HQ: Do You Read?
Brazil Has A Funny Way of Shortening their Word For Comics
Over the years I’ve noticed little things about comics from Brazil trying to come over the USA. But they’ve been shaky at best.
Starting Young
Some people have probably heard of or saw a little of something called Monica Adventures on Papercutz before it was absorbed into Mad Cave Studios.
The marketing it received thanks to Free Comic Book Day 2019(?) made it probably the most notable example on this post.
This along with Vincent were some people’s first look at Brazilian comics.
But here’s the thing, nobody knew that.
They were marketed as “global” or “culture-neutral”. Even the translations they had removed any and all mention of anything Brazilian.
Now there’s nothing inherently wrong with that, who remembers growing up watching Pokémon or Yu-Gi-Oh! as a kid and not knowing or caring that they came from Japan?
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Admittedly, the problem with that comparison is they were part of a bigger wave that got its momentum decades prior to the 90s.
Like Voltron and Speed-
Moving on!
Papercutz didn’t really approach these as something to start a similar impact. They were just books that they thought kids and libraries would want to put up. Probably because of the comparisons to Archie comics.
Problem is, even on a casual basis they were pretty sloppy about it. The Monica material they brought over was basically whatever they could get their hands on. For all the marketing done, it was over pretty unsatisfying books that didn’t have much payoff or sequence. Even the irony that some books were aiming for came off as trollish.
Vincent despite having a more stable release and reception was just another book on the catalogue. When Papercutz was undergoing changes with it being acquired by Mad Cave, its third story was apparently published by the still developing Maverick imprint. But there was no marketing or push around this. It just appeared in stores with no further copies, nothing digital either.
If you know me, you know I’ve been around for Maverick’s first days. Even if I ask Frank Silva or Mark London what this was all about, they probably won’t even remember seeing it. If I have to guess, Vincent vol. 3 was a test run for distribution to bookstores.
So they were done with them all.
Not so great a look if any Brazilian publishers want to do business in the states. And the company behind Monica is the biggest one in Brazil.
Quick Side Note
This did get further than something called Spirit of the Amazon that was planned for US publication in the 2000s. That stalled and couldn’t reach a wide enough distribution to even make a mention.
Hidden in the Digital Jungle
A few Brazilian comics have gotten a niche with English speakers. But it was usually the curious ones.
Let’s look at one of the latest to come stateside, Valkiria who appeared in Antarctic Press’s Jungle Comics anthology starting at issue #22.
But it’s usually the dedicated collectors who find out anything about that. Or any dedicated fan with access to GlobalComix.
Chances are, you’re more likely to find Brazilian webcomics on different webtoon platforms: Combo Rangers on Webtoon, Bear and XDragoon on Tapas. And they’re not always on the algorithms’ watchlist.
But if you’re lucky, you’ll find someone who connected the dots to make lists like this.
It’s how I found out about two notable series O Doutrinador and Jaguara.
What that list didn’t tell me is that O Doutrinador was available in English through…
Why?! What does a grifter like that want with…wait…it hasn’t been updated or marketed in years. He can’t even reprint or resell any of the physical copies if he ever had any. He’s got nothing with this!
The there’s Jaguara. The creator gives everything from the title character, her comics, and a good chunk of everything else in English. Even got to discover ALFA, Brazil’s premiere superhero collective (ALFA A Primeira Ordem) through all of this. Even a deeper rabbit hole from a prior spotlight on a…Lagarto…Negro.
But you can tell I’m not a layman by now right?
Can A Niche Form?
As of right now, Quadrinhos are a scattered interest. Publishers experiment with it to see if they can get…something. And fan-nah, readers just see nothing that really connects it all.
See when people think of manga, they think reading from the opposite direction, high pace action, and emotive expressions. They think genres like Shonen Adventure and Emotional Romance before finding others. Same with American comics with superheroes, Korean webtoons with emotionally deep love stories and supernatural adventures, and bande dessinee with humor and adventure.
But out of all the examples above, does that paint Brazil as having a focus? Frankly Mexican Monitos have more going for it with ties to real-life Luchadores mixing with Magical Realism, even if only tangentially.
There are no ecosystems or formats to make a big strategy to push into the world market. Without something like a…Japan Foundation? First I ever heard of that. Point is, it needs people dedicated to Quadrinhos to get a real breakout. Whether that’s a publisher in it for the long run, a platform showing off multiple titles in one place, and readers looking for experiences they can’t find anywhere else.
Brazil already has a good basis for making their comics thrive, but it might take a lot more for people outside of it to notice.