Monday, December 5, 2011

Entitled titles

Hey there, folks!

See, I told you I wasn't gonna keep this place updated, didn't I? Actually, I wanted to scan and upload some concept art for the series but another project kept me too busy and, since I'm only working on New Religion in my free time, I get to sit down and write a bit.

Anyway, I'm fascinated by titles. Not the nobility ones, mind you, but the ones that get to name stuff. Especially when it comes to art, I just love knowing the name of this or that painting, sculpture, album, etc. And, of course, comicbooks are not exception.

New Religion (the title) was born as most titles are when I'm working on a project: As a working title. It made sense, if you ask me, since it was born straight out of the premise (which is: "a couple fallen angels trying to start a new religion" - I guess I could have used "couple fallen angels" but I didn't like the way it sounded).

Of course, being a working title, I wasn't satisfied with it, and thought I'd sit down and change it somewhere down the line (which I did, but I was drunk while doing it, forgot to write down the amazing names I came up with and forgot all about them the next morning). After a while, I thought about it some more and got to the point where I started to wonder: "Why bother?". It was around that same time that I started playing with the idea of giving each chapter (which we could also call "issue", since I'm writing this one as if it was a serialized north american comicbook, with chapters of 20-22 pages) the name of a song or an album and, since "New Religion" is the name of at least a song and an album (for the record, as much as I love Primal Fear, I fucking hate that album in general and that song in particular), I kept thinking "Why bother?" and left it there. See, lazyness always wins :p

Anyway, speaking of titles, some titles that will probably be featured in the first chapters (minor spoilers?):

Faith and fire
Everyday I love you less and less
Gambling with the devil
I give up on loving you
Mysterious ways
Gee baby, ain't I good to you?
Deal with the devil
Everybody thinks you're an angel
Tell me why
You don't know me
Caught in the middle
What kind of god?

And a couple more that I don't wanna give away yet. Please keep in mind a couple things: I don't like all those songs (I fucking loathe Mysterious ways, for example), some titles were translated to english (to keep things consistant) and, more importantly, I'm using these as devices or tools (in other words, the titles won't influence the story, they're just titles).

And I think that's all for now, thanks for reading!

Victor

Monday, November 21, 2011

So what the hell's this thing about?

Hey there, folks!

For those of you who don't know me, my name's Victor Cabanelas. I'm a comicbook artist born in 1982 in Buenos A
ires, Argentina and, a couple months ago, I thought it'd be a good idea to start a webcomic. I still don't know if the actual webcomic will be hosted on this blog, or if it'll get it's own hosting. Neither do I know how long will it be till I'm actually posting pages but let's hope I can start soon and keep a nice and steady pace.

So, what's New Religion?
To keep it as simple as possible, it's a webcomic (written and drawn by yours truly), which deals with a couple fallen angels trying to start a new religion. If you want some more info, I should probably mention that the book'll take the Christian/catholic religion as true and the story will develop from there. It'll feature angels, demons, humans, god and the devil. It'll have 3 major arcs, with the first one taking place mostly in Heaven, the seond in Buenos Aires and the third one's still a surprise. Since a large portion of the story'll take place in Argentina, I'll create 3 versions of this book: One in english, one in neutral spanish and the third one in the local variation of spanish.

What about the genre?
Though question. I guess we can probably say it's an action/adventure comicbook, though the second major arc'll deal with a lot of crime stuff and my goal's to make a dark comedy. It'll feature adult themes and, at least in theory, it'll reflect the way I look at society and religions. In any case, since I'm not a huge fan of labels, let's just say it's a comicbook about a couple fallen angels that try to start a new religion (though it might take a while to actually get to that part).

So, how long will this thing be?
Long. Roughly, 48-50 issues of 20 pages each.

If you're not gonna post the pages here, what ARE you gonna post?
Well, I was thinking I could upload some behind the scenes stuff. As well as talk about the creative process. We all like that kinda stuff, right

What do you mean about the book reflecting the way you look at religions?
Well, let's just say that the first scene'll be a Pope getting sodomized to death with a crucifix.

Are you a religious person?
Not really. I do believe there's something beyond current human comprehension that (for lack of a better term and sake of conversation) we could call god. But I don't really give a damn about that part of life in general.

Do you know that, should a religious person read this webcomic, they're gonna feel the need to tell you about hell and that you're gonna go there?
Well, yeah, but I kinda hope they'll just realize that I'm writing fiction. Sure, I might be using characters they believe to be real (such as angels) but, since there's no actual proof of them, I don't really think they should get offended by my book. If they do, they probably shouldn't read it.

Doesn't if feel weird to ask questions to yourself?
Maybe, but I actually think the world might end up being a better place if we started asking ourselves questions. Maybe not about webcomics, but definitely about how and why do we do things.

Any final words?
Just a big and warm WELCOME! Let's hope I can keep this place updated and I manage to make enough money to keep having internet access and posting stuff here.

Thanks for reading!

Victor Cabanelas