Utopia

Utopia is (was?) a 4 page, black and white comic story drawn by José Pinto Coelho, aka Z!, made for the 2008 edition of Amadora’s International Comics Festival (FIBDA) which had a science fiction theme. The inspiration (let’s call it that) came from all the sci-fi comics I had at home. I selected the 2 or 3 best ones and mixed their subjects into a single story.

Surprisingly the story wasn’t exhibited even though Z!'s art was so worth it.

 

Without finding some way to publish the story, I found an online edition looking for submissions. Created by Richard Evans, creator of The Canadian Legion, so that the members of Whitechapel, Warren Ellis’ message board, could participate with any kind of work (poetry, articles, photography, comics), The Penny Dreadful was open to anyone who wished to see their works published online.

   

With Penny Dreadful on a (permanent) hiatus, we decided to end this pursuit of a permanent home to the story by publishing it for good through the good old ink-on-a-sheet-of-paper method. Enter Zona Fantástica, a fantasy themed anthology presented at Fantasporto, Oporto’s horror and fantasy cinema festival.

It wouldn’t make sense to have a black and white comic in a full color book so Fil volunteered to do the colors and a new lettering.

In May 2010 Beja’s International Comics Festival exhibited the most recent Zona publication and, with Utopia available within the pages of Zona Fantástica, one of the pages was displayed in Casa da Cultura where the main exhibitions were available alongside with amazing artists such as Niko Henrichon, Fábio Moon and Gabriel Bá, Hippolyte, Fabio Civitelli or Dame Darcy.

This tale is available for free to anyone who read it at The Penny Dreadul #2