BETWEEN THE COVERS OF AiT's URSULA

[MattBrady]

by Chris Arrant

Do you remember the dreams you had as a child? Maybe you aspired to be an astronaut, a race car driver, or simply marry the cute red-head that lives down the street. But as time went on, those childhood dreams shed away to the reality of adulthood and all that it entailed. But what if you held on to those dreams?

In Ursula (AiT-PlanetLar), we follow the lives of three childhood friends, Miro, Boris & Ursula, as they play together, daydream together, and learn together. It is a story of a boy who follows his childhood dreams, and the consequences of that. Ursula is a deceivingly simple story that works on several different levels; a love story, a quest, and of journeys and rites of passage.

Brazilian creators Fabio Moon & Gabriel Ba have crafted a story that is ideal for children, but also remains intriguing for adults of any age. Newsarama caught up with them to talk with them about Ursula, and how two Brazilian cartoonists hooked up with the San Francisco-based AiT-PlanetLar.

NEWSARAMA: Starting from the ground up, what is Ursula about?

FABIO MOON & GABRIEL BA: We make our lives much more complicated then they should be, and this story is about how simpler life can be, simple like when we were kids, simple like when we fall in love. When you are a child, there are no mysteries in life, everything is what it looks like to be, and there are a lot less layers in our actions. When you are in love, everything seems to fit right into place in your life and you start to think and live better. So we wanted a simple story told in a simple way to would show that.

NRAMA: So let’s go into telling the story in a simple way - how did you approach creating Ursula?

FABIO & GABRIEL: There are different types of readers and we try to create a story that will touch all of them in some way. The real comic book fan is the one who cares most about the artwork; he’s been reading comics for a long time, so we try to give him nice pictures to look at. He would like a good story as well, as would someone who never read a comic book before and is only used to books, so the good story has to work for everybody. But we don’t have to write everything we want to say. The best thing about a comic book is that it can have many layers, and by re-reading the story many times you’ll always find another aspect of it you haven’t seen before.

NRAMA: Ursula is billed as an 'all ages" title. It seems difficult to write a story that both children and adults enjoy. How did you deal with this?

FABIO & GABRIEL:We sold the fanzine at work, on a study group we attended, to our friends from college and at the places we used to go out. We already had readers of all ages on the fanzine, so we always tried to have everybody in mind when creating our stories and specially choosing the right way to tell them. Everybody likes a good story, no matter how old they are.

NRAMA: What makes a good "all ages" book?

FABIO & GABRIEL: It should be a story about people, a story that talks about who we are and things we all experience in life. It should be the kind of story that if you read it when you are young it will make you laugh, as an adult it will make you think and when you are old, it will make you remember.

NRAMA: As you said, Ursula was previously published in your native Brazil as Meu Cora¡Ño, NÑo Sei Por Que as part of your ‘zine, 10 Paezinhos. What kind of feedback did you get when it was originally published there?
FABIO & GABRIEL: It was our second graphic novel published and a different kind of story from the first one. We got letters from all kinds of people, some already knew our work and some had come across it for the first time, and they would tell us how much they were touched by the story. It was meant to appeal to everybody and we are very pleased by the most different reactions we get for the book. That is the greatest reward.
NRAMA: One of the central characters in Ursula is Miro, a young boy with a very open imagination. Some of his dreams seem almost "fairy tale" like. What fairy tales did you two enjoy as children?

FABIO & GABRIEL: We like stories that talk about growing up and the sacrifices we make for love, like Beauty and the Beast and Sleeping Beauty.

NRAMA: In Ursula, you have several quotes by Brazilian writer Guimares Rosa. How did Rosa's writings influence the creation of this book?

FABIO & GABRIEL: The work of Guimares Rosa shows a very rustic and raw side of our country and our people, and his characters portrait the simplest men we all have inside of us. The ways he used the language as another character in his stories was something that helped a lot on the feeling we wanted to pass with Ursula. We knew we wanted tell our story in a very poetic and stylized way and his words were the key to find the voice of our tale.

NRAMA: Of the three main characters in Ursula, which one do you identify with most?

FABIO & GABRIEL: We are both romantics and Miro is our portrait of the man in love, who will do everything for the woman he loves, no matter the consequences, because he knows it is the right thing to do.

NRAMA: Ursula is being published by AiT-PlanetLar. How did you hook up with them?

FABIO & GABRIEL: We met Mimi [Rosenheim] and Larry [Young] last year at the San Diego Comic Con. Our Brazilian publisher was there as well, looking for new material to publish back in Brazil, and he showed our book to the AiT crew as an example of the material he publishes. They were really impressed with the artwork and wanted to read the story. Since we didn’t have any translation at hand, we sent it afterwards by mail and they loved the story as well. It was as simple as that.

NRAMA: The two of you have a very unique collaborative relationship, stemming from the fact that you are twin brothers. How has your brotherhood affected the way you create together?

FABIO & GABRIEL: We grew up together, played together and we have a lot of the same references and opinions about the world, so we understand each other very well and quickly. Being both artists, we can explain very easily a concept or an idea to one another. Aside from that, the kind of competition that exists between brothers is very healthy in our case and our work only grows from it, because we push each other to the limit.

NRAMA: You've said that you both grew up in a household that enjoys comics. What are your parents' thoughts on comics, and what was the first comic you remember?

FABIO & GABRIEL: Our mom is the responsible for our love of comics. She loves comics, specially superhero ones with their crazy worlds, powers and creatures, and she is a huge Wolverine fan. The first comic we got contact with was the Brazilian Turma da MŸnica, from Mauricio de Souza, which is made for children.

NRAMA: In addition to your work in comics, but prior to that you've worked in film. Why do you choose comics?

FABIO & GABRIEL: There is a connection between images and words that you won’t find in books and, as in books, the images the readers will remember not always are in the pages, but in their mind. Movies and animation have the motion and sound on their favor, but you need more money, more people and a whole lot of other things to make a movie happens, or a cartoon, than a comic. You can make an entire graphic novel by yourself and it can be the best it possibly can.

NRAMA: Now that Ursula is finished, what are you two working on now?

FABIO & GABRIEL: We are making a 32 pages comic to bring to the San Diego Comic Con with two other Brazilian friends. Other then that, we have a graphic novel on the way, a long story that the both of us will share the artwork, something that have not happened since we did Ursula in 2001 and we are very excited about both projects.

NRAMA: How did you get started in the comic book business?

FABIO & GABRIEL: Reading. As far as we can remember we have been reading comics. All kinds of them, from all parts of the world. A good thing about Brazil is the access of foreign material from Europe which put us in contact to different kinds of stories than the American comics. The love for storytelling grew on our drawing, breaking the barriers of static illustrations. We always wanted to tell something with our art, and comics are the perfect way to exploit the drawing and writing to its limits and push their edges.

NRAMA: How is the Brazilian comic book industry different from the American comic book industry?

FABIO & GABRIEL: The Brazilian industry is based mainly in printing American super-heroes and, as everywhere in the universe, a lot of Manga. There is also the giant Mauricio de Souza and his studio that publishes his line of comics for kids, entitled “Turma da MŸnica”. We have a long tradition of humor comic-strips on newspaper and we have great artists doing that, including our greatest influence, Laerte.

The Brazilian artists who want to make comic books have two choices: Either they self-publish their work or the small publishers make a small print of their books to sell on bookstores, from which they are paid standard small royalties. So the artists, ourselves included, must worry not about money (there’s no money in comics in Brazil) and focus on the quality of the stories, because that is what will remain from their work, not how much they are paid. We can always work as illustrators and such.

NRAMA: You've also done some American work prior to Ursula, including a contribution to Autobiographix, a recent anthology by Dark Horse. Can you tell us how you got that chance, and what it was like to be published in a book with such popular American creators?

FABIO & GABRIEL: Our first American work was the artwork on the Roland - Days of Wrath mini-series, self published by Terra Major in 1999. Since then, we have been showing our work to Diana Schutz for some years and she’s always trying to find a way to publish us. This anthology had a very similar approach to the stories we were showing her, so she asked us to do one for that book.

The creators involved in the book were just another reason to be part of it (and something we could say to impress our friends). We still find it difficult to believe she invited us but, then again, as we said earlier, the project was very similar to the kind of stories we were showing her, so it makes sense for us to be there, maybe even more sense than the popular artists who never tried autobiographic stories before.

NRAMA: Autobiographix was also nominated for an Eisner. Given your admiration for Will Eisner's work, how has this affected you?

FABIO & GABRIEL: We were already glad to be part of such unique project among so many great artists, including some of our long time idols. We would be thrilled if the book won the award and we just wonder if we would go up there to receive the award from Will Eisner’s hands. That would complete our task here on earth.

NRAMA: The two of you have traveled to the San Diego Comic Con for several years looking for a shot at American comics. Can you tell us the best and worst experience you've had at this comic convention?

FABIO & GABRIEL: The worst experience is every year having the feeling that nothing has changed, that we had been going to the same place for the last 7 years instead of getting to know different parts of our country or the world, that we do not belong there and we are not part of the big machine of comic book business.

The best experience was last year, when Diana Schutz introduced us to Frank Miller and he told how much he liked our story and that we were on the right track, and we saw how wrong we were and realized that all the effort and honesty we have been putting in our work is finally paying off.

Ursula is a 72 page softcover book from AiT-PlanetLar scheduled to be released in August 2004. The cover price is $9.95, and is available for order from Diamond's Previews catalogue with the order code MAY042205.

[whoME?]

this looks amazing. and i'm looking forward to reading it. probably more than any other comic release in a long time.

[Johnny Bacardi]

Moon and Ba are nice guys and gifted creators, and you can bet your ass that Ursula will be in my holds this August!

[nenad]

Looks good. Too bad this article came out too late as my Previews preorder is already with my retailer.
I'll look it up when it comes on the shelves...

[Larry Young]

Great interview, Chris! But Ursula is going to be a July book, and ready for the big San Diego con. our August book is Bad Mojo, by William Harms and Steve Morris.

[Fabio Moon]

Glad all of you liked the interview. I'm sure you'll like the book even more.

[Caramuru]

This looks great! I hope I don't miss it in stores.

[Matango]

Parabéns caras, eu sou maior fan dos 10 pãezinhos (gostei muito do titulo)

Sucesso!