Making Carnaval Noise

and the process behind a cool Killjoys poster.

VIP wristbands for the MCR show and the massive Baixo Augusta street parade.

In Carnaval, we’re playing all sorts of different parts in a big story that unfolds year after year throughout history. Open air free parties that democratize joy and happiness and allow us to explore the complexity of our souls after the year long numb comfort of behaving one way every day. We often fantasize doing things differently, choosing a different path, leading a different life. During Carnaval, we can be these versions of ourselves that are not judged for enjoying being alive.

I said in an earlier letter how fitting it was for the My Chemical Romance concert to take place in the early days of Brazilian Carnaval. The operatic nature of the show, the fantastic fictional story of the Black Parade album and the heavily dressed up audience that packed the stadium all made me imagine that they would leave the show and head straight to one of the street parades that happened for the last two weekends.

(there is an actual emo/carnaval parade in São Paulo during Carnaval)

Having the special wristband for the MCR show felt just like having the wristband for one of the biggest parades of street carnaval in São Paulo, called Acadêmicos do Baixo Augusta (which a friend graciously gave me). In both cases, we were surrounded by thousands of tightly squeezed people while in a more spacious, controlled space, as if enjoying the show from the inside out, accompanied by the different ranks of celebrities and special few. I had my Kid Kobra Killjoys jacket on the MCR show, and dressed like a Clockwork Orange Carnaval gipsy for the street parade.

I screamed my lungs out on both occasions, singing along the songs I knew.

the Jekill and Hyde of one of my Carnaval nights.

During Carnaval, I do for me what I often do for the characters of the stories I draw (which I’m currently doing with the main Archie cast): I play dress-up. In the stories, I sometimes push it a little too far. As much as I believe that details on “hair and make up” or “costume design” help enrich the depths of the characters, I confess that I lose too much time surfing the internet (I used to rely on Pinterest quite a lot for that, but in the last year I see it being flooded with AI generated images which, as interesting as they can look, have an artificial, shallow, homogenized look to them), looking for fashion trends, or specific fashion brands which define a certain social group, trying hard to escape the easy route of looking for movies who’ll help solve my production design problems, because movies (and TV series) have entire departments of people in charge of researching and developing all these things comic book artists often do alone in their studios (aka basements). I remember an interview with Jeff Smith talking about how he started to put a lot more effort developing the epic world of Bone when the Lord of the Rings movies started coming out, because those movies raised the visual bar of fantasy lands (and specially fantasy battles).

Work soundtrack

When I’m not writing, which I still do in silence, I trying to train myself to work listening to stuff. It can be music, but most of the time I’m trying to catch up on work related stuff, so I’m mainly listening to interviews or podcasts. I’m currently listening to my former editor Diana Schutz talk in length with Word Balloon’s host John Siuntres about how she started in comics and what she’s working on nowadays. I just started this three and a half hours talk (which is just the first of many) and already I’m curious about the projects Diana is currently involved.

I’m very interested in Michel Fiffe’s series of videos about Keith Giffen’s artistic career. The most recent one covers Giffen’s “Five Years Later” era, which Fiffe calls the “pure Giffen” phase of his visual style, and I found it fascinating. I’m looking forward to the next video, which should cover Giffen’s “Trencher” style.

Killjoys

When My Chemical Romance released the Danger Days album, Bá proposed he’d do a poster to be sold at concerts featuring the band’s Killjoys personas.