Rites of Spring
and learn a bit more about anatomy.
In my corner of the World, Winter gave way to Spring, but the weather outside, be it at the beach (where I was able to escape to two weekends ago for a couple of days) or here in São Paulo is behaving as if we’re already at the peak of Summer. I’m trying to enjoy the weather as much as I can and balance the otherwise super busy work schedule inside the studio with some outdoors activities. If it’s warm outside, everybody is happier, and it’s good to be able to walk around and see people cheerfully enjoying each-there’s company at the end of a hot day in the city. The drinks are colder and taste better, the music coming from the bars is loud but the musicians playing in the corner of the place feed on the laughter of the audience as everybody dances and talk and the performance feels inspired and comforting.
I saw a sunset sitting below a tree in a park near my house.
I drew in my watercolor Moleskine for the first time since Chicago, and it felt good. It felt good to put down on paper this new couple I’m slowly getting to know. I’m not sure where the story is going, but I really like the way they look to each other.
Looking back on my earlier sketches (earlier notebooks, even), I see this couple sneaking in, like a song I hear often and for a long time without noticing the lyrics, and now I'm paying attention to what the words are saying.
Interlude
I have been developing a strange pattern in my life (it started here), and you will notice it reflects on what I write about on this letters: I’m getting injured, hurt or sick quite a bit in the last few years, frequently enough for me to notice and worry about what this might be a result of.
What is the universe trying to tell me?
What am I not listening?
I hurt my ankle playing volleyball with friends, rendering me out of commission for at least another six weeks. No playing, no swimming, no dancing. The doctor says it won’t require surgery and I’ll do my best Tom Cruise impression during the physiotherapy period to recover ready to jump off a building.
In the meantime, I found the best position to hold my foot up and draw in the iPad or in the notebooks on my lap.
And I’m finally going to catch up on reading a bunch of the books that wait for me patiently on my nightstand.
Learning from the past
The Kayfabes received some special gifts while at Baltimore Comic Con, and have done back to back reviews of some of the older Geof Darrow’s works, and for everyone unfamiliar with those projects, it’s a chance to see some images not so easy to find anywhere else. Like they point out in the video, it’s very interesting and instructive to see that, in the big black and white version of Hard Boiled, the narrative readability of the Geof’s images, even when very busy with all sorts of details, remains clear.
A rare collaboration is the subject of the other video, going through City of Fire, where Moebius and Geoff worked together. I’m hoping they do another video with Geof asking about the collaborative process, because their styles blend together really well and I' would be curious to know how each of those images came to be, what was each initial spark, and how they decided on each one who would do what.
Some time ago, the Mangasplaining crew talked about Pluto, by Naomi Urasawa, and I finally found time in my schedule to listen to the episode. As a creator who has worked on his fair share of adaptations, I’m really interested in the idea of retelling a story, expanding on it, adding different layers through both the words and the drawings.
I have considered making songs into stories. (Bá and I talked about how we felt the title character in the Beatles’s song Rocky Raccoon was mentally challenged and how would that influence the perception of the entire narrative).
I have often considered turning poems into comics.
What would you like to see in comics form? Which other story or artistic expression do you think would profit if retold with the magical tools of the comics language?
Be safe. Be kind. Be curious.
Pa-ZOW!
Fábio Moon
Moon Base, São Paulo
September 25th, 2023
I don't know if the Jabberwocky is a good poem to adapt... but I'd like to see a comic doing with images what the Jabberwocky does with words. Or the crônica Palavreado, from Luiz Fernando Veríssimo. But I don't have any idea if that's even possible.