XDragoon

XDragoon is a quite shounen cliché comic, but, unlike many shounen wannabe, it actually has pretty good artwork, plot and storytelling. Written, drawn and colored by Felipe Marcantonio, it's been ongoing slowly but steadily since 2008, with 12 issues so far (one complete story arc).

I'd recommend it to shounen fans. It gets pretty good once you get past the first chapter's unbearable cliché and hideous translation. Oh, filesize is quite large.

P.S.: The cassarian mistery remains: Why do female dragons have boobs?

Quickies #12

My buddy Doomer in an obsessed with beards Belgian website

Here's Bira playing the harmonica at the XXVII Angelo Agostini awards, and here a girl named Luana plays with him. She plays her purse (!). In the back, I could recognize a few people, Daniel Esteves, Rodrigo from Banca de Quadrinhos, Thiago Spyked and Gazy Andraus.

Ivan Reis and Joe Prado draw Birghtest Day - Aquawar

Daytripper is placed first in the Paperback Graphic Books category of the New York Times best-seller list

Taxi and Có!, mute comics by Gustavo Duarte, are a success in Brazil and in the USA. Here's a list of where to find it in Brazil, USA and France.

Sources: Bigorna, Blog dos Quadrinhos and Universo HQ

Quickies #11

Cartoonist Maurício Pestana releases Pestana – 30 anos de Arte pela Igualdade (Pestana - 30 years of Art for Equality), a collection of his best work, in 30 years of fight against racism (in Portuguese, English and Spanish).

Wellington Alves e Nelson Pereira draw Power Man and Iron Fist

Paulo Siqueira and Ronan Cliquet draw a Venom digicomic

Benicio celebrates 60 years of his career as an illustrator with Sex & Crime - The Book Cover Art of Benicio - Volume 1

Alex Ross invites Jack Herbert to work with him on Kirby: Genesis

Sources: Bigorna, Neorama dos Quadrinhos and Universo HQ

Scanlation Valley - or is it Heaven?

I was posting my scans in The Long Box, Offtopia, J Café and Teh Paradox, but I left the latter cause it sucks. So I went looking for new ones and found Comic Kingdom and Komics Live.

Within Komics Live, I found something that almost made me cry out of joy! The Scanlation Valley, alive with scanlators from all over the world exchanging experiences and working together!

Even if the French still rule there (yeah, the Japanese got their own separate place), there's all kinds of stuff, ranging from Danish comics Valhalla to Breccia (the father)'s Cthulhu!

It even looks that it has grown so much that it needs a new structure...

Every scanlation group and everyone looking for different comics should check it out.

Quickies #10

Pixu - The Mark of Evil, in hardcover

Bá and Moon's De:tales with a new cover

Little Heroes, written by Estevão Ribeiro and drawn by many artists, will be published in the US by 215Ink. Starred by kids, these short stories are a homage to American super-heroes.

Many Brazilian artists participate in the Portuguese BDJornal

A video interview with Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá by CCR TV at the NYCC 2011

Sources: probably Bigorna and Neorama dos Quadrinhos

Holy Avenger #15 - Battle of Archmages

NO LONGER AVAILABLE

Bad news: my vacations will be over next monday, and (for more than one reason) I probably won't translate, or even clean anything before I scan HA 16, 17, 20, 42 and HA Special 1, 2, 3, 4 (and maybe more).

Good news: I have someone interested in doing the typesetting, and a friend of mine said he'd be free to translate within a month or two. Even though changing translators isn't technically ideal (and I feel a little jealous), it would speed things up considerably, and we do have the structure to do so.

The legs of God

Laerte Coutinho is one of the most important Brazilian comic artists ever, and my personal favourite among the old school comic strip artists (and his son, Rafael, recently published a very acclaimed album).

A few years ago, he started to change his style. He didn't feel happy doing humour strips anymore, so he started doing a lot of experimental stuff, considered excelent by many. But I'm not here to talk about his talent, but about something that caught a lot of media attention recently. The recent abundance of crossdresser characters in his strips was only a preview of what was to come. He started dressing like a girl.

He wasn't very pretty when he dressed like a boy, but that's too much... just kidding! Not only is he defying his own creativeness in comics, but he's defying false genre parameters built by society!

Well, if you want more pics, here's an interview, here's him with Angeli, here's a post by André Dahmer (who had the "legs of God"idea) and here's a cute drawing.

But, most important, some of his strips have been translated by Enxame.

Quickies #9

Daytripper will be published in Brazil (oh really). Bá said that this is the best work he and his brother ever made.

Ricardo Manhães draws Foot Furiex

Umbrella Academy #1 for US$ 1,00

A review of Mondo Urbano

Edu Francisco draws Turok

Sources: Blog dos Quadrinhos, Neorama dos Quadrinhos, Universo HQ

Some of these news are not so new.

Leva Nóiz - Justice League

Liga da Justiça, by Leva Nóiz, is a common example of axé music, made in Bahia and other northeastern states. The comics reference, though, is quite a new idea.

The lyrics go something like this (but with a few variations that I wouldn't waste my time translating):

JUSTICE LEAGUE


We'd better call the other Super Friends before the whole Legion of Doom arrives!


Superman got weak,
The Penguin threw some cryptonite,
Lex Luthor and the Joker stole Wonder Woman's lasso


Superman got weak,
The Penguin threw some cryptonite,
Lex Luthor and the Joker stole Wonder Woman's lasso


The Justice League is all taken over
Now there's only one way out!


Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman


You're my Wonder, I'm your Superman,
Here with Leva's swing is where I wanna see you, baby!


You're my Wonder, I'm your Superman,
Here with Leva's swing is where I wanna see you, baby!


The Justice League is all taken over
Now there's only one way out!


Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman


The Justice League is all taken over
Now there's only one way out!


Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman


The Justice League is all taken over


Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman


Super Friends, Salvador City!
Super Friends, Salvador City!
Super Friends, Salvador City!
Super Friends, Salvador City!


The Justice League is all taken over
Now there's only one way out!


Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman
Run away! Run away, Wonder Woman
Run away! Run away! With Superman

And there's more: as usually happens with a lot of popular Brazilian music, there's a pun. The word "foge", translated as "run away", sounds a lot like "fode", i. e., "fuck". Make your own conclusions.

And yes, I'm embarassed.

Source

Frankenstein - Her Majesty's Secret Service

Frankenstein - Her Majesty's Secret Service is a webcomic by Hugo Maximo. Frankenstein, vampires, Crowley, and a LOT of ass kickin'!

But, from 100 pages published, the storyline was no big deal. And the artwork looks like it's made from stiff 3D models with strong Photoshop effects trying to cover it. However, a lot of people seem to really enjoy it.

It could use a more apropriate image format too.

Quickies #8

Mateus Santolouco draws American Vampire

Ivan Reis draws Brightest Day

Marcelo Cassaro and Erica Awano's Dragon's Bride, originally published in Dragon Slayer magazine, will have a hard cover collection. It had colored parts in DS, but the hard cover will be all BW. It's justifiable in this case, and I don't think they'll fuck it up like they did with Holy Avenger (I gotta write a post on that later). Pics here.

Warren Ellis makes a beatiful compliment on Bá and Moon's Daytripper

On his twitcam, J. M. Trevisan was asked "What about that Holy Avenger animation? Can we still wait for something?", and he answered "Oh, you can wait."

Sources: @hectorlima, @Marcelo_Cassaro and Neorama dos Quadrinhos

Holy Avenger #14 - Someone to care for

NO LONGER AVAILABLE

Quickies #7

Stripburguer #54, a Slovenian magazine, published several BR artists

Roger Cruz made another tutorial for iTunes called How2Draw Female Faces. It costs only U$ 0,99.

Chico Bento: Linguistic Marking and National Identity in Brazilian Comics is a good article, by Jennifer J. Manthei, about the discourse and the use of eye dialect in Chico Bento (Chuck Billy) magazines.

The Museum of Sex's new exhibit, Comics Stripped, shows porn and erotic comics from all over the world, including the catecismos of Carlos Zéfiro.

Roger Cruz draws cover for Magneto #1

Sources: Bigorna, Neorama dos Quadrinhos, Universo HQ and somewhere else I don't remember.

Quickies #6

Adriana Melo draws Wonder Girl

A review of LEO's Survivants #1

In an interview (in Portuguese), Wander Antunes said "It's not that I'm producing for the French market, it's just that they buy and edit me. I have several done or half-done stories that I present to many editors, here, there and in other countries." He also said that his contact with Jaime (who, by the way, introduced him to Dupuis) began with Canalha magazine, that Toute la Poussière du Chemin was made from short stories originally made for El Víbora magazine and that he's currently working on a secret project with a Brazilian artist.

Adriano Batista draws Garth Ennis' Jennifer Blood

Five special issues that Marvel's releasing on march celebrating 70 years of Captain America had their covers done by Greg Tocchini. The covers together form a big poster.

Sources: Blog dos Quadrinhos and Neorama dos Quadrinhos.

Star

Finally! A new release!

NO LONGER AVAILABLE

This is just a short story about Loriane, made a long time ago and reprinted in HA #12 and #13.

But lemme tell ya, it's hard being legal! Lately, I'm avoiding illegal stuff (ironically, a have never before in my life downloaded as much music as I do now). Then someone disappeared with my fake copy of Photoshop AGAIN! Fine, it was a good opportunity to do the right thing. I found out that it's quite hard living without PS.

First, I downloaded the GIMP. I had made some experiments with it before, with suspicious results, but, whatever, it was still the best free raster editor out there. But it has quite a crappy text tool. They're making a better one for the 2.8 update, which'll come out sometime this semester.

I also found out that Comic Sans really sucks (but PS made miracles with it). Luckily, there are quite good fonts out there, like Action Man and Komika Text.

So I downloaded a WHOLE BUNCH of softwares looking for a decent text tool, until I came across Inkscape. It was better than the others, but I wasn't satysfied yet. I kept searching, and then when I was about to finish downloading a 45 mega soft, my connexion crashed.

Just to give an idea, my connexion is supposed to be 500 kbps, but I'm thrilled when it goes over 100! At that moment, it was below 5. I was forced to keep trying with Inkscape. And what a surprise, I realized that it was everything I needed! And then I suddenly got my connexion back. ¬¬

"God writes straight with crooked lines."

Anyway, you're probably getting a couple new episodes very soon. And then we'll be back to the limbo for a while. Gotta fix problems with my HP scanner and make a whole batch of new scans (and maybe a second one) before I get back to translating cleaning, typesetting. But perhaps I'll have some more help by then!