February 1, 2022

12:02

Bruno Pacheco – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – An ever-growing segment, dominated by the American publishers DC Comics and Marvel Comics, comic books – or HQs – have been conquering a legion of fans and gaining adepts all over the world. In the Brazilian scenario, artists from the Amazon stand out in the area with illustrations about the region’s culture, also approaching themes related to the fight of the indigenous people and in favor of the environment.

In this National Comic Strip Week, created to celebrate the National Comic Strip Day (January 30), meet the authors who bring to life drawings that symbolize strength and resistance and that were built on the mythological history of ancestors.

Paulo Teles Yonami

A native of Manaus, the capital of Amazonas state, 36-year-old cartoonist Paulo Teles, known as Yonami, has been drawing comics for about 18 years. In 2020, the artist was officially announced as one of the collaborating cartoonists for Marvel, which owns the rights to images of iconic characters such as Spider-Man, Captain America, and Iron Man.

“I have always worked with comics independently. I started out doing illustrations in newspaper stories, then I started working in advertising, at which time I went into comics all at once. I studied at Quanta Academy of Arts, worked at publishers like Marvel, DC, TidalMate, and today I’m working at TidalWave”, Yonami told CENARIUM MAGAZINE.

The cartoonist is the author of the series “The Midnith Witch”, which references myths, tales, and various cultures around the world in a graphic novel, which is a type of comic strip published in book format. Besides this, Yonami is the author of “Amazônidas – Guardians of the Forests”, which transforms mythological indigenous figures into comic book characters.

From 2012 to 2019, Yonami has agencyed cartoonists such as Ronilson Freire, Carlos Furuzono and worked with Mike Deodato Jr, Will Conrad, Luke Roise, Fabio Laguna, with publishers such as Marvel and DC Comics. Recently, the artist has also worked with advertising illustrations for basketball teams of the NBA, the main American basketball league, such as the Boston Celtics.

Currently, Paulo Teles Yonami has focused his work on cover productions and illustrations, as well as coordinating his team at the studio House 137, producing comics for publishers such as Graphic India and Tidal Wave Productions.

Leon Sarmento

Leon Sarmento, 27, is an Amazonian cartoonist, comic book artist, and designer. Co-author of the comic book Super Grandpa, the artist is a fan of the Geek world and loves characters such as Batman, Superman, Elektra, Blaster, and Iron Man.

The cartoonist says he started drawing when he was a child, when he watched Japanese animations such as Dragon Ball Z. With the productions, Leon earned money, because he sold the drawings to buy snacks. Currently, the artist is a collaborator of the Geek One team, in Manaus.

Inspired by the daily life of the population on the streets of Manaus, Leon Samento, together with the artist Guto Nery Medeiros, created the character Super Grandpa, whose story portrays an old man who acts as a watchman in the capital of Amazonas and sells popsicles in the city in his spare time.

Besides Super Grandpa, Leon Samento is also the author of the role-playing game “Ubiratã”, which pays tribute to Amazonian culture, indigenous mythology, and Brazilian folklore. The game shows the tale of Guaraci, the Sun god who, even though married to the moon goddess, Jaci, lives a hidden romance with Êêma, an indigenous woman of enchanting beauty from the Sateré-Mawé people.

According to the legend, Guaraci and Êêma have a daughter named Baômi, who grows up as a child prodigy and discovers in her youth the demigods’ powers. The game is accompanied by a book, the result of a Final Coursework in Graphic Design by illustrator Leon Sarmento, done in partnership with three other people.

Emerson Medina and Romahs Mascarenhas

Scriptwriter and journalist Emerson Medina and cartoonist Romahs Mascarenhas are the authors of the Amazonian comic strip “A Última Flecha” (The Last Arrow), which portrays a story of revenge originating from the extermination of an indigenous people. The graphic novel was selected as one of the 100 greatest works of the decade when it entered the HQ Brazil Catalogue of the Curitiba Biennial, compiling the most relevant works produced in Brazil between 2010 and 2019.

In an interview to CENARIUM MAGAZINE, Medina told about the works produced by him. “I already did fanzines in the 1990s and I was in the Clube de Quadrinheiros de Manaus (CQM). In 2019, I released, with Romahs Mascarenhas “The Last Arrow”, a graphic novel about revenge set in Manaus. It was nominated in 2020 for the Aberst Award and the HQMIX 2020. This is the biggest national award for comics. It also entered the Guia Brasil de Quadrinhos, with the 100 outstanding Brazilian comics of the decade. It is a bilingual material – French and English – distributed to the Brazilian embassies abroad”, he reinforced.

Emerson Medina highlights that he has been seeking space in the comics scene in Amazonas and in Brazil. For the cartoonist, even with the national comic book being a niche dominated by manga, Marcel, and DC, comics have been growing every year.

“We are in search of this space. We have a production scene in Amazonas. We want to reach readers from North to South. The professionals are getting spaces in other markets. Romahs and his daughter Beatriz Mascarenhas are scriptwriters for MSP (Maurício de Souza Produções – Turma da Mônica). Ademar Vieira went to São Paulo to work with screenplays. Sâmela Hidalgo is a comics editor for a major publisher in SP, and so on”, he emphasized.