Buckle up!

Things are picking up speed

Sep 10, 2023

Hello from Castrum Lusitania, my fortress in northern Portugal. Welcome to another edition of our weekly newsletter.

Phenomena 3 is picking up some speed. We hit the ground running with it, but a couple of weeks off (one in July, another in August), combined with 3 covers in between, inevitably slowed things down a bit. But now we’re entering on an highway: the story is settled, the big interruptions behind us and pages are starting to pile up.

Nonetheless, this week had three big chunks of time devoted to different things.

What things were those?

I’m glad you asked. This is what went down:

1. Yet another cover for a great book, in which I couldn’t resist to draw a massively dense background. It took some time to pencil and even more to ink, but the end result (and the entire process) was fairly satisfactory.

2. I also did a long planned interview for a book that I had totally forgotten. The authors are interviewing Portuguese comic creators, yours truly included. It took the entire Wednesday afternoon (we went deep) but it was a lot of fun. The people behind the book are extremely cool friends and were deeply prepared and knowledgeable, which is what you want from an interviewer.

3. A live drawing session with the

3W/3M

’s fantastic group. This was interesting for many reasons. Basically, it was like a podcast but more like hanging out with friends (that for the most part I was meeting for the first time). We chatted about work, process, each other’s books, etc, all while drawing. I drew a bunch of characters from Phenomena on my iPad, but just pencils with some quick grey tones:

Of the group (Hickman, Huddleston and Del Mundo, plus editor Rob Levin), I only knew Jonathan Hickman. He wrote the script for my first professional gig, FF #22 at Marvel, and was extremely kind then (as he is now). Funnily enough, he remembered the issue well, including how it ended. This was the last page, a rather sweet moment between two sweet characters:

Jonathan is one of the biggest names in comics and someone with whom I wouldn’t mind a proper collaboration one of these days. His stories are all full of incredibly fascinating ideas and have densely crafted narratives, something which appeals to my sensibilities.

Yeah, cool, but what about Phenomena 3, then?

Calm down, goddamnit.

Like I said, it’s picking up speed. Before September ends, we should have nearly 50 finished pages, if all goes according to plan. This past week I inked a bunch more pages alongside all the other stuff and next week there will be nothing but inking Boldon, Spike, Matilde and company.

Obviously, we’re not going any further before I show you a bunch of sneak peeks. That’s why you (don’t) pay me, after all.

First, one of my favorite panels of Book 3 so far. I like the angle, the composition and the execution of it all. In this scene we set up the big moments ahead, with our characters discovering that things are not what they expected:

This following panel gave me more work than it should, because of those circles in perspective. But there isn’t really other way to properly do it. Eyeballing works in some circumstances, but with this size I had to build a perspective grid with squares and insert circles in them:

Next is a detail of the first of a sequence of three spreads that brings light to everything that Phenomena is and what happened to this world. It’s six pages of madness and epicness (is that a word? Let’s pretend it is):

Finally, one of the hardest places I ever drew, because of how many vanishing points I had to track. Basically, one for each section of wall surrounding the stage and seats. It got messy and the process was turbulent, but in the end we landed safely.

I’m not looking forward to draw this ever again, I’ll tell you that.

The next eleven pages are already printed (remember that I draw pencils digitally) and I’ve been inking them for the last few hours. I’ll do some bits tomorrow here and there and when Monday arrives, the thing is in motion already. I feel that have something that is already started makes beginning the work much easier in the mornings, particularly Monday mornings. We’re all a bit Garfield-esque, after all.

Recommendations

I’ve started watching Gangs Of London recently and after the first four or five episodes I was baffled why wasn’t everyone talking about it. That’s how good those were. It kind of became clear why people weren’t talking about it aaaaaalll the time in the following episodes. It loses some of its momentum as it lets go of its most powerful characteristics:

- The mystery of who and why they killed the big bad guy gets solved too quickly.

- The plot gets too convoluted and the real enemies become invisible.

- It loses the magical balance of the first episodes between near prestige drama TV and super intense Hong Kong action sequences. It keeps both, but not with the impact and structure of the first few episodes. Instead of the initial lots of drama and now lots of action, it started to give both in shorter bursts, losing a bit of its unique pacing.

Nonetheless, I’d highly recommend (if you can stomach insane levels of violence, that is). Even deep into season 2, when it’s good, it’s really good. And at its worst is still very good actors and very good bits. Its struggle to reach the heights of the first chunk is mostly due to how good those are.