Petit Nuage Noir & Puma Rouge / Little Dark Cloud & Red Puma - #2 - 5

So if it is not for fame or money...
As I don't even have a publishing house, a commercial strategy or anything...
(I must be the worst seller I know...)
Why do I continue writing and drawing these stories?
Putting time, patience and money in it?
Well, it is because these ideas are haunting me.
I don't even do it for the Art.

It is just because I have ideas spinning in my head all the time. And even if I have been rejected by lots of publishing houses, I still have those ideas in my head. Maybe I should let go what doesn't sell, be like some others, being able to move on to something else, but I can't. It is emotional, not commercial.

It is to the point where I can't even let others work on my projects, it was hard in the begining to let someone help me with the colors, even if doing so is helping me, at some point it was putting another name in the credits of MY book.

All these ideas are my babies, and I can't let go of them, I can't move away from them, not until they are released, and even then, there are always things you wished you'd do differently (I only have one book released, but I can tell you that's the case).
While not released, even if I write them, the ideas keep spinning in my head, again and again and again.. When I finished the first book, I felt like my mind could soothe a bit, being released from some of those ideas being put to a definitive form... Even if I could change stuff again, I kinda convinced myself to let it go, let it be the way it was and move on...

I guess at some point I am too stubborn for my own good, but I need to feel lucky living in a time where I can self-publish my books if they are rejected.
It doesn't pay, it brings me just a certain peace of mind...
And at some point, that's all I need...

Dédicaces le 5 juin à Chièvres à l'American Festival

Si jamais le dimanche 5 juin, je serai à Chièvres à l'American Festival

pour vendre et dédicacer le tome 1 de Petit Nuage Noir & Puma Rouge!

Petit Nuage Noir & Puma Rouge / Little Dark Cloud & Red Puma - #2 - 4

Hello (again?)! Thank you for stepping by!
I hope you will come back soon!
Don't hesitate to comment...

You may have noticed I use these blog entries as a kind of tribune, column...
Where I just write what comes through my mind at the time...

I expect at some point there won't be any note with the update about the album,

because sometimes, I may have nothing to say...

Especially that there are roughly 50 pages to be done and we're only at the fourth one...

So we'll see...

Anyway, I wonder, is there anyone who really reads these things I write?

Petit Nuage Noir & Puma Rouge / Little Dark Cloud & Red Puma - #2 - 3

You may wonder why on previous posts I started writing...
Especially in English, which is not my native language.

At some point I wonder too.

Or not.

Well the language part is to complicate things for some people such as my students... Maybe I should have chosen an other pseudonym to distanciate my artist life and my personal life... But It is too late for this career. Although it would allow me to be more open about certain things. But well, it's gonna be for another career...

About why I write... Well at some point it is a way to share with people interested in my work... If they have the courage to read this... And maybe because thanks to the Internet you can share with (I was gonna say millions of people, but seing the statistics of my blog, not the case) people almost anonymoulsy. At some point I found it hard to speak my mind to people, people I know, and at some point having conversations with self is a bit pointless (check the song "Losing my mind" by Richie Kotzen, it contains the lyrics "I still talk to myself, so I don't forget who I am") and it is easier to write, for people who don't care, just getting things out... Being a... how can I call that? An insignificant columnist or just another blogger... With dreams of grandeur and/or megalomania.
A wannabe comic book star, a wannabe author...

Recently, I read that Clare Maguire had to fight alcoholism after the flop of her first album... A first album that in my opinion is an excellent album! I mean, I listen to this album over and over again, in it's entierty, I was hooked since I heared "Ain't nobody" (by the way can somebody tell me why it is impossible to find the original version of the song and its video on youtube?) and the album didn't disappoint, it was what I needed, I still listen to that album (althought I had to stop for a while, because well, sometimes too much is too much).
But if she read this, she has to know how much that album means to me!
And if once day I release the book I work on from time to time about the greatest albums, there is a place for Light After Dark in it.

My point was that I think that if someone says that my book(s) meant something like that album (and others) meant/means to me, even if the book is not that much selling, I would feel good, I hope she does, even if it doesn't pay my bills -I hope she can pay hers and she'll be able to make other albums as good or better than her first one. I understand how she would feel, feel this sort of rejection... Selling only to people I know... Or people I know know at best... So I kinda pretend I matter -ok I do, but not on that level- and write... Illusory fame... Illusory audiance, I am writing this like I would be playing air-guitar on any song in my room...

Just an illusion...

Insignificant.

But still hoping...

Petit Nuage Noir & Puma Rouge / Little Dark Cloud & Red Puma - #2 - 2

The funny thing about this second book is that initially it didn't exist.
But I felt there was something missing, the two characters became friends too easily.
So I thought I could try to develop their relationship, the way they relate to each other, kind of a love/hate relationship... By testing their friendship... excuse me, their partnership.

So I created the story, continuing where I left with previous book and noted a few way to put them in some situations where they could choose, where they could act on the life and death of the other one.
But in the end, there is something I don't like in the pages I already completed (there should be five of them, but on three of them I missed some lights and shadows...). Some things that didn't turn out like I wanted them, some things that look bad, messed up almost...

To tell you the truth I don't like drawing that much, and doing these albums take so much time, I like the creative process, I quite like penciling, but inking and coloring... Those things bore me, annoy me, irritate me, that's why some of the coloring is done by others. And on some pages when I look back now, there are some things I should have corrected, I should have improved...
Spent some more time on it... But I want things to go as fast as possible... So maybe I rushed a bit too much... I notice I don't like frames where my characters don't appear, so, on some pages are they are quite unapparent, it became noticeable that it is not as well achieved as some. So far some of the pages look like laking some of the spirit of the first book...
But I don't know exactly what and how to get that spirit back. Although I have to tell you that I quite rushed some of the pages in the first volume too... But still, something doesn't look the same.

Maybe because the story was created very quickly, maybe because it has no link with the ideas that were haunting me for a while and couln't get out because narratively the serie needed this book and thus the ideas where quite fresh I was not so much attached to them... Or maybe I didn't have the same clear vision of how it should be in my head; as I think it is very important to visualize what you want to create in order to get a good result... But maybe it'sjust me...

Anyway, as the completion of this book progresses and the next one(s) are already planned, we'll see if this phenomenon happens with them too... As the storyline and some of the ideas date back from around the same time I created the first book. In fact some of the ideas where for the first book, but as I wanted some narrative progression I ended up with too much material. Some of it will not be included in the third book (which was planned as the second, do you follow) for the same reason.

I hope this summer I will have to opportunity to show you some avancements of volume 3...
In the mean time I hope I will be able to completed this volume the best way I can!

Petit Nuage Noir & Puma Rouge / Little Dark Cloud & Red Puma - #2 - 1

Here we go again!

I started the finishing touches on some pages last week, some more work and five of them will be completed (maybe tomorrow), then there will only be the texts to complete and translate...

So within the next weeks, you may see some images like this one, one per page...
And we'll see when we'll be done!

In the mean time I have already written the story for the next 6 or 8 next volumes...
And if everything goes slightly according to the plan this summer, there could be two volumes pencilled...
I have also ideas for some other stories for a while now, I try from time to time to work on them...
So, in a year or two, you could know aproximately how much space you will need on your shelves...

I am working also on other stories, I have quite a few ideas, unfortunately, I am at times a bit tired and/or lazy and/or out of time and/or busy and/or lacking courage... So thing don't go as fast as I would like to...
It's frustrating. I am afraid at times that I won't be able to complete them...
It would be nice if I could live of that... Instead of being an "independant artist"...
Which mean I pay out of my own pocket every book I have in stock...
And I hate selling things, I prefer concentrate on my work, which is not helping...

But in the mean time, I am still quite happy having done the first book (I can't seem to be happy with it somehow, too perfectionist maybe?) and on my way to complete the second...

Logo the1984 (TheNinetyEightyFour

Si vous avec lu mon blog, vous saurez que j'aime beaucoup la musique.

J'ai toujours voulu travailler pour des groupes, et j'en ai eu l'occasion avec the1984 (TheNinetyEightyFour), mais malheureusement le groupe change de nom...

En attendant voici un essai pour le logo...

Et si vous ne connaissez pas (vous avez tors) mais rattrapez-vous:

Et pour vous montrer que c'est du sérieux comme groupe: