19 Lug 2010

Questa vignetta l’ho disegnata quando il Visual Running Log ancora non esisteva. E’ ispirata ad alcune teorie che ipotizzano il running come antica strategia venatoria. – I made this sketch before attempting the Visual Running Log. It’s inspired to some theories about primitive hunting techniques… Link to this article

21 Giu 2010

Last Friday I went with my daughter Anna to Forte Prenestino, at the Crack! indipendent comic Festival. She came with some handmade puppets to sell and comics to show. I came with some copies of a book I made out of the Zymachi illustrated synopsis, book available in a online bookshop. Needlees to say that my daughter’s puppets went sold out! Link to this article

10 Giu 2010

Crack!, indipendent international comic Festival is back for the sixth time, held as usual in the dungeons of Forte Prenestino, Roma, from June 17th to 20th. Theme of the year is HATE + LOVE (watch “Interference“, my personal rendition on the subject). Below are some of the flyers. Below, a brief interview on Crack! philosophy (in italian). Link to this article

20 Mag 2010

I rewrote the italian version of the Zymachi illustrated synopsis (ho riscritto la versione italiana della sinossi illustrata degli Zymachi). Whenever I’m working on a story, my first step is to tell it to friends and relatives. Usually that’s how I shape it up entirely. With Zymachi, storytelling wasn’t enough: plot was complex, and I had a lot of bottlenecks to widen, so I started writing it down by hand, in italian. I wrote it as if I were talking to someone, just explaining the plot, that’s why I call it a synopsis. Usually I wrote in bed, just before falling asleep. Some of the ideas came to me carried by dreams. Manuscript was raw, I polished it on the keyboard. Second step was to illustrate the synopsis. I wanted to visualize the charachters and the locations, and eventually bypass lack of description. As soon as the sketches were ready, I posted the whole thing on my website. Then I started translating the synopsis in english. It wasn’t a mere translation, english can be a very synthetic language, so I was able to condense most of the material. I gave things the right name: Internal Sea for bloodstream, Jellyfish for white blood cell, Free Machine for cancer. English is fantastic for names: I can’t find the italian for Jelly-Spermwhale! Moreover, I started adding dialogues. I’m not a real writer, I had never noticed before how a dialogue can extricate the narration, maybe that’s because I have a comic background. In comics, dialogue is the easiest way to build interaction. Description is provided visually, then you just have to fill the balloons. A writer can’t do the same, he has to balance words from description to dialogue. Third step was to translate synopsis back into italian. This was a very simple task: I realized that I write in english having italian structure in mind. It just “sounds” like english, but it’s italian in disguise. Link to this article

13 Mag 2010

Gabriele Guerra edited this unofficial video for the song “La Bambolina” by Pop-Rock italian group Baustelle. Gunshots are added to the soundtrack. Link to this article

08 Mag 2010

Brassmati AW!rkestra is a brass band in Roma. The drawings for the sleeve of their new album (“Vogliamo Tutto”) are mine. Colors and layout by Alessandra Turco. Link to this article