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  • Interview with Gerardo Preciado and Daniel Bayliss, authors of Batman: The Deal

    Interview with Gerardo Preciado and Daniel Bayliss, authors of Batman: The Deal

    Interview with Gerardo Preciado and Daniel Bayliss, authors of Batman: The Deal

    gerardo preciadoGerardo Preciado is a writer, actor and musician born on Chihuahua, Mexico on august 18th, 1979. He developed a love for comics, film and music early on, mainly from his older brother (a director and drummer) and his father, a big Beatles fan.
    He has starred in short films like Death Racer vs The Vampire Women, El Hombre de la Mano Peluda and Il Proiettile Insanguinato, all directed by brother Roberto Preciado. In 2013 he won a credit in Robert Rodriguez’ “Two Scoops” by tweeting him a “weapon idea” for the short film.
    As a musician he released his first album Revelator as The Atlantas in 2008, Metropolypse (2009) and Lux Speculum (2010) followed. In 2011 he started Musike Di Diable, a one man record label where he serves as producer, songwriter, artists and plays all the instruments, the first release being a compilation from his previous project The Best of the Atlantas, he also signed garage one man duo Ambidextroux and old school synth electronic band Ancient Order of the Droids (both himself). He is currently focused on writing music for films as well as developing new acts for the label.
    He met artist Daniel Bayliss at college while studying Architecture, they immediately became best friends and started making comics and music, in 2011 they started making the short stories that would eventually become Moonhead Press, the first one to be published, a Batman homage titled The Deal had over one million views in the first week of release, God’s End a spin on the Superman archetype was a critical success too, they are currently both preparing for the making of their first graphic novel.

    daniel baylissDaniel Bayliss is a Mexican cartoonist and comic book creator. Born on December 2th, 1979 in the city of Hermosillo. He studied Architecture at The University of Sonora, and has been working on that field for several years. 
    His work as a cartoonist has been published on Mexican political magazines since 2002. On 2011 he created deathtotheillustraitor.blogspot.com featuring his own original Illustrations.  On the summer of 2013  he and long time best friend, writer Gerardo Preciado created Moonhead Press as the outlet for many short stories they had been working on. As Moonhead Press they released , a Batman/Joker homage and God’s End. They are working on their first graphic novel. 
    He is currently working on Boom! Studios new series Translucid, written by Coheed and Cambria frontman Claudio Sanchez and wife Chondra Echert.
    Daniel Bayliss lives in Hermosillo, México with his wife Karla and their two children, Daniel and Barbara.

    Batman: The Deal was a big success and your first blog post. How that story was born?
    G.P. It came from talking to a friend who’s trying to break into DC comics, and I just told him that I didn’t think I could come up with a Batman story, that, of course, became a little seed in my head and all of the sudden the idea for The Deal came to me, I pitched that idea to Daniel, and he tought it was good enough to do it, you see, that’s kind of my job in Moonhead Press, to come up with a story that i’ts worth all the time and effort that Daniel is going to put on it, so if he doesn’t love it, we don’t do it.

    D.B. Well it is really easy to work this way, and with the amazing kind of stories that Gerardo comes up with, it’s extra easy and enjoyble.

    You used Joker, one of the villains most loved by readers, giving him a strong and fascinating characterization. What is Joker in your opinion and what makes him so loved?
    G.P. I think that people love him because they would like to let go of all rules and all responsabilities, and just be free, free to do whatever you want regardless of the consequences. Of course he is a criminal mastermind but most people would agree that he is crazy, I tought, what if we are all crazy except for him? what if Batman is the craziest of all?

    PAGINA 10

    Which authors inspired you for Batman: The Deal’s creation and which usually influence your works, graphically and on the narrative side?
    G.P. Of course I love Alan Moore and Frank Miller, but I really haven’t read Batman in a while so we didn’t based The Deal on any Batman story in particular, I was more influenced by indie comics, specially the indie creator’s take on mainstream characters like Strange Tales and Bizzarro World.
    D.B. I was heavily inspired by Batman Year 100 by Paul Pope, and many of the Batman Black and White artist, but also the art of Rafael Grampá and oddly Al Columbia was very present in my mind at the time we did this. Graphically I wanted a very crude yet a cartoony feel to it, and not make it look like your regular american mainstream comic book.

    May you tell us some details about your working method? Which phases your ideas pass through to become a webcomic?
    G.P. The way Daniel and I work is very simple, we just hang out, I pitch him an idea, usually he starts drawing stuff on the spot, then we discuss the feel of the book, how the characters should look like and so on, he starts on a rough draft while I come up with the dialog, in that phase we see if something doesn’t work and we change it, then he does the final pages and it’s done.

    D.B. And since we only work late at night., this whole process involves absurd quantities of caffeine.

    6C pag 05

    Your webcomic was published in English, Spanish, Portuguese, German and soon in Italian, how big was its success and how geographically spread was it?
    G.P. The Deal has had over 1.3 million views worldwide, its been seen all over the place, North America, South America, Europe, Asia, pretty much everywhere. It’s still shoking to think about it.

    D.B. It is unveliavable the number of people who had seen this, we never expected this kind of reaction when we first upload it to our blog, we where thinking only our friends would take a look at it, maybe a couple of hundreds, but it took a life on it’s own.

    After Batman: The Deal, Daredevil: The Man Without Fashion Sense! a humorous story, El Cid a western horror, a classic horror story as 6C and God’s end a superhero comic again were published. It’s clear that you like vary through genres! What we should expect from the next story?
    G.P. From the beginning we wanted the blog to resemble an anthology magazine like Heavy Metal, that is why the type of stories and even styles of illustration vary a lot from some stories to others. I think you’ll see a little more sci fi and a little more humor.
    D.B. Right now we have a new story, involving the other big superhero archetype, and it is recieving lots of coments.

    Gods End portada

    May you tell us something more about the other stories that you published?
    G.P. 6C came from a nightmare I had, it was a very creepy one so we decided to make it a silent comic. We decided early on to focus on short stories so we could build some momentum and gain experience, I also love short stories like 2000AD’s future shocks, so you can see a little bit of that on El Cid, I think.

    A graphic novel you started working on was mentioned on your blog, may you tell us something more?
    G.P. I think it’s the best story I’ve come up with, I’ve had that story for over 10 years probably, I hope we can get started on that project very soon. Other than that I can’t tell you anything!

    We thank Gerardo Preciado and Daniel Bayliss for availability

    January, 2014

     

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