“WHILE EVERYONE’S DREAMING!” says Mr. Croc, making Mr. Cat pretty curious. but this is no cautionary tale, as you’ll see in this interesting encounter in the middle of an urban jungle.

the story is by André B. Ducci, commercial illustrator, street artist and graphic designer. his amazing artwork has been seen in posters for cultural events, cover for publications like SIMPLES magazine, wall stickers, art exhibitions.check out his online portifolio for more, and some very intriguing webcomics, most of them with antropomorphic characters in human and surreal situations.

if you’re an INKSHOT creator.

emails are being sent and the whip is cracking. lots of comics have reached the finishing line of what i’ve got used to calling “The Rat Race” - which happens to be the informal name of the production spreadsheet for the anthology.

but there are some stories still in various stages of development which need to catch up. cue me putting on the ‘bad cop’ jacket.

if you don’t get a message from me until Friday drop me a line. let’s do some comics.

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is the weird and silent story of a lizard man and the pains of being himself amongst humans.

writer-artist Gabriel Góes is a former illustrator for newspaper Correio Braziliense, a formal student of Arts, one of the collaborators of Samba magazine and a zinester [is that a word?]. he’s also done poster art for garage bands, illustration for websites and ad agencies. one of his latest work is adapting brazilian playwright Nelson Rodrigues’ BEIJO NO ASFALTO [KISS IN THE PAVEMENT] with Arnaldo Branco. more illustrations here, and some for sale here.

what’s up with Inkshot?

contrary to some assumptions, the anthology is alive and kicking. the Blogsome blogging service had some problems this week and the blog was down for a few days.

i had to stay away from Inkshot’s activities also because Goma [the Pop Culture blog i edit] was moved to a paid server and signed a partnership with a news portal. I apologise for lack of news here.

but starting this Monday i’ll try to post a story preview a day, and everybody who’s producing an approved comic for the project will have an update on the status of their project. stay tuned.

a post-in progress:

- any brazilian comic author can submit material;

- copyrights remain with authors of each comic;

- stories must be told in 3 to 5 B&W pages, nothing more, nothing less;

- final files must be delivered in high-res 300 dpi Tiffs.

- format is standard “american” comic-size;

- lettering guidelines are being provided by those who reach this step;

- there’s no common theme to the stories, or a preferred genre;

- we’re going after good stories in good scripts, first and foremost;

- editors reserve the right to refuse a script they don’t feel is working;

- production of all comics is being supervised from storyline to lettering;

- we do pair writers and artists, but with time this gets harder to do;

- we do provide translation from Portuguse to English for approved dialogue;

- first deadline was July 1, next one to be announced;

- main goal is to get publication through an American or European publisher;

- brazilian publishers will be contacted as well - so we need two set of files;

- financial compensation will come from back-end sales revenue.

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DER HANZ is a dark fable about a gentle giant so ugly even a quick glimpse of his face would be enough to kill other kids and small animals. Or so that’s hat his 150 year old grandmother said. Hanz looks after her, and his incredibly obese and slow brother Wal, who lives in the basement of their house. He is rewarded with unmeasurable love, matched by no human being. But only until Hanz meets a new neighbour, Eliza.

Story and at are by Bruno Stahl, a young author who I’ve met when he was in Art School and gladly met again years later - when he was already a Comic pro. After some years doing work for publisher Opera Graphica, where he started developing more his drawing and painting style, Bruno has been freelancing like there’s no tomorrow in both print and design for stage plays. Mr. Stahl has done the art for my own short comic “Mondo Albino”, published in NIGHT OFFICE #1 last january. And later in March classic fantasy magazine HEAVY METAL featured his story “The legends of Adriano’s Wall” - the sequel to which he’s busy working on.

Lettering is by Studio Gama’s Wanderley Felipe, an author himself who’s done a lot of all ages stories and other not that PG at all. A comic veteran and restless pro, Wanderley is a guy we hope will have one of his stories in Inkshot sooner rather than later.

Most of INKSHOT’s scripts have been written in Brazilian Portuguese. since our primary - but not only - goal is to get this anthology published in English, we must have all dialog and caption lines presented in the language of Ye Old Country.

I am translating them with the authors, but i needed more eyes and an extra brain to catch tiny mistakes and better contextualize the text. this the most difficult thing to do when you think in your mother language and not in the one the story is going to be published in.

this is why i’ve welcomed the help of a friend who offered his services to our project. Rodolfo S. Filho is a freelance journalist with articles published in magazines like BRAVO, VEJA AND VIDA SIMPLES; is one of Brazil’s first bloggers, a writer and a professional translator whose most recent gig was doing the Brazilian Portuguese version of the late Heath Ledger’s biography. an avid reader, in 2008 he moderated a panel called “For a Brazilian Science Fiction Critique” in the Invisibilities literary event at Itaú Cultural.

Rodolfo has been a friend since we met online and he - along with Pablo and Sobreiro - was a regular in my [now closed] message board; and, who would have known, we’re almost neighbours now in the Big City of São Paulo. ah, the internet… bringing nerds together.

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In the far-fetched countryside, a legendary hitman is about to retire. But not before being hired for a last job.

The script is by Pablo Casado, one of INKSHOT’s co-editors. we’ve known each other for a while and share nerd tastes, but became friends after he interviewed me for a website and the talk quite never stopped. Pablo - along with Felipe Cunha - was the greatest supporter for me to kick-start this project - or maybe he just wanted me dead - and has been very helpful. he’s adapted Kiss’ ROCK ‘N’ ROLL ALL NITE in comic form with Cunha, with whom several other stories were made - and are soon to be collected in DUO - and has a webcomic in the making: BIT HUNTER GIRL. Pablo has also written short prose for the SOLARIUM Sci Fi anthology, BLACK ROCKET magazine and the GAVETA zine.

Art is by Felipe Sobreiro, INKSHOT’s cover artist and a guy who’s slowly invading the international market through its corners as a colorist, mostly for comics pencilled by his father Milton [artist for INKSHOT’s BARNABY COLE], which i consider one of the greatest partnerships in recent Brazilian comics. you blink and Felipe appears with short stories in HEAVY METAL MAGAZINE. you turn and there’s him doing Boom Studios titles like C’THULHU TALES. you hear a noise and that’s him in EARTHBUILDERS, winner of Zuda Comics April 09 competition. as a hobby and exercise Felipe usually does killing concepts regularly in Warren Ellis’ Remake \ Remodel threads at the Whitechapel forum.

these are some of the published comic anthologies that have inspired us for doing INKSHOT. in the “Links” section at the sidebar you can learn more about them. if you get an error message, please click the link provided with it.

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Two cellmates consider stop fooling around and break out of jail once and for all. But what can the world outside offer them?

Story is by Ranulfo Medeiros, who’s been published in Brazilian anthology FRONT with the comic THE SOUND I MAKE with his partner in crime, artist Pedro Caraça. Pedro teaches Design and Illustration at EACV (Escola de Artes e Comunicação Visual) since 2004, took part in Art and Humour expos around the country. He’ has also illustrated books like “Mozart in die Zukunft” (Mozart In The Future - written by Tânia Maria Rodrigues-Peters) for the European market, to which Ranulfo provided spell-checking for.