Happy Friday bookworms! Today I'm excited to be sharing another author interview with you all! I had a great time talking with Camilo Moncada Lozano all about Codex Black: A Fire Among Clouds, his upcoming graphic novel! I loved the mythology and artwork in this book, check out my review for more of my thoughts! This book comes out April 4th and you can preorder your copy here! Synopsis: Donají is a fearless Zapotec girl who, even though she’s only fifteen, is heralded as a hero by her village. In Codex Black, Donají sets out on an adventure–accompanied by the god that lives inside of her poncho–to find her missing father. Along the way, she meets a 17-year-old winged Mexica warrior named Itzcacalotl, and over time their temporary partnership blooms into an incredible friendship. The search brings the young pair closer to danger and deeper into myster than either could have predicted. What exactly was Donají's father involved with? And how did a simple search for a missing relative lead Donají and Itzcacalotl into a fight with a terrifying bat monster to defend an entire village? Content warnings
Violence Hello Camilo! Welcome to Page by Paige Books! I am so excited to chat with you today. To get things started I’d love to get to know you a bit more. Could you share 3 fun facts about yourself? Hi Paige! Thanks for having me. As for fun facts, I’m left handed, and because of this, I often draw my characters doing things with their left hands accidentally. I can speak Spanish, English, and Japanese, which I’ve been studying since high school. Finally, I have an obsession with crows and ravens, which has got to the point where all my close friends immediately think of me whenever they come across anything crow related. They have even sent me crow feathers from abroad, as I collect them. I started said collection in the brief time I lived in Vancouver, Canada, where I would pick all the feathers I could spot on the side walks, though sadly it hasn’t grown much larger ever since, because there are no crows in Mexico City at all. Congratulations on the upcoming publication of Codex Black: A Fire Among Clouds! This story is filled with action, mythology, and interesting characters. What inspired you to create the Codex Black series? Actually, Codex Black is a crossover in a sense, as I created both Donají and Itzcacalotl for two separate projects. Eventually, since both characters were from the same time period, I started daydreaming about putting them together in an adventure, and thus began writing down ideas of potential situations they could be in, as well as the kind of interactions they would have. With time, the initial simple idea evolved into an epic series of bigger proportions than I originally intended, which is pretty much the way most of my projects end up. As for inspirations, it is no secret that Japanese manga and anime are among those that have influenced me the most. In the case of Codex Black, it were particularly those with an emphasis on adventure, like Fullmetal Alchemist, and InuYasha. Likewise, certain mythical structures from Mesoamerican cosmogony play a major role in the way I built the path for Donají & Itzcacalotl’s journey. The art style in Codex Black was a lot of fun and created an immersive reading experience. Do you have any tips for someone who wants to improve their artistic skills? I’m a self-taught artist, and sometimes I regret not having put the time into studying the fundamentals more seriously. Therefore I would struggle to give advice on something I’ve navigated through by sheer intuition. The one thing I can say though, is that I think that keeping it fun or enjoyable is very important, if not to improve artistic skills, as a motivation to keep it going, which with time will inevitably result in improvement. I love learning about mythology and I enjoyed reading about the Mesoamerican myths in Codex Black: A Fire Among Clouds, what was your research process like while you were writing this story? My fascination for Mesoamerican mythology, cultures, and history, long predate Codex Black in itself, so by the time I first conceived the story, I was already pretty soaked in literature on the subject. I mostly read books on anthropology, archaeology, and history, which I find myself reading even more often than fiction, taking notes when necessary. Besides research in books, I also have travelled to several of the regions depicted in the story, to where I always bring a camera, in order to get visual references on the landscapes my protagonists may travel through. I also like to visit museums and take pictures of all the objects and miniatures, as well as closely studying the surviving Mesoamerican codices, to incorporate some of their graphic styles into my character designs and such. All in all, you could say it’s an obsessive process of diving into all I can find about Mesoamerica, until it somehow becomes second nature. Codex Black initially started as a webcomic, and it’s now become a graphic novel series, which is so exciting! What advice would you give to your past self when you first began the series? I would definitely warn him about working on a standard page size instead of some arbitrary custom size! Other than that, as much as I love inking traditionally, due to the sheer amount of pages in these books, I’d insist on him finding a way to cut corners digitally, and establish a workflow that allows other people to hop in and help without disrupting the whole process. Going from being a completely solitary creator to a team based work has been quite the challenge for me. I enjoyed following our main characters Donají and Itzcacalotl on their journey and seeing them get to know one another. Which character do you relate to more, and why? Amongst the two protagonists, I definitely relate more to Itzcacalotl. Donají has a special place in my heart, but in many ways you could say she’s my antithesis, with her courageous, impulsive, and sometimes even aggressive nature, we’re nothing alike! If anything, one of our only similarities would be our headstrong reluctance to ask for help when we most need it. Several people who personally know me have said that they see me in Itzcacalotl’s character, perhaps because of his calm demeanor. They’re probably right, but I still think that we have some fundamental differences, as he is a very carefree, go-with-the-wind sort of character, while I’m more of a methodic and cautious person. Surprisingly enough, I think I more closely relate to some of the antagonistic characters that will be formally introduced later on in the series. I am always looking for more graphic novels to read. Do you have any that you would recommend for fans of your work? As I had mentioned, most of my influence comes from manga, so I don’t have many graphic novels to recommend (if anything, I would love to get the recommendations myself!). There’s a particular manga series named Akatsuki no Yona or Yona of the Dawn by Mizuho Kusanagi, to which I’ve been really hooked up for the last few years. The story is set in a fictional world, but in a time period that is richly influenced by a mix of ancient Japanese, Korean, and Chinese cultures, with fantasy elements which remind me a lot of Codex Black, and it also has a strong willed young girl as a protagonist, so I would definitely recommend it to those who liked my work. Despite that, I’ve also been a fan of Brian Lee O’Malley’s work for some time, having enjoyed both Scott Pilgrim and Seconds. Thank you so much for chatting with me about Codex Black: A Fire Among Clouds! My last question for you is, do you have any upcoming projects that you’re currently working on? Well, for the time being I’ll be fully focusing on Codex Black, as it will be a long ride (I’m already deep into the process of drawing book 2). It is, however, part of an expanded universe, and I have several other stories in the back-burner that are related to the series in one way or another. There’s one in particular that I would like to work on simultaneously to the graphic novels, which deals with the origins of “the Crow” as a mythical being endemic to my universe, following the life of an ancient sorceress named Hoh. A sort of prequel taking place over 9000 years prior to Codex Black. I still don’t know what shape this story will adopt (Comic? Animation? A short novel?), but I can say that it will deal with somewhat more mature and darker themes than those of Donají & Itzcacalotl’s adventures. Author Information Camilo Moncada Lozano is a Mexican artist based in Mexico City. Lover of crows, mythology, and Japanese culture. Despite his background as an animator and visual arts graduate, his true passion lies in creating characters and telling their stories. He has spent most of his life weaving a fictional universe that connects all these stories, one of which is Codex Black. The development of an obsession. His friends often can't remember the last time they saw him, some even wonder if he's actually real. "I like crows."
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorPaige is a bookstagrammer and blogger who loves all things bookish. From fantasy to mystery she can’t get enough! She’s always ready to recommend you a book and she can talk about her favourites all day. When she’s not reading, you can find her watching Marvel movies, playing video games, and taking bookstagram photos. Visit her on Instagram and Twitter for more updates. Categories
All
Archives
May 2024
|