Artist's choice 🇺🇸

tiger, you've hit the jackpot.

I could’ve been in San Diego this past weekend, seeing fans and friends and celebrating comics. Instead, I stayed at home drawing and writing. And planning my upcoming trip (more on that when I’m on the road).

I did the last two commissions left on my list this week. The first one was a rare ask that left the theme of the drawing up to the artist. The collector volunteered to tell me which previous commissions he liked, or pages or sketches or characters, just to help me get a feeling of what about my art he was hoping for. What I got from the examples he showed was: a nice mixture of thin and thick brush lines (which meant having at least one big character in the drawing), characters from Casanova or Daytrripper, and ink washes.

I really liked how the drawing came out. Makes me want to see more stories with these characters, which I think is the best outcome I could hope for.

jackpot tiger

The other commission I did was of Spider-man and Mary Jane. The other time I drew Spider-man, with Venon (a commission I’ve shown in a recent letter), they were falling near a building with fire escape stairs. Now, again I went with the fire escape background. It’s the first thing I connect to classic NYC, and Spidey is the ultimate classic NYC character.

I considered drawing an elaborate background behind our couple, with more buildings and more stairs, but it would distract the focus of the image from the interaction between the characters.

Does the moon dream?

I watched Bowie - Moonage Daydream when it came out in theaters two years ago. It was the first movie I watched inside a theater after (or during, depending on how you see it) the pandemic. This movie was phenomenal, a very candid portrait of how weird and unorthodox is the life of the artist, how simple things can be very complicated while complex abstract notions make perfect sense, and I’m about to watch it again to get in the groove for the trip that starts next week. In fact, it must fuel the rest of my year, as the class I’m curating in São Paulo starts this Thursday – and if there was ever a big wake-up call to stop wasting your artistic time, which is one of the basic foundations of the class, it’s this movie –, and as I must get more and more in the producing groove of the new story, and as I must seize the moment, the day (carpe diem) and be present in the now during my road trip in California in the ten days preceding the Galaxy Con in San Jose, and how I must make the most of my (as of this moment) only convention appearance. All that, and everything else that will follow for the rest of the year, must be soaked and seasoned with the positive transformative effect this documentary about David Bowie had on me (and on every one who watches, I believe).

Next week, I’ll be on the road, holding my tiny dancer closer. Daytripping one day at a time.

Be safe. Be kind. Be curious.
Pa-ZOW!

Fábio Moon
Moon Base, São Paulo
July 29th, 2024