Luca Malisan

This weekend I will be in Sainte Enimie (France), for the festival of medieval comic books. I will be there with my new book La Conjuration de Cluny, just published by Glènat.

With the book “La Conjuration de Cluny” I defined somehow “a method” of work. I can’t say that I lacked method before, but it wasn’t so precise (I had many files and sheets everywhere!).

Here there are three images of the workflow on one page of “Le Crepuscule de Tellure”, my next book.

First of all I have to define the correct amount of cases, and build the “grid”, but I don’t have an image for that (just some sketches on paper). The other three phases are here:

1) Storyboard. After gathering all the photos and the documentation, I put the texts inside the cases and I make quick sketches of characters, positions… This phase is completely digital.

2) Pencil. The main backgrounds are inked directly (digitally), then I print the page and I draw characters and secondary backgrounds with pencil. I acquire the result with the scanner and I draw (digitally) balloons outside text.

3) Ink. Very little to say, just… inking (digitally). And putting away the texts on another file, just to make life easier for the colorist.

The book “La Croisade des Enfants”, written by Fabrice David and drawn by me, has won a prize! It won the 1st prix in the “Jeunesse” section at the festival of Sainte Enimie, in France! All my thanks to the organization of the festival for their kindness, Sainte Enimie is really great: a medieval village in the mountains of the National Park of Cévennes.

Moreover, the gran prix of the festival has gone to the beautiful book “Les Voies du Seigneur”, written again by Fabrice David, together with Grégory Lassablière, and drawn by Jaime Calderòn (website), great spanish artist and travel mate!

This is the medal that I received for “La Croisade des Enfants”:

Prix Jeunesse Sainte Enimie 2009 à "La Croisade des Enfants" (David/Malisan)

On Juillet 11 et 12 I will partecipate at the comic festival of Sainte Enimie, in France. I will do “dédicaces” on the book “La Croisade des Enfants”, just issued by Soleil Productions.

Visit the festival website to get more information.

The video trailer of “La Croisade des Enfants”, published by Soleil!

Trailer La Croisade des Enfants

Yesterday, may 27, was issued my first french book as a comic book artist! The publisher is Soleil, for which I already worked on “Le Syndrome de Caïn” et “Eden Killer”.

The story is written by Fabrice David (known for “Servitude”, Soleil), and tells the story of the children’s crusade, that took place in France in the XIII century (and lies between history and legend).

The book is the “classic” french format: 46 big-sized pages in full color.

You can buy it online (even outside France) from Amazon.fr:
http://www.amazon.fr/croisade-enfants-Malisan-David/dp/2302006038/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1243519244&sr=1-1

You can also read the first pages online, on the BD Gest’ website. Here’s the link:
http://www.bdgest.com/preview-531-BD-la-croisade-des-enfants-recit-complet.html

The website Sceneario.com published a positive review of “La Croisade des Enfants”, my first book in France as a comic artist. The reviewer signaled the book as “recommended”, and I’m really happy of it! You can read here the full review (in french).

Today I’ve finished “La Croisade des Enfants”, my first book in France as an author (drawings and colors). It will be issued at the end of may! Here there are some sample pages.

I’m now focusing on drawing “1212, La croisade des enfants”. These are some pages in pencil, waiting for inks and colors. There is the construction site of the gothic cathedral of Cloyes. At the time the cathedral was struck by a fire, but looked pretty similar to the present-day church.

I’m still working on art and colors of “La Croisade des Enfants” (Soleil Productions, France). The deadlines on other color works had slowed down this project, but now I’m seriously on it again. The book will be published in the first half of 2009.

The script is written by Fabrice David and tell the story of the so-called “childs’ crusade”, that took place in the XIII century.