Portuguese comics (

Portuguese Portuguese may refer to: * anything of, from, or related to the country and nation of Portugal ** Portuguese cuisine, traditional foods ** Portuguese language, a Romance language *** Portuguese dialects, variants of the Portuguese language ** Portu ...

: ''Banda desenhada portuguesa'') are comics created in

Portugal Portugal, officially the Portuguese Republic ( pt, República Portuguesa, links=yes ), is a country whose mainland is located on the Iberian Peninsula of Southwestern Europe, and whose territory also includes the Atlantic archipelagos of ...

or by

authors.

Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro (21 March 1846 – 23 January 1905; spelled Raphael Bordallo Pinheiro in older Portuguese orthography) was a Portuguese artist known for his illustration, caricatures, sculpture, and ceramics designs. Bordalo Pinheiro ...

Carlos Botelho Carlos Botelho (18 September 1899, in Lisbon – 18 August 1982, in Lisbon) was a Portuguese painter, illustrator, comics artist, political cartoonist, satirist and caricaturist, whose works are shown at the Chiado Museum and at the ...

, and

João Abel Manta João Abel Manta (29 January 1928 in Lisbon) is a Portuguese architect, painter, illustrator and cartoonist. Biography João Abel Manta is the son of the painters Abel Manta and Maria Clementina Carneiro de Moura Manta. He is married to Maria ...

are some of the most notable early Portuguese cartoonists.

History

The first Portuguese

comic book A comic book, also called comicbook, comic magazine or (in the United Kingdom and Ireland) simply comic, is a publication that consists of comics art in the form of sequential juxtaposed panels that represent individual scenes. Panels are of ...

was possibly ''Apontamentos de Raphael Bordallo Pinheiro Sobre a Picaresca Viagem do Imperador de Rasilb pela Europa'' (1872), by

. Pinheiro later created Zé Povinho, the cartoon character of a

everyman The everyman is a stock character of fiction. An ordinary and humble character, the everyman is generally a protagonist whose benign conduct fosters the audience's identification with them. Origin The term ''everyman'' was used as early as ...

. Zé Povinho became first a symbol of the Portuguese working-class people, and eventually into the unofficial personification of

. Between 1926 and 1929 Pinheiro regularly drew comic strips for the children's weekly ''ABCzinho'', "and is the author of almost the entire front and back pages of each issue, in color". In 1928,

started a comics page in the weekly publication ''Sempre Fixe'', a collaboration that he maintained for over 22 years and which was the stage for a caustic criticism of a vast range of issues, going from trivial matters of daily life in Lisbon to some of the most relevant events in international life, in a "style that mixed up chronicle, autobiography, journalism, and satire,"Marcos Farrajota
"Desassossego"
(reprinting his article of introduction to Portuguese comics for ''Š!'' magazine) making it an early example of

autobiographical comics An autobiographical comic (also autobio, graphic memoir, or autobiocomic) is an autobiography in the form of comic books or comic strips. The form first became popular in the underground comix movement and has since become more widespread. It is c ...

. On 8 December 1950, the date when Botelho ended that monumental cycle of work, his ''Ecos da Semana'' ("Echoes of the Week") made a total of about 1,200 pages, "in a continuous discourse with no intervals or holidays". "''Ecos da Semana'' are a double, and triple, diary – of the author, between his 29 and 51 years of age, and of a country, or of a world."

is of particular importance in the area of the cartoon, and is considered to be "the most extraordinary case of Portuguese cartoon drawing of he 20th century only comparable oBordalo Pinheiro himself". Manta's activity as a cartoonist was from approximately 1954 to 1991, being particularly intense between 1969 and 1976. For about seven years his cartoons — dealing critically and deeply ironically with Portuguese reality — were published regularly in newspapers like the ''Diário de Lisboa'', ''

Diário de Notícias ''Diário de Notícias'' () is a Portuguese daily newspaper published in Lisbon, Portugal. Established since 1864, the paper is considered a newspaper of record for Portugal. History and profile ''Diário de Notícias'' was first published in ...

'', and '' O Jornal''. Manta's cartoons marked the period before the 25th of April (revolution) with their unique and meticulous graphic quality. He questioned the identity of a country in turmoil in drawings such as ''A Difficult Problem'', where a group of outstanding figures from the past – from

Karl Marx Karl Heinrich Marx (; 5 May 1818 – 14 March 1883) was a German philosopher, economist, historian, sociologist, political theorist, journalist, critic of political economy, and socialist revolutionary. His best-known titles are the 1848 ...

Trotsky Lev Davidovich Bronstein. ( – 21 August 1940), better known as Leon Trotsky; uk, link= no, Лев Давидович Троцький; also transliterated ''Lyev'', ''Trotski'', ''Trotskij'', ''Trockij'' and ''Trotzky''. (), was a Russian M ...

and

Sartre Jean-Paul Charles Aymard Sartre (, ; ; 21 June 1905 – 15 April 1980) was one of the key figures in the philosophy of existentialism (and phenomenology), a French playwright, novelist, screenwriter, political activist, biographer, and lite ...

– stare inquisitively at a small map of Portugal on a blackboard. Manta "will be associated in a very particular way to the best and worst that we lived through in Portugal during those years."

Authors

Works

*'' The Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy'' *''A fórmula da felicidade'' *''Hans, o cavalo cansado'' *''Kuroneko'' *''Março Anormal'' *'' The Positives'' *''TMG - The Mighty Gang''

Magazines

*''Banzai'' *'' O Gafanhoto'' *'' O Mosquito''

Characters

* Zé Povinho * Tom Vitoin

Publishers

* Chili Com Carne * Edições Devir *El Pep * Goody *Kingpin Books * Levoir * Planeta *Polvo

Festivals

* Comic Con Portugal — held in

Porto Porto or Oporto () is the second-largest city in Portugal, the capital of the Porto District, and one of the Iberian Peninsula's major urban areas. Porto city proper, which is the entire municipality of Porto, is small compared to its metropol ...

* Amadora BD — Festival Internacional de Banda Desenhada; held annually since 1990 *Festival de BD de Beja

References

External links

AmadoraBD official website

Comic Con Portugal official website
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