Draw your darlings
I loved Atari Force as a kid. I came to learn much later that there was a first series which people got when they bought the game or something like that, but I never read that version (and I’m not sure it was even published in Brazil). Here, we got the second series, created by Gerry Conway, Roy Thomas and José Garcia Lopez. I believe my interest in these comics had a direct relation with the impact and success of Star Wars, and maybe I discovered this particular space opera right after seeing The Return of the Jedi, which was probably the first Star Wars movie I saw on the big screen.
Garcia Lopez’s work is dynamic, his characters are expressive and relatable, and to a very young kid who likes to draw comics, his art was the biggest draw on the book. The biggest, but not the only one. Just like Star Wars, Atari Force had a lot of drama, romance, betrayal, twists and turns at every corner. The first issue opens up introducing to of the main characters who fueled most of the emotional tension of the book: Dart and her mercenary lover, Blackjack. Right from the start, we have our Leia and Han Solo, but Dart is no princess. She’s much closer to Ripley. Dart was the first fictional character I had a crush on, and everything about her was different and interesting. Every time I see a character on a book or a movie with tattoos (or when I have to create a character with tattoos), I think about Dart.
In those days, foreign comics here in Brazil were published in anthologies, and sometimes you would have a super-hero story on the same issue as the sci-fi story, and one publisher here could be publishing comics by several international publishers. This is how I bought comics to read Star War adaptations and discovered Atari Force, or how I then discovered Rom, the space knight, and that’s how I eventually discovered the X-Men, and then I was hooked.
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Did you see they announced the third season of The Umbrella Academy will launch on June 22nd, 2022?
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Every week, I try to share something interesting I read, heard or watched, and most weeks, there’s a Cartoonist Kayfabe video to share. This week is no different, with two conversations with the great Geof Darrow. On the first, they went through one of Moebius classic stories, “the Long Tomorrow”, analyzing character design, composition and the storytelling mastery of Jean Giraud’s pages. (I really like when Ed Piskor and Jim Rugg invite guests over to have another point of view when looking over a particular issue of a comic, or a particular artist who have influenced many others, and I think about WHICH comic book or artist I could eventually volunteer to analyze alongside them) There’s a new Shaolin Cowboy comics series coming out starting in May, and so I guess they also took the opportunity to expand the conversation beyond Moebius’s influence in Geof’s work, and made a lengthy second video talking with him about inspirations and influences.
I ended my week curious about how a Shaolin Cowboy drawing by me would look like. On the videos above, during the conversation they mention both Ed and Jim made variant covers for the new Shaolin Cowboy series, and I’m also curious to what they’ll do, and if either of them will try to make a cover that’s an homage to another classic cover.
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The Festival de la Bande Dessinée d’Angoulême happens this week. I wish everybody going the best of times. Between the guests, the panels, the workshops and the original art exhibition, fans and creators always spend a long weekend sharing their love for the 9th art. I’m curious to see how this change in the séances de dedicaces will affect the dynamic of the festival, for better or for worse. (it would makes sense, if you consider how much time and effort an artists put into each individual autograph sketch they do on a book or on a piece of paper at any Festival in France).
Finally, before I get back to my pages, now Substack has released an app where it’s easier and more practical to read all the newsletters they publish that you follow on your iPhone.
The Substack app is currently available for iOS. If you don’t have an Apple device, you can join the Android waitlist here.
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The world can be a scary place. It can be unjust, it can be brutal, it can be stupid. Try not to be any of these things, and take care of one another.
Be safe. Be kind. Be curious.
Pa-ZOW!
Fábio Moon
Moon Base, São Paulo
March 14th, 2022