"How to survive working in retail #2"

IT´S FINALLY DONE!!!!!!

Right now you can look at it through Flickr, soon it will be available in stores such as Midtown Comics, Jim Hanley´s Universe, Forbidden Planet and more all along NJ and America.


Make sure to ask for it and buy at least two copies to support this independent effort to make comics.


I hope you enjoy it when you read it and rest assured that there is more on the way, as I finish this I´m starting work on issue 3.


Thanks to all the people that shows interest and support us through all this. And specially to the readers for their patience. I really hope you enjoy it, we make it from our hearts ^_^

P.S: Here are some pics of my new studio in transition, it´s called "La cochambre" which roughly translates as "one hell of a mess"



Thanks again, and as usual...
more to come.

Smashing through the boundaries Lunacy has found me Cannot stop the battery...

Here´s a little something I came up with that I´m sure you can all relate to:


This is a self portrait that Martin made for me. In this thing of showcasing my friend´s art and talent It earned a place here.


Like I always say--
More to come.

Stores around the world #2

Midtown comics – New York City, USA.
200 W 40th street (corner of 7th avenue). Manhattan.

What can I say about this place?

I used to work here. ‘Nuff said.


They have two locations in NY, Times Square (my store) and Grand Central, near GC station. They also have a massive store online @ midtowncomics.com.

Arguably the best store I’ve ever known. They have everything, toys, statues, back issues, new stuff, huge selection of trades, apparel, novels, adult stuff, DVD’s, I don’t know, you name it, they have it. Plus, they carry ‘How to survive working in retail’, so make sure to stop by and buy a copy.


The attention is very friendly with a wide staff, that way if you ask something to someone and that person it’s not very into that he or she can point you towards someone who does. I love these guys, we spent hours and hours talking about comics, movies and the corruption of the world during both, working hours and lunch time.


The Times Square store it’s bigger in size than the one at Grand Central, they have two huge floors, one with all the new stuff and the trades and another one with most of the back issues, toys and statues so there is room for them to have something that you might be looking and GC might not have at the moment. If this happens just make sure to ask a staff member and he can call the other store has it, they love doing this and will offer it to you in a heartbeat.


Prices are standard for American stores, but they also offer a free membership that works as a reward program. For every hundred bucks you spend in book they will give you 20 bucks in store credit on your next purchase. Be aware, this only applies in books, no collectibles or apparel, just ask about it at the registers when checking out.


They also have signings with many creators all the time, just check the web site for updates on signings and possible sales.


If you are wandering the big apple and don’t stop here you will regret it, also, when you are there make sure to go to the 3rd floor and say hi to my main man Bronko for me.

Travelling without moving...

Stores around the world.

Here’s a little something that I’ve been cooking for a while now. In my days of Globe trekking one of my main concerns when arriving to a new country was this one of finding a comic book store. This magical place where you go to get your fix, looking for that missing issue that has been killing your collection forever or to get a new and rare copy of any book in a foreign language. We all know how tedious it is to go somewhere and have no clue of the whereabouts of such places.

This was the mentality behind such an enterprise, and with time it became sort of a custom, something to do any time a new port was reached. This way I found amazing places, in locations such as Bermuda, the Bahamas, Stockholm, Oslo, Copenhagen, New Jersey, New York, Buenos Aires, Montevideo, England, Ireland, Spain, Pennsylvania and some more that right now might be slipping out of my memory.

In this trip I will show you a few pictures of the stores I visited in my journey, saying stuff, sometimes good, sometimes not so good, but always with the intention of giving a hand to the weary traveler in search of these places of magic, weird decorations and funky smells. Of some of the stores I don’t even have pictures, but from now on, every time I go somewhere I make sure to bring my camera to avoid such a thing.

So, without further ado, grab your boots and backpacks and follow me on this journey through ‘Nerdvana’


Camelot comic store – Buenos Aires, Argentina.
Corrientes 1388. Capital Federal.

Undoubtedly the better stocked store in Buenos Aires, also the most confusing one. This one it’s on a gallery a few blocks away from the iconic obelisk in down town Bs. As. Also available online.



The layout makes it kind of a labyrinth, there is a central spot to purchase stuff and plenty of show rooms scattered all over the place. Here the idea is to go around spotting stuff and then getting to the sales place to request whatever caught your eye.

This process can be a little weary, the place is extremely hot during the summer, and it gets very crowded, moving room becomes a sought out commodity, so does air. The staff is friendly enough and they seem to have knowledge of the stock, but I’m sure that when the people start piling up and things get hot they use the same verse we all use when we are getting overwhelmed: “I don’t have it right now, maybe tomorrow”

Millions of books, comics (Spanish and English), all the toys you can imagine (new and VERY old), tons of manga and anime subtitled in Spanish by local fansubs, clothing and apparel, music CD’s, plushes, statues, everything. They even have a show room just for star wars collectibles, including a full size Yoda and a Band player from the Mos Eisley cantina.



Prices are all right, with the same rule as before, be aware of the exchange rate before purchasing anything or you might get scared when paying.

If anything I will suggest to the owner to rethink the accommodations and give some more room to the sales floor, maybe move to a bigger locale that will help us costumers with room to move and see stuff and also when expediting product.

Make sure to stop by and say hi to Gerardo, the guy all the way in the back, behind the ‘police line’, he is the owner and believe me, he’s very friendly and will certainly appreciate your business.



Go now, it might be out of business soon!
Don´t say I didn´t warned ya!!!

The works of Dionisio

My friend, who happens to be a photographer helped to conceive this 3-D incarnation of my avatar in the 3 guys making comics logo. I thought it was mad cool and that´s how it ended here.

´Nuff said

ONE THING ABOUT SEX THAT I WANT TO KNOW BUT I´M TOO AFRAID TO ASK

I came up with this a little while ago, when I decided to let someone else to use my heart as an ashtray again. It’s funny how this very same situation happened last month, just as it happened 10, 15 years ago. I definitely don’t understand women, their parents or even love for that matter. It’s just what I’ve always said: I’m destined to die alone.

HOW TO SURVIVE WORKING IN RETAIL #2 PREVIEW:

And after what to me seemed like a very long time, I’m able and happy to share a few things of this work (still in progress) to you. This is taking a lot longer that we originally expected, first because of Script complications, then because of me moving out of the country, then because of my lack of sense when packing, then because of the heat, and so on, the list keeps going on, but that’s not the point.

The point is; this is a labor of love and even though we put all from ourselves to do it complications will always arise. Hopefully for #3 we will be back on track.

What we have here are a couple of inked but not finished pages and some sketches. Right now the book is half way done, so I hope that this will be enough to wet your appetite. Just talking for myself, I really hope you like what we have so far, it’s gonna be a great issue and I can’t wait to get it done and ready for you to buy it.

Please join us in this, the joy of comics and don’t forget to pest your local comic book store about this very particular book. We’ll see you in the shelves!

More to come ^_^

Another Portfolio situation

This is a little piece that I made after another one of my visits to the DC comics offices in NY when looking for a job. Editors seem to have this tendency of telling me this in spite that all the non-publishers keep telling me the opposite. Anyway, from all that frustration comes this, a satirical allegory about my lack of common sense.

I wanna dedicate this particular one to my friend Bernabé and to my muse (or lack thereof), because it applies in more than one sense.
‘Nuff said.

Tools of the trade

One thing that as an artist I know for sure is that most of the time, when we are not asking to ourselves ‘How’ other people do their craft, we ask ‘what do they use’?
With this in mind I decided to give a little insight and show you what I’m using right now to bring ‘How to survive working in retail #2’ to fruition.

Now, since I moved recently most of my stuff hasn’t arrived to my house yet, so I needed to go out and find replacements. I took a few things with me thinking ahead, but in the rush I forgot a lot, namely; my rapidographs, my brushes, ink, squares and so on.
All these years I’ve been sort of looking for the perfect brush to ink with, and I must say that I haven’t found it yet. Every time that I can I buy a new one to give it a try and see if this one is ‘the chosen one’, to no avail I might add. I’ve read lots of stuff about inkers and their brushes, and I have to say that I’m not a fan of the sable ones, the tip is too long and I don’t have the control I want from it. I like shorter tips, with rounded heads, which gives me better control. I use a variety of mechanical pencils (0.5, 0.7, 0.9) with different leads. I also use rapidographs when inking details and straight lines with a ruler. My choice of India ink is the Speedball super black for the brush and the Staedler for the markers.

I recently had to buy a new rapidograph to cover for the missing ones, so I got a 0.4, but the nib keeps clogging up every time I use it, bringing my frustration up to new heights.
I’m hopping to recover all my stuff (including my table) by the time I have to start working on issue #3 (first draft of the script already done), and with that speed up the process so it can be out on time.
Let’s see what happens with the world as I keep looking for that perfect brush that seems to be harder to find than the perfect woman.


Traditional drawing stuff:
Staedler 9505, 0.5 mechanical pencil with HB leads
Pentel precision eraser
Sharpie fine point permanent marker (black)
Staedler mars matic 700 rapidograph 0.4 point
#2 Da Vinci series 1599 brush
Staedler rasoplast eraser
Pelikan India ink
Caballito premium paper (180 grams)
Strathmore 400 series Sketch book (89 grams)

Hardware/Software/Digital:
PNY optima attaché 2G flash drive
Adobe Photoshop CS2
Adobe Illustrator CS3
Nikon coolpix 5900 digital camera (5.1 megapixels)
HP pavilion dv8110 laptop with windows xp (512 MB, 80GB hard drive)
Canon pixma MP190 scanner/printer/copier