Aldebaran, Betelgeuse, Antares

It begins as the love story of two teenagers, in an aquatic planet, Earth's first space colony. But repeated accidents force Earth to suspend travels until the causes are found out. A hundred years pass without any communication with Earth.

That's the background for a very successful (eleven albums and ongoing, elected best bande dessinée of 2000) "fantastic and humanistic epic", written and drawn by LEO (Luís Eduardo de Oliveira).

LEO, Brazilian born, had to leave his job as an engineer because of political problems during the dictatorship (64-85). He started doing illustrations for a living, until he decided to be a comic artist and left for France in 1980.

Now, he considers himself French, he doesn't have any plans to come back to Brazil, and he has no idea of what's going on in the Brazilian comics market.

I recommend browsing through the bestiary in the official website, it's amazing.

Noticeably, the also beautiful animations in the website have been made by also brazilian Caetano Brasil.

Sources: Mundo HQ and Les Mondes d'Aldebaran

Bad dog! No biscuit!

I found this Christmas strip by Laerte today, so I had to put it here!

Magics and Barbarics

Magics and Barbarics are the adventures of an annoying mage and a barbarian that quotes Shakespeare. Very good adventure/comedy strips by Fabio Ciccone. Apparently simple, very mature artwork.

But there are a couple of "buts": First, it's updated only once a week in the Portuguese version (tops), and who knows when it'll be updated again in English. Second, MANY of the earlier strips are missing. Regarding this, the author told me:

Unfortunately the earlier strips are not online in the English website. It's a decision I made when the site was put together due to some stuff that was going on at the time, and it's not easy to revert now. I expect to upload them one day, but I cannot tell when I will be able to make it.

Such a good series in such a lame state. =/

P. S.: The series will have it's first printed edition in Portuguese very soon.

Merry Christmas

Marcelo Cassaro, writer of Holy Avenger, wishes us all a Merry Christmas!

South Koreans invade São Paulo

Bira Dantas has been invited to guide seven South Korean artists and businessmen (specially from Komacon) in a tour through Brazilian Comics. They look foward to tightening relations between Brazilian and South Korean comic markets.

Interviews and meetings with publishers and artists are being scheduled. They'll be here from January 11th to 13th, and there'll probably be large press coverage.

Bira has been involved with South Korea before: in 2005, he made a lecture on Brazilian comics at the BICOF (International Comic Artist Conference and Bucheon International Comis Festival) (pics); in 2006, he drew a comic written by Gonçalo Jr. for the Quantum Spies comic book.

Source: Bigorna

Quickies #3

Galvão publishes Le Bizarre Cronache de Absurdyum in Italy (it's about a radioactive redneck, an oyster with butterfly wings and a pig with a gun battling a meat loaf god). Pics here.

André Caliman draws Earth Liberation Force, your good ole fight-the-aliens series, released in the Sand Diego Comic-Con. Pics here.

Top Shelf publishes Rodrigodraw's Seeds Lost. It looks crappy. Preview here.

Ana Luiza Koehler draws Awrah. More pics here.

An interview with Erica Awano (who drew Holy Avenger, Warcraft: Warrior United, Alice in Wonderland and Manga for the Beginner). Lots of good pics too.

Sources: Lady's Comics and Universo HQ

Ordinary

Ordinário is a series of strips by Rafael Sica that's been published online since 2008 and just got an album published by Cia. das Letras.

Very thin lines, very dark, very... I don't know... melancholic? No, that's not it. Hopeless, I think that's it.

Almost all strips are mute, that's why I'm posting about it here.

Experimental. Some are really awesome (like the one above), most don't make much sense. A lot of people discuss about them. Sica never says a word.

If you're into crazy shit, check it out.

Quickies #2

Marcelo Mueller draws Lady Death #0

Carlos Saldanha, main director of the Ice Age triolgy, shows the trailer of his next movie, "Rio", in Paris.

The American Discovery Family will buy two seasons of Peixonauta (the second hasn't been televised even here), with 52 episodes each.

Rafael Albuquerque, Rafael Grampá, Gabriel Bá and Fábio Moon have been awarded by IGN's Best of 2010.

And there's a great game called Berimbau Hero, in which you play a berimbau, traditional capoeira instrument. It only has three levels, and the third is pretty tough.

I guess I strayed a bit far from comics today, huh? ;p

Sources: Neorama dos Quadrinhos and Universo HQ

Oswaldo Storni's illustrations for Alice Through the Looking Glass

This is from an edition of Alice Through the Looking Glass made by Oswaldo Storni in the fifties. He illustrated many books I used to read as a child and he kicks ass!

You can see more here. They could have treated those images, but, since it came from a column called "Amazing Archives", keeping the brown pages makes sense.

Source: Bigorna

Quickies #1

Adriana Melo draws DC Universe Online: Legends

The Alchemist graphic novel, by Paulo Coelho (worldwide famous Brazilian writer), Daniel Sampere and Vitor Ishimura

Fabio Cobiaco draws Kull covers

Rafael Albuquerque draws American Vampire for Vertigo, and it's being published in Brazil, Italy and Germany

Interview with Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, in Greek and English - they talk about their work, breaking into the US comics industry, the blog war with Craig Thompson and mention Laerte as a major influence.

Wellington Diaz draws Superman #705

Bá and Moon's Daytripper gets published in Spain

AAAAWESOOOME Rio Comicon recap by The JahFurry (seriously, READ THIS!)

Sources: Neorama dos Quadrinhos and @hqemfoco.

Brazilian artists on Zuda

Too bad Zuda's gone, cause I wanted to make a post about the Brazilian artists there... well, I'll make that post anyway!

To be honest, I haven'r read any of them. My internet conection sucks, and Zuda wasn't very friendly in that sense. Well, here's a list of the names I could gather (only Brazilian artists are mentioned):

Cursed Planet - Felipe Sobreiro and Milton Sobreiro

Day of Prey - Ramon Cavalcante

Earthbuilders - Felipe Sobreiro (Milton Sobreiro's son)

Mr. Trildok Sings the Blues - Julia Bax

Rockstar - Aluísio Cervelle Santos

Sidewise - Igor Noronha

The Passenger - Alexandre Vidal

That I know, Earthbuilders and Sidewise were winners (but I don't know what it means to be a winner at Zuda).

Sources: Gattai Zine, Graphic Boken, HQ Maniacs, MacPherson Media, Sedentário & Hiperativo, Wikipedia, Universo HQ and Universo HQ.