Pause for a second

enjoy a lot of images

Let’s go back a week.

It was Sunday morning, and I woke up with a terrible fever after a week celebrating my birthday, which included pushing everything to its limit: longer days, longer nights, drinking very tasty strong drinks, dancing and practicing sports and having fun about dear friends every opportunity I got. Maybe I exaggerated. I stood up and figured I could shake it off by having a great breakfast, strong coffee, some medicine and outdoors sports in the morning sun (to kick in that vitamin D boost).

I didn’t last one hour outside, my fever got worse and I got back home.

To rest.

Eat well, relax, finish reading books and comics that have been waiting. Watch the movies and tv series I was too busy to watch before. Shuffle the work of the next two days for once I got better. “Two days should be enough”, I thought.

After four days of high fever that didn’t break, I went to the hospital.

“Maybe it’s not just a fever.”

It wasn’t just a fever.

Turned out I had pneumonia. I might have taken some artistic liberties with the image above, but let’s just say that the white spot on the CT of my left lung was big enough to make the tone of the lady doctor talking to me change from cute (oh, you make comics? how wonderful) to a much more serious one (it’s unsafe for you to live alone by yourself in the next couple of days).

“If you’re not better by two days, hurry back”, she said.

Thy drugs are quick

I’ve been back from the hospital for enough time to report that I’m feeling better. I’m taking the resting part very seriously, because my patience is almost running out and I want to get back to work.

This week, on June 22nd, the nice folks at Cadence Comic Art will open my last commission list of the year. I had all these plans for last week, to start talking about the new list, and about the new option I would be offering this time around of color commissions done on mixed media, mostly watercolor and ink, and I started sketching this fun Birds of Prey image I was going to paint to illustrate it, but I didn’t do anything last week but sweat and cough.

I’ll still open up the color option, even without a new example.

In fact, I might open two color options. One where the collector chooses up to two characters, and another one which is a little cheaper and I choose what I’ll draw.

The “artist’s choice” color commission, even if still dynamic and expressive, will be more on the romantic and poetic side, but you never know if I’ll wake up that day feeling like painting an awesome super-hero kicking some mythical creature’s ass.

One of my goals when I open a commission list is to challenge myself creatively and artistically in some new way. I’m always thinking about composition and balance to make the image as interesting to make as it might be to see afterwards, and adding the color option is another challenge I’ll face: composition and balance work completely different in color. More than in a black and white image, a color image tells a much more emotionally charged story.

Most people will still choose the black and white options, and I still expect to draw a lot of super-heroes – pop culture characters in general –, and I’ll welcome every curve ball thrown my way, be it a Batman, a Hellboy, a Space samurai from a long time ago, or a mercenary fighter from another galaxy who was betrayed by her sneaky black-jack lover.

Before I go: I saw the Cartoonist Kayfabe’s video about Sin City: The Big Fat Kill, and it was a good one.

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

Fábio Moon
Moon Base, São Paulo
June 19th, 2023