UP & COMING: RAFAEL GRAMPA

[MattBrady]

by Chris Arrant

While some of us may be delighted by the biggest and the most popular in the world of comics, we all realize that for every popular book, writer or artist there has to be a beginning. While there are many ways to success with each story finding its own route, there is one attribute that can be found in each one: talent. Up & Coming is a regular feature at Newsarama.com that seeks out the next generation of comic creators and profiles them today.

Brazilian native Rafael Grampá began working as an illustrator at the age of 14. He began by illustrating self-help books – what he calls the "how to raise your problematic teenagers sort". During this period, he also did t-shirt designs, caricatures, children's party decorations, and logos for "butcher shops and surf shops". After that he graduated to working as an illustrator for a kid's comic publisher where "the weirdest thing was that we were required to wear a tie". With a couple jobs inbetween, he found himself at one of the most respected motion graphics studios, Lobo, working as an art director and concept designer for clients such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon, The Coca-Cola Company and Diesel.

But that's not how I know him. I first became aware of Rafael Grampá's work from his 4 page story in the 2005 anthology Gunned Down. A collection of western stories, the graphic novel showcased a lot of talent: from Fabio Moon and Gabriel Ba to new talent like Rafael's. Seeing new work from him was few and far between, but I was invigorated this year when he debuted his art blog (furrywater.wordpress.com) and announced that he was joining with Ba, Moon, as well as Becky Cloonan and Vasilis Lolos on a special San Diego Comic-con book and booth. As Rafael told me in our initial conversations, he's approaching a new phase – "the comics author phase" – where he'll start telling his own stories.



Newsarama: Your first published comics work was with a 4 page short in Terra Major's Gunned Down anthology. How'd that come about, and what kind of response did you get from your story?

Rafael Grampá: In 2004 I got a hold of Gabriel Bá and Fabio Moon to work on an animation project with me. I had never met them personally, I had only seen their comics. While we were working together, I ended up showing them some of my personal work, some of my drawings. They were just some sketches of some characters. Right after that they told me that they were working on a project, Gunned Down, and they asked me if I wanted to do it with them and I said yes. This happened at a time when I was really wanting to tell some stories. I had already wanted to try to do my own comic for some time, because I've always been a huge fan of comic books and I always thought of it as a medium that would give me more freedom to tell my stories. I decided to do a story about some Chinese people in the old west, and I decided to call it The Lao's Family Fish Market, an homage to the movie The Seven Faces of Dr. Lao.

Initially my Gunned Down story was supposed to be told on 8 pages, but because of other commitments I only got 4. After the anthology was published, I got a lot of attention from those four pages, and it caught me by surprise. I thought that my work would go unnoticed in the middle of a collection that had so many great talents. The anthology got mentioned a lot and every time that it got mentioned they would say something about my story. I also saw a lot of blogs that talked about it. Later we published the anthology here in Brazil, and the response was once again surprising. I never imagined that those four little pages would call as much attention as they did. I was really excited and happy about all of it. I didn't expect that so many people would dig my style. After that, I decided to work on a bigger individual project.

NRAMA: You're working on a project right now called Mesmo Delivery, which you describe as a "road thriller". Can you tell us more about that?

RG: Yeah! I go back to my childhood memories a lot when I'm creating things, because I consider them to be pure references, references that are mine only, that have made me who I am today. One of the first movies that I remember and that shaped my childhood and made me play a lot after I'd seen it was Sam Peckinpah's Convoy. When I decided that I wanted to work on my own comic book something inside me told me that it couldn't be about anything other than truckers. Truckers are modern-day pirates! I mixed it together with some other things that I like, like The Twilight Zone, Lone Wolf and Cub, Coffin Joe, Mesmo Delivery was the end-product, the "Road Thriller" that is going to come out at the San Diego Comic Con 2007. I think that I've been heavily influenced by cinematic storytelling, something that is becoming pretty obvious on this project.

NRAMA: You're planning on debuting that at San Diego Comicon this year, where you'll be sharing a table with Fabio Moon, Gabriel Ba, Becky Cloonan and Vasilis Lolos. How did that team-up come about, and is this your first time at SDCC?

RG: Yeah, it's going to be my first time at the SDCC. What I know is that Bá, Moon, Vasilis, and Becky have already decided to share a table at SDCC. I come into it later, after I had decided to do my latest project. I just know Becky through MSN. I talk a lot about Greek bands and I introduced her to Os Mutantes, a great Brazilian rock band from the '60's, and she really liked them. I still haven't met Vasilis, but I think that we'll probably get along really well, He's a great artist and he thinks that comics are the coolest thing in the world, just like me.

Bá, Moon and I are good friends. We always party together and we have a lot of fun at Rock shows around São Paulo and when we get together with the group in San Diego it's going to be a really fun.

NRAMA: You're also doing a small book with your SDCC table-mates; what's it about?

RG: What I can tell you now is that we put our five brains together and had the idea, (really Becky had the idea), to do something totally different where the stories and the authors would mesh together in a really original way. All five of us are young and we live in a time where there are a lot of great artists (Chris Ware, Patrice Killofer, Paul Pope, Suehiro Maruo, the >Kramers Ergot and the Paper Rad crews) doing incridible things with comics, taking this art form to a new place and really raising the bar. We want to do our part in all of this. I think that comics, cinema, motion graphics, design, literature, fashion and music have never been so close as they are today. Our generation is paying a lot of attention to all of these movements and is still feeling the need to mix it all together and it's great!

NRAMA: Right now you're working at the acclaimed design studio Lobo as an art director and concept designer. You've done a variety of work for people such as Cartoon Network, Nickelodeon and Diesel. Can you tell us of any projects that our readers might know of?

RG: The projects that I work on at Lobo are always confidential, I can never talk about them before they're released. Last year we did an awesome project with Paul Pope. But I really can't talk about that either (this contract thing is really annoying, isn't it?), because it involved some bigger things than just the Lobo and Pope stuff. Paul seemed like a really laid back and confident guy in all of our conference calls.

It's important to mention that design and motion graphics have a big influence on my work. After I started working in this area, I was never able to think about a comic book page in the same way.

To see more of Rafael's work, visit his blog at furrywater.wordpress.com/.

[Nobody]

Good god that's gorgeous.

[Colonsus]

Yeah, seriously!

Looks like a cross between Geoff Darrow and Paul Pope. Really nice!

[iyamwhatiyam]

God damn, this is a guy to watch. Stunning. Nice to see him give props to the Paper Rad/Kramers Ergot crew, who don't get nearly enough love for my taste.

[The Champion]

Originally Posted by Nobody

Good god that's gorgeous.

Yes, it damn sure is.

[SouthtownKid]

Originally Posted by Colonsus

Yeah, seriously!

Looks like a cross between Geoff Darrow and Paul Pope. Really nice!

With some Don Simpson thrown in. I like it.

[creatorman]

That is some seriously stunning artwork!

[Royal Nonesuch]

I don't have much to add here, other than "HOLY CRAP THAT'S AWESOME ARTWORK!!" That cover alone would make for an incredible poster. Big thanks to Newsarama for pointing Rafael out to me.

[PopArtStudio]

The guy is amazing! A totally fresh new style and im sure Mesmo Delivery will be awsome!
Parabéns e boa sorte Grampá!

-R

[troy nixey]

If there's any justice in this world Mesmo Delivery will sell a ton of copies.

Good luck I hope you have a long career.