typical of the '70s, more or less double the size of a regular comic book, which means that on my tiny four or five year old hands it must have felt huge, like a heavyweight - the size, the scope and on top of that, the content - an anthology of old comic strips including Superman's debut! Jerry Siegel's imagination and Joe Shuster's art looked amazing to me -- they still do as a matter of fact! There's an honesty, a charm in their work, an almost warts and all approach, that I find quite uncommon nowadays in mainstream american comics, ugly as some of them can be. As Jules Feiffer put it in his The Great Comic Book Heroes, "Shuster represented the best of old-style comic-book drawing. His work was direct, unprettied - crude and vigorous; as easy to read as a diagram. No creamy lines, no glossy illustrative effects, no touch of that bloodless prefabrication that passes for professionalism these days. Slickness, thank God, was beyond his means. He could not draw well, but he drew single-mindedly - no one could ghost that style. It was the man. (...) But, oh, those early drawings! Superman running up the sides of dams, leaping over anything that stood in his way (No one drew skyscrappers like Shuster. Impressionistic shafts. Superman poised over them, his leaping leg tucked under his ass, his landing leg taunty pointed earthward), cleaning and jerking two-ton get-away cars and pounding them into the sides of cliffs - and all this done lightly, unportentiously, still with that early (...) exhuberance."

Now, this Superman who shows up for the first time ever in the first tale of Action Comics #1 is significantly different from the one most people are used to all over the world nowadays. Sure, you have all the basic ingredients there - the clark kent/superman dual identity, the lois lane romantic interest, the alien origin, the superhuman abilities, the mild mannered reporter - but this isn't your friendly neighborhood Superman. He's more like a social-reformist bully, whose motto could very well be "might makes right". His costume is darker and his features rougher; he's concerned with real world threats and injustices like murderers, corrupt politicians, belligerent armies, spousal abusers and exploitive employers, not imaginary problems like alien invaders, giant robots or bald scientists (as he'd soon be); astounding as they appear, his abilities are far more within the grasp of the believable, not yet the physics defying powers he'd come to be known for - he's a superMAN, not the childish SUPERman with his superboys, supercousins, superpets and superfriends.

Time and the marketing machine would tame him down and power him up for a wider, more commercial appeal, ending up with what we have today. Yet, to me, this guy, as he originally appeared, would always remain the real deal. Ironically enough, Chris Ware's superman character in Jimmy Corrigan is far closer to Jerry Siegel and Joe Shuster's creation than what passes for him in DC's own regular publications these days! Forget modern comics, forget the new film; you want to meet the real Superman, pick this.

Nostalgia is...

... an old memory of a children's book my mom gave me before I could even read and one of my favourite songs ever by the great Caetano Veloso. Oh, Bliss!

Jorge Colombo

Far and away my favourite portuguese cartoonist... See for yourself here.

Too much, man!

You know those good old Tom and Jerry cartoons by William Hanna and Joe Barbera where Tom's torn apart by doubt and two l'il angel/devil versions of himself battle for his decision, telling him what he should or should not do? Well, sometimes I'm a bit like that and this time I'm afraid the l'il devil has won. Just click on the parental advisory label at your own risk.

Alain de Botton or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb

I don't really care much for tv these days - with the honorable exception of Lost and the greatest show ever . I even avoid watching the news, prefering to read them, as what we get on tv has become too much like entertainment or propaganda but not enough information...
It was under this scenario that this guy's series "Status Anxiety" really caught my attention and had me following it almost religiously. Find out more about the man, his books and tv series, here.

Look!! Kids -- COMICS!!!

Another teaser from the "Grace" story, illustrated and lettered by myself from a script by Arya Ponto - if you wanna read it all in its full glorious black and white, be sure to pick a copy of the Post-Human Anthology, coming soon.

Saturn Girls just wanna have fun...

They just wanna, they just wanna...

For those of you not versed in super-hero lore, this is Saturn Girl, a member of The Legion of Super Heroes of the XXXth century, published by DC comics - home of Superman and Batman among other famous comic book characters.

The art was originally done for Thom Chiaramonte's excellent R3 forum's This Week's Art Jam "... where a character is chosen at random and all who wish to participate get to do their take on the character".

Be sure to check Thom's own illustration site.

Well, duh!

"Prediction is very difficult, especially about the future."

- Niels Bohr

R.I.P. Tonico

Yesterday there was no post as we had to attend a funeral for a friend - an old friend of my wife's family who, along with his own wife, took care of my father-in-law's house in his hometown during his absence. He was one of the last master craftsmen in this town, having earned his wage as a taylor with a personal school of disciples and students. As the priest told the attending persons of the importance and impact he had had on the village during his eighty years of life, I couldn't help but think of how times have changed and how we now live in an era where the old knowledge and care people used to give their professional activities is quickly eroding and dying , giving way to a faster, disposable way of living with no place for craftsmen and what they used to bring to everyday life...

Lists Part I - films

"I'm just the sort of person who's always making lists. Rarely finishing them though. I waste a lot of time writing down columns of favourite artists or little quotations."

- in It's a good life, if you don't weaken a picture novella by Seth

Favourite Films

Charles Chaplin, Nosferatu, Metropolis, Walt Disney, Frankenstein, The Invisible Man,Bride of Frankenstein, Things to Come, It's a Wonderful Life, Lost Horizon, Citizen Kane, The Magnificent Ambersons, The Third Man, How Green was my Valley, The Grapes of Wrath, The Quiet Man, The Searchers, The Wizard of Oz, Captain Blood, The Adventures of Robin Hood, The Sea Hawk, They Died with Their Boots on, The Boy with Green Hair, Ladri di Biciclette, The Ten Commandments, Ben Hur, Rear Window, Vertigo, North by Northwest, To Kill a Mockingbird, On the Waterfront, East of Eden, Amarcord, The Bridge on the River Kway, Lawrence of Arabia, Doctor Zhivago, Dr. Strangelove, 2001 A Space Odissey, A Clockwork Orange, The Shining, The Day the Earth Stood Still, The Time Machine, Planet of the Apes, Soylent Green, The Sound of Music, The Andromeda Strain, The Good the Bad and the Ugly, Once upon a Time in the West, Once Upon a Time in America, Manhattan, The Outsiders, Rumble Fish, Apocalypse Now, Taxi Driver, Raging Bull, Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, Return of the Jedi, Close Encounters of the Third Kind, Raiders of the Lost Ark, E.T., Empire of the Sun, Schindler's List, Saving Private Ryan, A.I., Minority Report, War of the Worlds, Alien, Blade Runner, The Elephant Man, Lost Highway, The Straight Story, Starman, Ferris Bueller's Day Off, Adventures in Babysitting, Superman, Ladyhawke, The Goonies, Scrooged, Back to the Future, Contact, Cast Away, Stand by Me, Willow, Gremlins, Explorers, Matinee, Aliens, Terminator 2, The Abyss, The Untouchables, Nuovo Cinema Paradiso, Malèna, Mediterraneo, Il Postino, Wallace and Grommit, Delicatessen, City of Lost Children, Edward Scissorhands, Nightmare before Christmas, The Corpse Bride, Monsters Inc, Iron Giant, The Incredibles, The Shawshank Redemption, The Green Mile, Hearts in Atlantis, The Passion of Christ, The Matrix, American Splendor, Lord of the Rings, Match Point

...and the list goes on...

PBF

The Perry Bible Fellowship is too good for words.

Look, kids -- It's the Comics!

This is from a comic book shortstory illustrated and lettered by myself, to be published in the upcoming Post-Human Anthology - more news on this as it hopefully develops.

Monkey see, Monkey do...

The real Planet of the Apes!

Quote of the Day

"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbled or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena; whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs and comes short again and again; who knows the great enthusiasms, the great devotions, and spends himself in a worthy cause; who, at the best, knows the triumph of high achievement; and who, at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who knew neither victory nor defeat."
- Theodore Roosevelt

Dream, Dream, Dream

Had the weirdest dream last night...
A couple of friends of mine have a small two year old boy who, in the dream, was already six years old, wearing these big thick glasses, a t-shirt with red and white stripes, brown trousers, big orthopedic boots and being an avid devourer of comic books. In the dream, these friends, knowing what a comic book geek I am, were seeking my advise concerning their offspring's newly found addiction. Well, I was quite amused by the situation of seeing the little tyke completely immersed in the comics experience, so what could I do to convince the parents there was nothing terribly wrong with the kid except for the possibility of a life-long addiction to four-color stapled pamphlets, lack of commonly accepted social skills and a one-way ticket to geekdom ?...
Luckily, I woke up.

Let There Be Light!

...experience...1...2...experience...1...2...3...experience...