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SEPTEMBER 2016
Hello, Ambassadors! Doesn’t this train ever slow down? Aren’t there any holidays in publishing? When can a fella take a day off to read a book or something? The answer to those questions is a calm “Shut up, you. This is your dream come true, so quit yer bitchin’ and get back to makin’ the comics.” I will admit this job often gets the better of me, and I’ve learned that of the two types of people out there, I’m the kind that gets fatter with stress (mmm, comforting Chicken and Whiskey...) But you’ll never catch me whining about the stress (especially if I’m in the middle of either Chicken or Whiskey), because its nothing compared to the satisfaction of getting these awesome books out the door. And when those books find an avid audience, even better. Why, just this summer, we’ve had to go back to print on FOUR TITLES (GOLEM, KLAW, LOVE: THE FOX, and LOVE: THE TIGER for a third time)! And it looks like we’ll need to go back to print on both WARSHIP JOLLY ROGER and LOVE: THE LION before the end of the year! So many well-deserved hits for such talented creators! And the hits just keep on coming! Starting with this month’s cover story -- BRIGADA! Artist and author ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ has created an engaging, engrosing, and thrilling dark fantasy filled with bickering dwarven warriors, mad elven shamen, mysterious ageless witches, and a strange evil mist tearing the land asunder. You will not want to skip over our interview and gallery feature on his work starting on page 9! We also have a stellar gallery and interview with artist LUCAS MARANGON, best known for his excellent Star Wars work, but that’s just the tip of his iceberg-like portfolio! And of course you’ll get a sneak peek at new and upcoming releases, as well as a ton of more, free comics by F. RUIZ VELASCO and CAIO OLIVEIRA, who launches “Alan Moore: Sorcerer Supreme” this month! Enjoy!
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THIS ISSUE: pg 2..... WELCOME pg 4..... ON SHELVES THIS MONTH! LITTLE TAILS vols 1-2, and LIGHT
pg 6..... COMING NEXT MONTH!
RENDEZ-VOUS IN PHOENIX and CENTURION & EMPERADOR
pg 8..... NEW IN PREVIEWS!
Announcing BRIGADA!
pg 9..... FEATURED INTERVIEW: ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ talks about his upcoming graphic novel BRIGADA, with a gallery of his work and a 6-page preview!
pg 32... ARTIST SPOTLIGHT: LUCAS MARANGON pg 44... COMICS! pg 56...
CULEBRA (pages 12-22) by Francisco Ruiz Velasco ALAN MOORE: SORCERER SUPREME (pages 1-8) by Caio Oliveira
pg 64... WHAT’S IN THE BOX? COVER ART - “Brigada (promo poster)” , by Enrique Fernandez
“The Wizard of Oz (promo piece)” by Enrique Fernandez
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IN STORES
THIS MONTH
LITTLE TAILS vols 1-2 by Brremaud and Bertolucci
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LIGHT by Rob Cham
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IN STORES
NEXT MONTH
RENDEZ-VOUS IN PHOENIX by Tony Sandoval
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CENTURION & EMPERADOR
by Rob and Patricia Schneider and Francisco Herrera
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NEW IN PREVIEWS!
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ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ IS
LOST
ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ lives in a fantasy world of his own design. His graphic novels have dazzled readers across Europe with their stylized, storybook-like fancy mixed with dynamic -- and often surreal -- elements of design and color. And now he’s getting ready to dazzle audiences here in the US with the upcoming release of his dark fantasy epic, BRIGADA, a tale of Dwarven warriors lost in a world haunted by an evil mist that bridges multiple realities seemingly at random. Much like Enrique’s imagination.
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You were born in Barcelona, Spain in 1975. How old were you when you started drawing? As many people in this industry (maybe everyone?), since I was just a kid, copying my favorite cartoon characters, and trying to create my own new ones. I didn´t consider it as a professional career until I was around 16 years old, but I did many comics and illustrations for local contests, and some illustrations for friends’ fanzines. TITLE PAGE: “Red Riding Hood” THIS PAGE: character designs for “AURORE” NEXT PAGE: pages from “LIBERTADORES”
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What were your influences? I started with ASTERIX and TINTIN, which are internationally well-known, but also with local Spanish comics like MORTADELO, ZIPI ZAPE, and SUPERLOPEZ. Later, I loved John Buscema´s CONAN and started to read many adult comics like DEN from Richard Corben and others from that golden generation. Fortunately, at that time, there were some comic magazines such as ZONA 84, 1984, CIMOC, and METAL HURLANT where you could discover a lot, if not all, of the most important artists. Years later, I was shocked by BLACKSAD, SKYDOLL, HELLBOY, and Claire Wendling´s work, and that was the turning point where I decided to focus more on creating comic books and to put the animation industry on second priority.
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(top) “Aurore and Vokko” from AURORE (bottom) pages from AURORE
THIS PAGE: “brass fish” (personal work)
What was your first “big break” as a professional artist? I started to work in the French BD market with an adaptation of THE WIZARD OF OZ, which was also published in the US by Image (Editors Note: this out of print edition was released prior to Marvel’s adaptation by Eric Shanower and Skottie Young). This book brought me a large audience, being an adaptation of a classic novel. It was great to work on that book for many reasons, and I really enjoyed developing my own vision of the characters. It was a light and colorful adaptation and being targeted for all audiences also helped to spread my work. September 2016 - page 13
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What other projects followed, and and which were your favorites? The most important ones, during my work in animation, were two feature films titled EL CID and NOCTURNA, where I worked as storyboard artist. The books I´ve published since are LIBERTADORES, LA MÉRE DES VICTOIRES (“The Mother of all Victories”), L´ILE SANS SOURIRE (“The Island without Smiles”), AURORE, LES CONTES DE L´ERE DU COBRA (“Tales from the Cobra Age”), and most recently BRIGADA. There are also short stories published in collection books such as SKY DOLL and BARCELONA TM, as well as some illustrations in TOTORO FOREST PROJECT and SKETCHTRAVEL. I´ve also worked on videogames, and I´ve collaborated with Tequila Works on RIME (coming to PS4 in 2017) and THE SEXY BRUTALE (coming in 2017), and with Second Gate games I did the art for the board game B-SIEGED. I can´t say which one is my favorite job of all these. Each one started the same way, with huge inspiration and motivation, and all of them have taught me many things. I love to try different approaches to each project, on the technical side.
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(left) Movie poster for “NOCTURNA” (background) Character designs for “Tale of War”
THIS PAGE: Character designs for “Tale of War”
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What was your inspiration to create BRIGADA? It´s one of those stories that you keep in a box for many years, evolving a lot since the first day you think about it. The first ideas came after reading the novel “The Witcher”, by Andrzej Sapkowski. I loved the mood of the book, and it was a great inspiration to make a dirty and crude world. As well as characters who don´t follow a classic “hero” path in their behavior.
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(top) very early concept designs for BRIGADA (bottom) final concept sketches for BRIGADA
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(top left) Cover to “TALES FROM THE COBRA AGE” (right and below) Pages from TALES FROM THE COBRA AGE
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(top left) Cover to THE ISLAND WITHOUT SMILES (right top and bottom) Pages from THE ISLAND WITHOUT SMILES (below) character sketch from THE ISLAND WITHOUT SMILES
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Character designs from THE ISLAND WITHOUT SMILES
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What are you working on now?
Pages from NIMA.
I´m currently working on NIMA. It´s a story of a water nymph that reaches her adult age, and has to follow the nymph tradition: to find a human to procreate with, then to kill the human after that. But something goes wrong when she falls in love with the human and considers breaking the tradition. It´s a teenage love story for all audiences.
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Personal work
What is your normal technique? Do you work with traditional materials, or on a computer (or both)? My usual technique is full digital. I started my first comics with traditional pencil work and then digital color, but most recently all the books were made fully digital. But now, I´m considering going back to traditional. My first attempt at this is working on NIMA with traditional pencil and gouache, avoiding the computer as much as possible.
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Character designs for TALES FROM THE COBRA AGE.
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What will you work on next? I want to finish what I started with BRIGADA. It was conceived as a three volume story (Editors Note: the first two are collected in the new Edition released by Magnetic Press in November), and the third and final one will be crowdfunded next year. NIMA was a book I crowdfunded on the Spaceman Project platform, to test its viability, and it became necessary to make it at that point, leaving work on BRIGADA on standby for a moment. And I´m glad I made it this way, as it helps me think more relaxed about BRIGADA v3 , giving me some fresh air and distance. September 2016 - page 22
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What do you want to do some day? Many things come to mind, and very few are related to comic books! I´m more and more attracted to illustration and childrens books, but there’s always the feeling I would love to draw some CONAN or HELLBOY story. Apart from that, there´s a project I would like to develop some day with my wife, combining illustrations with dolls/toys. I would also like to find time to learn a bit of music, just for the pleasure of doing it.
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Work for the “Totoro Forest Project”
THIS PAGE: (clockwise from top left) “Baba Yaga” “Head Lopper” (fan art) Character design from “Tale of War”
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Pages from “The Mother of all Victories”
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RAPID QUESTIONS FOR ENRIQUE FERNANDEZ: • WHAT ARE YOU WATCHING NOW? Just finished STRANGER THINGS. • WHAT ARE YOU LISTENING TO? Aurora Aksnes “All my demons greeting me as a friend”. • WHAT ARE YOU READING? I want to start “SMOKE & MIRRORS” by Neil Gaiman. • FAVORITE MOVIE? Not just one, but recently I loved HER, by Spike Jonze • FAVORITE ALBUM? Pearl Jam “VS” • FAVORITE BOOK? “The Witcher”, by Andrzej Sapkowski • THE ONE THING THAT WORRIES YOU RIGHT NOW: To find time to do all I want to do while enjoying my family. • THE ONE THING YOU’RE LOOKING FORWARD TO MOST: Having my own countryside home. September 2016 - page 24
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PREVIEW PAGES - BRIGADA, by Enrique Fernandez
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ARTIST SPOTLIGHT:
LUCAS MARANGON Best known for his work on Star Wars comics, particularly the wild “TAG & BINK” series written by Troops meistro Kevin Rubio, Lucas Marangon has forged a career doing what he loves: feeding his inner child a steady diet of nerdy nostalgia. His style is wholy unique, blending just a hint of Otomo-esque manga flavor with a solid dose of clean, tactile, toon-shaded personality. And he hopes to keep doing that until he’s too old to hold a pencil.
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HOW OLD WERE YOU WHEN YOU STARTED DRAWING?
Very early on, like most kids. I guess the question should be why I never stopped doing it to which I’d answer “because I was very shy as a kid and I enjoyed being by myself.”
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WHAT WERE YOUR INFLUENCES?
I’ve lost track of ALL my influences, but I guess my main source of inspiration growing up were the authors from the 80’s boom of adult comics: All the artists and writers (many of them countrymen too!) that went thru’ the pages of European comics magazines like Metal Hurlant and her American little sister Heavy Metal. I was just a kid, but I already knew I wanted to do comics like THOSE. And Will Eisner.
TITLE PAGE: “Yoda” poster created for Star Wars Celebration IV
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(top and bottom) Two community Star Wars toons commissioned by Disney Latin America
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(bottom) Moebius Tribute (personal piece) (background) “Boba Fett (commission)”
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(top) “Han vs AT-ST” for Disney LA (bottom) “Imperial Invasion” for Disney LA
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WHAT WAS YOUR FIRST “BIG BREAK” AS A PROFESSIONAL ARTIST?
I had a number of “breaks” that were big for me in that particular moment: living in a small city in Argentina (in times of great unemployment), I somehow got a steady job illustrating a weekly supplement for kids. When I moved by myself to Mexico City, I got a job as a penciller doing pocket comic books which was great, because I got to survive doing what I wanted. And three years later I got my first contract with Dark Horse Comics. THIS PAGE:
(left) “RIPD” Trade Paperback cover (background) Page from “TAG & BINK ARE DEAD”
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“TAG & BINK WERE HERE” Trade Paperback wraparound cover art”
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WHAT PROJECTS HAVE YOU WORKED ON (IN ALL AREAS – FILM, ADVERTISING, COMICS, ANYTHING…)? AND WHICH WERE YOUR FAVORITES?
I’ve done everything comics related over the past 25 years: from mainstream to author and even webcomics, so it’s hard to remember them all. I did do some advertising at one point to make ends meet, but I’ve always tried to stick to comics, so my most rewarding projects came from there: The STAR WARS franchise (in which I worked for fifteen years) is still one of my biggest achievements and what I’m mostly known for. RIPD was my first contract with Dark Horse, and eventually turned into a full feature movie, and of course HELLCYON, my first original graphic novel, are among my favorite ones.
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WHAT WAS YOUR INSPIRATION TO CREATE HELLCYON?
I’ve always had a thing for science fiction and mecha stuff, but I always felt that mainstream science fiction tried to stay away from politics and social issues and in my experience, that’s where most conflicts have their roots. (My parents were imprisoned and almost killed over the last dictatorship in Argentina, so we had to start over abroad.) So the idea that I could bring in some real sense of danger and social awareness to the table is what drove me to do HELLCYON. Still not sure if I achieved that goal tho’. September 2016 - page 38
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DO YOU HAVE FUTURE PLANS FOR HELLCYON?
Originally HELLCYON was supposed to be a two arc story, so I’d like to do the second part one day. The thing is, I was young and not very practical, so I ended up working on a hundred page epic that I had to do on my own from script to colors, filled with detailed backgrounds, vehicles, and robot designs and very little money to do it. I ended completely burned out, so if I ever commit to a second part, it will have to be in better circumstances. Still the license is out there and the book stands well on its own, so I hope that eventually it gets the attention it deserves.
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(top) “Variable Bike” (Bottom) “HELLCYON promotional image
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“HELLCYON #1” cover art
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WHAT ARE YOU WORKING ON NOW?
I’m taking a break from mainstream comics and I’m doing illustration (another thing I always wanted to try since those days reading European magazines). Right now I’m Disney’s Official Star Wars artist for Latin America. It’s not as busy as it sounds tho’, so I’ve lots of spare time to write more author comics that I hope to draw someday soon (smaller stories this time). WHAT IS YOUR PREFERRED OR STANDARD TECHNIQUE? DO YOU WORK WITH TRADITIONAL MATERIALS, OR ON A COMPUTER (OR BOTH)?
I always prefer to start drawing on paper, I feel like I have a better sense of the piece that way. Then I scan and work digitally from there, but I try to keep in shape with traditional media also, so I paint in watercolors when I have the opportunity. WHAT WILL YOU WORK ON NEXT?
I’m preparing a graphic novel. As for actual paid job, I don’t know. Maybe my next big break? THIS PAGE:
“Biker Scout at rest” community illo for Disney LA
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(bottom) Cover and Interior page from “QUI-GON and OBI-WAN: THE AURORIENT EXPRESS” (background) Characer designs for unrealized LANDO project.
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WHAT DO YOU WANT TO DO SOME DAY?
Right now my dream is to do author books and make a decent living of it. I love to tell stories and I’m rotten with ideas right now, but I don’t know how that would work, to be honest. Maybe optioning the material, maybe resorting to crowdfunding. These are complex times for creators but also exciting times.
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“Probe Droid” (personal work) by Lucas Marangon
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RAPID QUESTIONS FOR LUCAS MARANGON: - What are you watching now? GERRY ANDERSON’S SPACE 1999 - What are you listening to? STEVIE RAY VAUGHAN - What are you reading? ARTICLES ON POLITICS, SCIENCE AND ART MOSTLY. I’M VERY CURIOUS. - Favorite movie? RIGHT NOW, MIYAZAKI’S PORCO ROSSO. - Favorite album? DARK SIDE OF THE MOON. ALWAYS. - Favorite book? THE SKIN BY CURZIO MALAPARTE. - The one thing that worries me right now: TO NOT BE ABLE TO DO ALL THE THINGS I WANT TO DO. - The one thing that I’m looking forward to most: BUILDING MY HOUSE. “Star Trek / Kirk” (commission) by Lucas Marangon
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CONTINUED NEXT ISSUE!
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ARE YOU A REGISTERED AMBASSADOR YET? Subscribing members get an assortment of quality Magnetic Press cargo shipped to their doorstep every month, not the least of which is a new book!
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JUST LOOK AT WHAT MEMBERS GOT THIS MONTH!
This month’s members got advance copies of both RENDEZ-VOUS IN PHONEIX by Tony Sandoval AND CENTURION & EMPERADOR by Rob and Patricia Schneider and Francisco Herrera (a month before stores)! Members also got a RENDEZ-VOUS / ROBOT ENVY ZENITH 2-sided poster, and a goldstamped VOX bookmark! This month’s Tee features artwork from LIGHT by Rob Cham! (Check out our other LIGHT shirts at our webstore!)
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Connoseur Set members also received a copy of the super-limited FUTURA NOSTALGIA by www.MAGNETIC-PRESS.com Tony Sandoval -- only 100 printed!