I am terrible when it comes to provide updates on my work, as it is quite clear by looking at the frequency of the posts on this page. 

That said, no updates shared does not mean that there is no new material on its way.

Comics

If you have checked the That Spooky Girl (season 3) section of this website, you have probably noticed that a 30 chapters long arc was completed in Autumn 2023. Looking at my previous post below from early 2020 (how much have things changed since those surreal days of lockdown!), I find it funny to notice how back then I had not even settled on what would have become the final title of that part of the comic, which became the recently concluded That Spooky Girl - Dark Light. You do not need to know how my original draft notes looked like, but believe me when I say that the final result turned out to be much better of what I had originally envisioned, particularly in the treatment of Leni as the central character of the story.

Also, almost four years ago I mentioned the intention of creating a TSG spin-off titled Soulbusters. Is it still a thing? Well, sort of. The Soulbusters characters will definitely make their unforgettable appearance, but I decided to mix things up and include them directly in what will be the final arc of TGS, Everdream. After the fifth rewrite of the storydraft since 2017 when the core ideas first came into my mind, I have finally settled on a story that I find both coherent, exciting, and with a hopefully satisfying finale. Unfortunately, based on my draft plan it will count 60 chapters, which makes it longer than all seasons 1, 2, and 3 combined. So, a titanic work ahead. And, truth be told, I do not feel ready for that, and I need to take a short break before embarking such years-long journey (please remember that I have a full-time job, and I can only dedicate evenings and weekends to the artistic output).

Most importantly, first I want more people to be able to read what I have already completed so far.

I am quite proud of how Dark Light turned out, and I still deemed Ducks from Outer Space presentable despite its flaws.

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said for the very beginning of the series, season 1 Frozen Bouquet, between a still very inconsistent artwork only realised in pencils and a sometimes too

shallow or inconsistent characterization with not so great dialogues. So my next goal is to fix the first season by inking the pencil illustrations, doing some correction to the artwork and editing the dialogues where necessary, adding a few extra panels, and aligning the page layout with what is seen for the later seasons.

Once this step is done, I am planning to find an appropriate webcominc platform with a broader reach to publish weekly the first 60 chapters of the story.

Novels

Before the comics, there were the novels (actually, other very amateurish comics came even before that, but this is another story). 

It has now been about a decade since I had been working on those, despite having been in the middle of the final instalment of a trilogy of books, a pause that had multiple reasons.

First, the books were written in Italian, my native tongue. Which in of itself would have not been an issue (apart from the very limited spread that this beautiful language has on a global scale), if not that I have been permanently living outside of Italy for over twelve years at the time of this post, barely ever reading, writing or even talking in that language. That made the already not easy task of writing a book feeling completely overwhelming.

Second, I really was not happy with the climax and finale that I had originally drafted.  

Then something happened over Christmas, while ironically I was walking around the Italian village where I grew up. Inspiration! Inspiration for a new story set in the same fantasy world in which the incomplete trilogy took place. That was the beginning of a snowball effect, which resulted in my current action plan.

I still like my original story and characters, but, seventeen years from its conception, I must be honest and admit that the books had some significant flaws largely caused by my inexperience, both as a writer and as a person. But now I am given a perfect opportunity to make amends, by trying to better retell the entire stories in a language accessible to most.

So, here are the next steps of my writing journey, which I hope can all take place between 2024 and 2025:

1. I will write an entirely new novel set before the events of my first novel La Porta, which will stand on its own as a book and not be a required reading to enjoy the originally conceived trilogy, but will largely explore the fictional world of Homelands and its lore, following the travels of two characters that I hope you will like. This new story will be Diaries of the Great Fall. 
2. I will combine my new ideas and current technology to help me rewrite in English the existing novels La Porta and Le ombre degli dei, with the objective to improve them and make them an even more engaging narrative set in a world with greater depth than the originals. I detain full right on those novesl, so I am luckily free to do such a drastic re-editing. Those will become The Gate of Fate and Shadows of the Fallen Gods.
3. As I have finally resolved the issues I had witht the original plot, I will go ahead and finish the story with the last entry in the series, The God-Emperor's Dogma.

So, no chances for me to get bored any time soon!

Hopefully, it will not take another four years for me to be able to share the next update.

FS

Back in November 2019 I finally completed the second season of my comic That Spooky Girl, concluding the Ducks from Outer Space story-arc. There haven't been updates here on the website since then, but who follows me on Instagram or on the Facebook page may have noticed I am still posting new material. So what's next?

At the moment, I am mostly focusing on another story set in the same universe of TSG, a sort of spin-off for a lack of better words. It will be called Soulbusters and will see a large and diverse cast of new characters with different sets o powers and most importantly personalities, with their adventures taking place in various places in Europe that are dear to me. And be reassured that they too will keep striking fancy poses to show off their fabulous looks.

Speaking of fabulous, Fabulous Visions from an Ominous Future is the draft title of the third season of That Spooky Girl, which I may actually end up calling TSG & Friends or something similar, since I'm planning to dedicate more space and focus on the rest of the main cast beside Jana. I have written the full general outline of the script for the whole season and on paper I'm pretty happy with it, now I'm finishing the sketch for the designs of new characters. 

Still in the realm of TSG, I have also started a long and tedious but long overdue activity, namely the inking of all the original pencil drawings for the first season. While I appreciate that especially in the very first chapters I drew back in 2016 the artwork is quite inconsistent, I don't want to simply let the first arc Frozen Bouquet being left alone in a closed. Although I am not planning to do many correction and improvement to the panels during the inking phase (I think it is just normal and reassuring that I got a bit better over time, though there is still a long way to go), I am sure the whole part shall look much better once I will be done with it.

At the beginning of this year I was considering starting a Kickstarter campaign to have at least the second season printed, but given the current economic climate resulting by the events that everyone not living under a rock knows, I think I'll look more into this towards year end, when hopefully things will have become a bit better.

In the meantime, stay safe and take the chance to read some good books and comics!

FS

After few years from my last encounter with cinema (I mean as an active participant, as a mere viewer I was there just yesterday to watch yet another cinecomic), I have again the chance to take part to an interesting project for a short movie, this time with higher artistic ambitions.

Long story short, a young Slovak cinema enthusiast and first-time director (who happens to be my colleague at the office) asked my to prepare the storyboard based on his screenplay.

I am not posting any material yet, but I hope to be soon able to let you know something more!

Ad alcuni anni di distanza dalla mia ultima esperienza cinematografica (intendo attiva, come mero spettatore sono stato in sala soltanto ieri a vedere l'ennesimo cinecomic), ho nuovamente l'opportunità di prendere parte a un interessante progetto per un corto, questa volta con ambizioni artistiche decisamente più elevate.

Venendo al sodo, un giovane cinefilo slovacco nonché regista esordiente (che è anche un mio collega in ufficio) mi ha chiesto di preparere uno storyboard basato sulla sua sceneggiatura.

Per il momento non posso ancora postare alcun materiale, ma spero di potervi fare presto sapere qualcosa di più!

I gues that some of my readers may be asking what happened to my novel that would have concluded the fantasy trilogy on which I was working, which has been left on a cliffhanger since  summer 2013.

The reality is that I am not trying to emulate G.R.R. Martin and make my book a little version of The Winds of Winter, but instead the development on that novel has been much more challenging and troublesome than originally expected.

I have actually already written a first draft of over 200 pages, but then I found myself facing a series of issues. Having been living outside of Italy for many years and having been reading mostly to English or German material, I first start feeling dissatisfied with my prose, so I took a break. I planned to finish the novel after the end of season 1 of my comic That Spooky Girl, but then I realised that there was what I could now see as a pretty big plot-hole at the very start of the book; of course that is something I was ready to fix, even though I realised it would have ment to re-write a large portion of subsequent events to take place in the story. To make matter worse, I have two different endings in mind, a good/bittersweet conclusion and a downer ending. After a couple of years, I am still unable to decide which path to follow.

So I want to apologies to those few people who actually liked and would like to see continued the story of Anastasia, Ville and friends, but as of now the series is unfortunately still on a hiatus and I do not expect to be able to release the last chapter of the trilogy any time soon.

Suppongo che alcuni dei miei lettori si stiano domandando che cosa sia successo al mio romanzo che sarebbe dovuto andare a concludere la trilogia fantasy sulla quale stavo lavorando, che è stata lasciata in sospeso con un cliffhanger dall'estate 2013.

La realtà è che non sto tentando di emulare G.R.R. Martin e fare del mio Il dogma di Kratos la versione dei poveri dell'attesissimo The Winds of Winter, bensì la lavorazione del libro si sta rivelando molto più complessa e problematica rispetto alle mie aspettative iniziali.

A onor del vero ho già redatto una prima bozza di oltre 200 pagine; tuttavia, mi sono poi trovato di fronte ad una lunga serie di problematica. Inizialmente, anche per via del fatto di vivere all'estero ormai da molti anni leggendo essenzialmente materiale in inglese o tedesco, avevo cominciato a riscontrare difficoltà in fase di scrittura e insoddisfazione con la mia prosa, che mi ha portato a decidere di prender una pausa. Avevo originariamente intenzione di riprendere dopo la conclusione della prima stagione del mio fumetto That Spooky Girl, ma una volta rimesse mani sulla bozza mi sono reso conto di un notevole buco di trama all'inzio del libro; ovviamente si trattava di un aspetto che ero pronto a correggere, sebbene consapevole che ciò avrebbe portato alla necessaria riscrittura di gran parte degli eventi successivi all'interno della storia. A peggiorare ulteriomente le cose ha contribuito il fatto che ho in mente due finali differenti, il primo più positivo dal carattere dolceamaro, il secondo decisamente più negativo; a distanza di un paio d'anni, non so ancora quale di queste due strade voglia davvero percorrere. 

Mi voglio pertanto scusare con i venticinque lettore che hanno apprezzato la storia finora e vorrebbero leggere la conclusione delle avventure di Anastasia, Ville e compagni, ma ad oggi la serie Le dinastie di Gaea è al momento in pausa di riflessioe e non credo sarò in grado di terminare l'ultimo capitolo della trilogia in tempi brevi.

As you know by now, I have always loved writing and illustrating comics. However, due to the lack of source material, the comic-blog experiment lead to a dead end after only a couple of entries, now dated aeons ago.

Therefore, I decided to dedicate those energies to an entirely different project, based on a fictional stories in which, if there is the chance, I could always throw in some real-life situations that on their own would have not been enough to justify a comic strip, even less a whole short story!

That's the genesis of my miniseries That Spooky Girl, which tells stories of the superhero genre without taking itself too seriously. You can follow the adventures of those new charactes and their attempt to protect the streets of Prague in the section Webcomics and Illustrations of this website or on my Facebook page.

Scrivere e illustrare storie a fumetti mi è sempre piaciuto. Tuttavia, causa mancanza di materiale sul quale lavorare, l'esperimento del blog è naufragato nel giro di soli un paio di episodi ormai immemorabile tempo addietro. 

Ho quindi deciso di dedicare quelle energie a un progetto interamente diverso, in cui la base di partenza sia una storia di fantasia nella quale, se ne capita l'occasione, inserire eventualmente alcuni elementi che da soli non avrebbero giustificato un'intera storiella (probabilmente neppure una striscia).

Nasce così quindi la miniserie That Spooky Girl, una serie di racconti a stampo supereroistico che non vuole prendersi troppo sul serio. Potete seguire le avventure dei vari personaggi intenti a proteggere come meglio possono le strade praghesi tanti nella sezione Illustrazioni, fumetti & webcomics  su questo sito o sulla mia pagina Facebook.

Sarcasm included. As my life is really not exciting enough to make my blog a must-read, I decided to make one mostly in comics format, so at least there are some drawings to look at. Of course, as I need interesting content in order to be able to draw something, this section will be probably update once every planetary allineation.

Sarcasmo incluso nel prezzo. Visto che la mia vita non è poi così eccitante da rendere il mio blog un appuntamento imperdibile, ho deciso di crearne uno a fumetti, almeno ci sono anche i disegnini e fa un pochino più di figura. Almeno si spera. Ovviamente, necessitando di contenuti degni di essere disegnati e raccontati, sarà probabilmente aggiornato una volta ogni morte di papa (non me ne voglia il s.s. Francesco).

ps: prima che lo facciate notare voi: sì , l'idea di avere un blog a fumetti mi venuta seguendo Zerocalcare, solo che lui è immensamente più bravo in questo!   

pps: visto che ho tantissimi amici in giro per il mondo, il blog a fumetti è in inglese, ma tanto non è difficile da capire! 

This is not a blog post or a comic strip, but I am sharing this regardless.

Together with some friends, we took part to a competition called 48 Hours Movie Project (Edinburgh 2013 edition), in which all groups participating had to write the screenplay, shoot and edit a short movie in (guess what) only 48 hours, based on some generale guidelines provided only 1 hour before the start.

We were assigned "superheroes" and "jok seeker" and this is the end result.

At the end of the day, you can see that I am quite literally a clown.

Anyway, it was a really fun experience, which I definitely recommend if an edition of this competition ever takes place close to your city!

Non è un vero post da blog, non è nemmeno una storiella a fumetti, ma la pubblico ugualmente.

Io ed alcuni amici abbiamo partecipato ad un concorso chiamato 48 Hours Movie Project, in cui i vari gruppi dovevano scrivere, girare e montare un cortometraggio in soltanto (provate ad indovinare?) 48 ore, attenendosi ad alcune linee guide fornite solo un'ora prima dell'inizio.

A noi toccarono i supereroi ed un personaggio in cerca di lavoro, e questo è il risultato.

La morale della favola è che sono letteralmente un pagliaccio.

Devi traslocare entro due settimane. Hai programmato un breve viaggio estero. Stai cercando lavoro. Cosa potrebbe mai succedere se il tuo coinquilino se ne fosse andato in un altro continente dall'oggi al domani chiedendoti il piccolo favore di occuparti della spedizione dei suoi libri?

Da questa esperienza ho imparato due cose: la prima è l'importanza di saper dire NO! qualche volta, la seconda è di evitare come la peste la filiale scozzese di DHL.

Devi traslocare entro due settimane. Hai programmato un breve viaggio estero. Stai cercando lavoro. Cosa potrebbe mai succedere se il tuo coinquilino se ne fosse andato in un altro continente dall'oggi al domani chiedendoti il piccolo favore di occuparti della spedizione dei suoi libri?

Da questa esperienza ho imparato due cose: la prima è l'importanza di saper dire NO! qualche volta, la seconda è di evitare come la peste la filiale scozzese di DHL.

La situazione la conosciamo tutti: se si è tra i venti e i trentacinque anni in questo periodo di crisi è dura, anche se hai tre lauree e parli cinque lingue. Se ci aggiungete avere fumetti e libri come principale interesse, ecco che il risultato non è nemmeno sparare sulla croce rossa, ma proprio andare a caccia di conigli a bordo di un Hind-D (e se non sapete cos'è un Hind-D, vuol dire che avete trascorso un'infanzia o adolescenza infelice senza mai giocare a Metal Gear Solid). 

La situazione la conosciamo tutti: se si è tra i venti e i trentacinque anni in questo periodo di crisi è dura, anche se hai tre lauree e parli cinque lingue. Se ci aggiungete avere fumetti e libri come principale interesse, ecco che il risultato non è nemmeno sparare sulla croce rossa, ma proprio andare a caccia di conigli a bordo di un Hind-D (e se non sapete cos'è un Hind-D, vuol dire che avete trascorso un'infanzia o adolescenza infelice senza mai giocare a Metal Gear Solid). 

If you had a look at my bio, you would know I am living in Edinburgh and I went through Germany and Czech Republic before ending up here. However, once in a while I have to remind family and friends how I looks like (of course taking the chance for a sales-pitch of my books), so it happens that in the process I find myself reflecting on life.

Se aveste dato un'occhiata alla mia biografia sapreste che vivo ad Edimburgo e che sono passato per Germania e Repubblica Ceca prima di finire qui; tuttavia, di tanto in tanto devo ricordare alla mia famiglia e ai miei amici d'infanzia che faccia ho (approfittando ovviamente dell'occasione per fare il piazzista con chi fra loro ancora non ha comprato i miei libri), quindi capita che nel processo mi lasci andare a qualche riflessione.