dangoldmandotnet

I was interviewed in Brazil’s O Estadao de Saõ Paulo that was in print on Monday in their “Link” technology section:

Tacky & funny Babelfish translation follows

notes from Dan:
HQ = historia quadrinho = story in panels = comics
quadrinhos = comics

InterNet 19/02/2007
“In web, HQ is of favour and without censorship”
SPREADING WAR IN PIXELS

Interview with Dan Goldman, ilustrador of quadrinho online “Shooting War” Camila Viegas-Lee New York The success of webcomic Shooting War is the dream of the emergent ilustrador. Published in chapters for the magazine online Smith Magazine, May the September of the passed year, this history in quadrinhos that the life of a blogueiro tells during the war of Iraq in 2011 called the attention of the digital community with articles in the Rolling Stone (”frightfully smart”), Entertainment Weekly (”obligator reading”) and blog of the culture of the quadrinhos of the Publisher’s Weekly (”she needs, excellent and current, one webcomic for we”). But xeque-he kills it lode when authors Anthony Lappé and Dan Goldman had closed a contract of USS50 a thousand for the publication of a graphical novel for the Warner Books. The book, a version revised and extended of history online with layer-lasts and 200 pages, must leave in October. In exclusive interview for the Link, of its studio in the Brooklyn, New York, the ilustrador Dan Goldman spoke on money, webcomics, piracy and the industry of the HQ.

It is truth that its routine as ilustrador makes you to wake up to 6h30 of the morning and to sleep every day of dawn?
My woman and I have had a pulled routine. (Dan is married the paulistana to designer of jewels Liliam Higa). We wake up to 6h30 and to 7h already we are working. Our studios are in house and work superbem together. To the times, nor we leave for the street, and the snow is pretty in the window. People go to sleep normally to the one of the morning. But I am exausto. We need vacation. It are that we marry and never we had our moon-of-honey. Then we go for Brazil in May.

You already it was in Brazil?
I was alone a time, when he was moleque. My family and I was of boat for the Amazônia. We visit Manaus, but still I want to know other cities, as São Paulo, for example. When surplus time between half night and one of the dawn, I am studying Portuguese. Already I spoke a bit for telephone with my mother-in-law, but it unfastened to speak and I did not understand nothing. Shooting War is one of webcomics of bigger success in the United States.

How it was that the project started?
I was looking for work in the Craighslist (classified online) and found an announcement of the Anthony Lappé (set of documents journalist, producer and author of Shooting War). It was looking a ilustrador for the project of it and connects immediately. Shooting War is the first experience of it in quadrinhos and it it asked to me as I would like that it ordered the text to me - normally texts come broken in pictures, to follow the scenes ­ -, but I said that it could order me in the way that it felt more the will. I received the texts as if it was a theater part. There people if found in a coffee and went arguing the scenes. I drew in one bloquinho and I transferred to the computer in house. I passed my anniversary of 32 years (11 of May) working. The first chapter was published in day 15 of May and immediately we receive a dozen from commentaries of readers. But it delayed one three weeks to create a public. In June, I was in one supper with friends and the Jeff (Newelt, of Smith Magazine) received the article from the Village Voice (weekly periodical of opinion published gratuitously in New York). Suddenly, I started to be invited for the bacanas parties. It was rewarding and disgusting at the same time.

What it moved after the contract of the Warner Books?
Money. To publish online has innumerable advantages but money alone comes with the publication in book. Graphical novels are being taken the serious one. Today everybody wants to publish a book. Until my father, who vende books, started to respect now plus my choices that Shooting War goes to leave in paper.

You it is not a traditional ilustrador, of that the quadrinhos with gouache or watercolor and later escaneia draw…
If I to draw in the paper it is a garbage. My process is all digital, vector-illustrative, and already very I was criticized therefore. I make one mixture of photograph and digital drawing. I learned making. The result is half fotorrealista. It would not obtain this result if it was using traditional techniques. If the technology exists, because I cannot use it and follow ahead? It has people that she sees quadrinhos with nostalgia. For me, nostalgia is the fear of the new. Today these new tools allow that any one can turn ilustrador. This is brilliant. I never studied illustration. I formed myself in cinema and I was vocalista of experimental music and writer. By the way, I write better of the one than drawing. My success as ilustrador is surprising and frustrating at the same time. Now I am known as ilustrador. But I have a history that it is being very good Is mine better work. Kelly is called and is in the site of the Act-I-vate.

You he is one of the founders of the Act-I-vate, a site formed for 19 quadrinistas of New York…
(In sarcastic tone crossing the arms): We are ` the ‘ ilustradores of New York. Not, serious, the Act-I-vate is an exclusive laboratory for bonanza cartunistas that this completed one year new month and publishes daily webcomics. The idea is to create a free, gratuitous space, where let us can publish our bolder work, without the pressures and it estresse it commercial, and to cross our nets of knowledge increasing our base of fans. Kelly, for example, is the idiosincrasias history of three little trustworthy individuals and its strangers. But it is also a history of desire and love. In I can explore what he is being said verbally between the personages and, parallel, what he is implied for the forms and colors. Blue it is not sadness for me, is the deep one of a psicodélica trip as in the scene of the face looking for pills fallen in the private one in Trainspotting (film of Danny Boyle, 1996). The beauty of the HQ is that you can show to a reality in more realistic way the one that can the daily life. Terry Gilliam (managing of Fisherman of Illusions, 1991, and Brazil, 1985) makes this very well.

Which was the first time that you it heard to speak in webcomics?
It was in the Comic Convention de San Diego in 2001. [ had a panel with Scott McCloud theoretician and author of Understanding Comics (1993), Reinventing Comics (2000) and Making Comics (2006) ] and was fascinated with the possibilities of the way. After killing my career in cinema - what it took only two weeks without taking care of the telephone - and working for the department of marketing of the DC Comics, I decided to dedicate itself integrally to the quadrinhos and perceived that it was this that I wanted to make of my life. I want to use quadrinhos to take off something good of the imagination and to bring in return for the reality. It has much bad thing today happening, but always it had bad thing happening. My grandmothers, for example, if had known in Auschwitz. People are not prepared to make the pazes as the human beings and the foreigners of Day in the Stars, to form a federacy and to fly for the space. The art of the quadrinhos is to take something terrible and to exceed it. I am not interested in super-hero, I want to create something philosophical, funny but taken the serious one: a terrorist eating a Big Mac while he gives interview for the bloggeiro Jimmy Burns (personages of Shooting War). I find that what people absorb makes of people what people are. I am very demanding in the choice of film, music, literature and quadrinhos. If people eat garbage, turn garbage. I have heard much old good thing of reggae, African music of Jamaica and electronics. The best film that attended recently is Children of Men. The film starts with an explosion as well as Shooting War - the biggest coincidence.

Which are the quadrinhos advantages to publish online?
It is of favour, he is fast, it does not have censorship or commercial pressure and it reaches people in the entire world. Moreover, the author can practise more, receive gratuity instantaneous, be close to the fans and if communicating directly with them. The InterNet is an alive organism. Where you are you are so important how much to be there. It goes to be legal when to invent the perfect portable object to read webcomics. Still it does not exist. But this iPhone (of the Apple) is arriving close. Webilustradores already is drawing adjusted independent panels more for these telephones. The future is an interesting place.

You have fear to reproduce its drawings and to disrespect its copyright?
Webcomic already comes with protection against piracy. The resolution of the images is so small that it does not give to print. “pixelado” would leave all. In this aspect webcomic is better that music or video. Before the quadrinhos migrarem for the InterNet, much people it believed that the industry went to die.

You find that this interest renewed for quadrinhos has to see with the exposition online of emergent authors?
The experience to find good quadrinho online is much more pleasant of that to have that to go for a dirty store, badly supplied, with salesmen impolite, full of attitude, who treat you as if you he did not understand nothing of HQ. You it entered in the store and he was so rejected that never more it came back. The HQ publishing companies alone made to feed this cycle. E therefore the public was diminishing, if becoming so small that it almost killed the industry of the HQ. This very sad age for me. I learned to read with histories in quadrinhos. I had seven years and my brother had five. We are of the time of the Shazam. Vendia people lemonade to gain one I change and to be able to buy HQ. My parents were passing squeeze in Miami and the magazines had turned our shelter for the world the fancy. Much people were losing this chance for cause of these strange store. In the InterNet this does not happen and you can find a material and many times excellent gratuitous. This feeds the culture of the HQ as all. Alive mangá Japanese that it created a new generation of readers who had revitalized the way! By the way, who has fear of mangá can turn dinossauro. For who it does not know, mangá wants to say quadrinhos in Japanese.

Exists a specific language of InterNet for webcomics?
The form to count a not dumb history, but the format is new and is being explored in interesting ways. It has people creating infinite screens. The images go infinitely for any side. Or they can follow a not conventional way, tirinha capsizes for low, and the left, and the way of the straps has to see with history. Very legal. It has people livening up the drawings. In the beginning of Shooting War, Anthony wanted that I placed an explosion that was beating in the screen. But I convinced it of that, if the objective one was to vender the project for a graphical, people had that to create one webcomic passível of impression.

Which are its plans later that you to finish the version of Shooting War for the Warner Books?
Already I have a closed new project with the Crown Publishing Group and the journalist Michael Crowley, of the New Republic (reviewed that politics based on Washington has covered). Crowley goes to follow the preliminary elections of the parties republican and democratic and goes to make an journalistic-educative text that goes to be published before the North American elections. It very goes to be legal because the people do not follow the reporter politician and arrive here in the elections without knowing nothing on its candidates. Who knows they is interested for politics saw HQ?