Otacílio Costa d’Assunção Barros (July 4, 1954 – September 24, 2021), better known as Ota, was a Brazilian journalist,

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

comics artist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and g ...

and editor. He was born in

Rio de Janeiro Rio de Janeiro ( , , ; literally 'River of January'), or simply Rio, is the capital of the state of the same name, Brazil's third-most populous state, and the second-most populous city in Brazil, after São Paulo. Listed by the GaWC as a b ...

, and started his career in 1970 at Editora Brasil-América Limitada (EBAL), then the largest Brazilian comic book publishing house. He also published independent comics in the 1970s, such as the

comic strip A comic strip is a sequence of drawings, often cartoons, arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions. Traditionally, throughout the 20th and into the 21st ...

''Os Birutas''. In 1974, working at Vecchi publishing house, he became editor of the Brazilian edition of

Mad magazine Mad, mad, or MAD may refer to: Geography * Mad (village), a village in the Dunajská Streda District of Slovakia * Mád, a village in Hungary * Adolfo Suárez Madrid–Barajas Airport, by IATA airport code * Mad River (disambiguation), several r ...

, a position he continued to hold in other publishing houses that published Mad: Record (1984–2000), Mythos (2000–2006) and Panini (2008). He left the magazine after the seventh edition of the Panini's version due to creative differences with Raphael Fernandes, who took care of the foreign material (Ota was only editor of the national material in Panini's Mad). Ota won the

Troféu HQ Mix Troféu HQ Mix is a Brazilian comics award. The prize was created in 1989 by João Gualberto Costa (Gual) and José Alberto Lovetro (Jal), members of the Association of the Brazilian Cartoonists. The name refers to the television show about comics ...

as best writer in 1995 and the

Prêmio Angelo Agostini Prêmio Angelo Agostini (Angelo Agostini Award), sometimes also called Troféu Angelo Agostini (Angelo Agostini Trophy), is the most traditional comics award in Brazil. It was created in 1985 by the Associação dos Quadrinhistas e Caricaturistas ...

as "Master of the National Comics" in 2003. Ota was found dead on September 24, 2021, in his apartment in

Tijuca Tijuca () (meaning marsh or swamp in the Tupi language, from ''ty'' ("water") and ''îuk'' ("rotten")) is a neighbourhood of the Northern Zone of the city of Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. It comprises the region of Saens Peña and Afonso Pena squar ...

, near Rio de Janeiro.

References

1954 births 2021 deaths Brazilian journalists Brazilian comics artists Brazilian comics writers Brazilian cartoonists Comic book publishers (people) Comic book editors People from Rio de Janeiro (city) Prêmio Angelo Agostini winners {{Brazil-journalist-stub