Manoel Messias de Mello (

Maceió Maceió (), formerly sometimes Anglicised as Maceio, is the capital and the largest city of the coastal state of Alagoas, Brazil. The name "Maceió" is an Indigenous term for a spring. Most maceiós flow to the sea, but some get trapped and form la ...

, August 16h, 1904 -

São Paulo São Paulo (, ; Portuguese for 'Saint Paul') is the most populous city in Brazil, and is the capital of the state of São Paulo, the most populous and wealthiest Brazilian state, located in the country's Southeast Region. Listed by the GaWC a ...

, October 18th, 1994), better known as Messias de Mello, was a Brazilian illustrator and painter. Born in

Alagoas Alagoas (, ) is one of the 27 federative units of Brazil and is situated in the eastern part of the Northeast Region. It borders: Pernambuco (N and NW); Sergipe (S); Bahia (SW); and the Atlantic Ocean (E). Its capital is the city of Maceió. It ...

, he moved to São Paulo in the 1930s. He started working as designer of posters and shop windows, until he got a job as an illustrator at Gazeta Juvenil, a children's supplement for the newspaper A Gazeta. At Gazeta Juvenil, where he worked between 1936 and 1939, Messias de Mello created comic book characters and illustrated several classics of literature, such as

The Three Musketeers ''The Three Musketeers'' (french: Les Trois Mousquetaires, links=no, ) is a French historical adventure novel written in 1844 by French author Alexandre Dumas. It is in the swashbuckler genre, which has heroic, chivalrous swordsmen who fight f ...

, The Man in the Iron Mask,

Robinson Crusoe ''Robinson Crusoe'' () is a novel by Daniel Defoe, first published on 25 April 1719. The first edition credited the work's protagonist Robinson Crusoe as its author, leading many readers to believe he was a real person and the book a tra ...

, among others. In the following years, he worked for several Brazilian comic book publishers, creating comics of his own and also based on personalities such as clowns Arrelia and Pimentinha and actors

Oscarito Oscarito, stage name of Oscar Lorenzo Jacinto de la Inmaculada Concepción Teresa Diaz (August 16, 1906 – August 4, 1970) was a Spanish-Brazilian actor, considered to be one of the most popular comedians of Brazil. Life Born in a family of c ...

and

Grande Otelo Grande Otelo (October 18, 1915 – November 26, 1993) was the stage name of Brazilian actor, comedian, singer, and composer Sebastião Bernardes de Souza Prata. Otelo was born in Uberlândia, and was orphaned as a child. He kept running away from ...

, as well as comics about

Spiritism Spiritism (French: ''spiritisme''; Portuguese: ''espiritismo'') is a spiritualist, religious, and philosophical doctrine established in France in the 1850s by the French teacher, educational writer, and translator Hippolyte Léon Denizard Riva ...

. In 1985, he was awarded the

Prêmio Angelo Agostini for Master of National Comics Master of National Comics ( pt-BR, Mestre do Quadrinho Nacional) is one of the categories of Prêmio Angelo Agostini, the most traditional Brazilian award dedicated to comics that has been held since 1985 by Associação dos Quadrinhistas e Carica ...

, an award that aims to honor artists who have dedicated themselves to

Brazilian comics Brazilian comics (known in Brazilian Portuguese as ''HQs, gibis, revistinhas, historietas'', ''quadrinhos'' or ''tirinhas'') started in the 19th century, adopting a satirical style known as cartoon, charges or caricature that would later be cemen ...

for at least 25 years. Messias de Mello was work with

oil An oil is any nonpolar chemical substance that is composed primarily of hydrocarbons and is hydrophobic (does not mix with water) & lipophilic (mixes with other oils). Oils are usually flammable and surface active. Most oils are unsaturated ...

and

acrylic painting Acrylic paint is a fast-drying paint made of pigment suspended in acrylic polymer emulsion and plasticizers, silicone oils, defoamers, stabilizers, or metal soaps. Most acrylic paints are water-based, but become water-resistant when dry. Depe ...

s, having participated in several exhibitions and won several awards.

References

{{LatAm-comics-creator-stub Brazilian comics artists Prêmio Angelo Agostini winners Brazilian cartoonists Brazilian painters Brazilian illustrators