Juliana Loiola de Paula, also known as Ju Loyola, (born 1979) is a Brazilian cartoonist and illustrator. She is one of Brazil's first deaf female comic creators. Ju Loyola gained international recognition for her work on "silent manga", a manga genre where the lack of dialogue allows the work to be understood regardless of the reader's native language or level of literacy. [1] [2] Since 2015, she has been participating in the Silent Manga Audition, an international competition of the silent comic format. [3] [4]
Ju Loyola was born in São Paulo in 1979. [5] Her mother, Regina Mara Loiola de Paula, contracted the rubella virus while she was pregnant with Juliana, contributing to the artist being born deaf. [6] She was diagnosed when she was 3 years old. [5]
Ju Loyola became interested in illustration as a young child, at around 7 or 8 years old. Her early inspirations included Garfield by Jim Davis, Fido Dido by Joanna Ferrone and Sue Rose, and Strawberry Shortcake by Muriel Fahrion. She read such comics as Turma da Mônica by Mauricio de Sousa and The Phantom and Mandrake the Magician by Lee Falk. Later in life she became interested in Japanese anime and manga, including Saint Seiya and Sailor Moon . [5] [7] These works inspired her to pursue a career in comics. [8] [5] [9]
Ju Loyola began her education in a traditional school. In 1991, she enrolled in a special school for the deaf, focused on teaching Brazilian Sign Language. She had trouble adapting and later returned to traditional schooling. [5]
Ju Loyola first considered pursuing a career as a cartoonist during her teenage years, but at the time she believed that it was necessary to be fluent in spoken Portuguese to write dialogue for comics, so she put her dream on hold. [5] Between 1998 and 1999, she worked as a denture technician, but felt unfulfilled and later abandoned her dental career. [10]
In 2003, Ju Loyola graduated with a graphic design degree from the Pan-American School of Art and Design in São Paulo, [7] and began working as a freelance cartoonist. [1] Among her most notable freelance work during this period are contributions to the manga-style webcomic Combo Rangers in 2002. [9] [11] In 2007, she worked as an animator and collator for Lightstar Studios, including on the animated film Rio 2096: A Story of Love and Fury , which was directed by Luiz Bolognesi. [7] However, she became increasingly interested in comics after attending the Festival Internacional de Quadrinhos and discovering silent manga, a dialogue-less comics format that tells stories without speech. [2] She subsequently left her career as an animator to focus on comics.
An important aspect of Loyola's career is her participation in the Silent Manga Audition, an international competition in which she has received several honors, including an honorable mention and the 2016 SMAC! Editors Award. [2]
While Loyola has said that her deafness no longer impedes her ability to create comics thanks to the silent comics medium, she still continues to experience prejudice and discrimination as a person with disabilities and a woman in the industry. [5] [7]
In 2019, she also contributed to the collections Shoujo Bomb and Gibi de Menininha #2. [12]
Maurício Araújo de Sousa is a Brazilian cartoonist and businessman who has created over 200 characters for his popular series of children's comic books named "Turma da Mônica" or "Monica and Friends".
The Funnies, also known as Bubbly the Astronaut, is a Brazilian comic strip series, created in 1963 and part of the Monica's Gang comic strips. It centers around Bubbly, an astronaut, whose parents and ex-girlfriend Rita appear very rarely, making him the only recurring character. The comic strip can be defined as a science fiction adventure strip.
Brazilian comics started in the 19th century, adopting a satirical style known as cartoon, charges or caricature that would later be cemented in the popular comic strips. The publication of magazines dedicated exclusively to comics, in Brazil, started at the beginning of the 20th century. Brazilian artists have worked with both styles. In the case of American comics some have achieved international fame, like Roger Cruz with X-Men and Mike Deodato with Thor, Wonder Woman and others.
Prêmio Angelo Agostini, sometimes also called Troféu Angelo Agostini, is the most traditional comics award in Brazil. It was created in 1985 by the Associação dos Quadrinhistas e Caricaturistas do Estado de São Paulo (AQC-ESP), which still organizes the event today.
Bianca Pinheiro is a Brazilian comics artist and illustrator. She graduated from Graphic Arts by UTFPR and did postgraduate studies in Comics by the Grupo Educacional Opet.
Julia Nascimento Bacellar, known as Julia Bax, is a Brazilian comics artist. Her first comic book work was published in the Brazilian magazine Kaos!, recommended by Roger Cruz. After that, she made the drawings of a 12-page story on the album Quebra-Queixo Technorama Volume 2, published by Devir. By these two works, in 2006 Julia won the Troféu HQ Mix, the main Brazilian comic book prize, in the category "Revelation Penciller". She started working for publishers in other countries, especially Marvel Comics, in which she participated in the magazine X-Men: First Class. Julia also has published works for publishers like Boom! Studios, Devil's Due and Le Lombard, among others. Some of her published works are Histórias, Remy and Pink Daïquiri. In 2016, the Belgian publishing house Le Lombard published the graphic novel Princesse Caraboo, based on the true story of the notorious impostor Mary Baker.
Mariza Dias Costa was a Guatemalan-Brazilian political cartoonist and illustrator who influenced her genre with her novel approach.
Hilde Weber was a Brazilian artist, cartoonist, and illustrator of German origin. She was the first female cartoonist in the Brazilian press, working for such publications as A Cigarra, O Cruzeiro, Manchete, and Tribuna da Imprensa, where she became known for her political cartoons.
Master of National Comics 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 Caricaturistas do Estado de São Paulo (AQC-ESP).
Eugenio Colonnese was an Italian-born Brazilian comic artist.
Gedeone Malagola was a Brazilian comics artist and editor. He started his career in the 1940s, drawing for the newspaper A Marmita. He worked for several comic book publishers until he founded his own, Editora Júpiter. His main works were in the 1960s at GEP, where he created the superheroes Raio Negro, Hydroman and Homem Lua. In the late 1960s, Malagola wrote unofficial stories of the X-Men for GEP. In 1986, he was awarded the Prêmio Angelo Agostini for Master of National Comics, an award that aims to honor artists who have dedicated themselves to Brazilian comics for at least 25 years.
Flavio Colin was a Brazilian comic artist and illustrator, considered one of the most important comic artists in Brazil. He began his career in the 1950s with an adaptation for the comic book radio series As Aventuras do Anjo, influenced by Milton Caniff, but began to gain prominence with the development of his own stylized artist style. In 1987, he was awarded with the Prêmio Angelo Agostini for Master of National Comics, an award that aims to honor artists who have dedicated themselves to Brazilian comics for at least 25 years. He also won the Troféu HQ Mix in 1994 and 1995. Flávio Colin died in Rio de Janeiro on 2002.
Cláudio Seto was a Brazilian journalist, visual artist, comic artist, poet, photographer, cultural animator and bonsai artist. Of Japanese descent, at age nine he went to study at a Zen monastery in Japan, where he took the opportunity to visit Osamu Tezuka's studio on weekends. When he returned to Brazil in the 1960s, he was hired by Edrel publishing house, where he published stories about samurai and ninja, who were still little known by Brazilians. Seto is considered the forerunner of the use of the manga style in Brazilian comics and his best-known character was O Samurai. In the 1970s, he moved to Curitiba to work at the Grafipar publishing house, which had hired some of the best Brazilian comic artists of the time. In 1988, he was awarded with the Prêmio Angelo Agostini for Master of National Comics, an award that aims to honor artists who have dedicated themselves to Brazilian comics for at least 25 years.
Ely Barbosa was a Brazilian comics artist. He started working with comics in the early 1970s with his studio, which produced the Os Trapalhões comic book for Bloch publishing house. In 1976, he released his own characters: Turma da Fofura and Turma do Cacá, initially in children's books, but which, with their success, quickly gained comics, first by the publisher RGE and later by the editora Abril. In the 1980s, new characters emerged, such as Amendoins, Gordo and Patrícia, all with their own comic books, which were published until 1992. Barbosa also produced animations and TV commercials, plays and children's television series with his characters, such as Tutti-Frutti and Boa Noite, Amiguinhos in the 1980s and Fofura na TV, in the 1990s. In 1994, he was awarded with the Prêmio Angelo Agostini for Master of National Comics, an award that aims to honor artists who have dedicated themselves to Brazilian comics for at least 25 years.
Maria Aparecida Godoy, also known as Cida Godoy, is a Brazilian comic artist and one of the pioneers in the horror and suspense genre in Brazil.
Deodato Borges was a Brazilian journalist, broadcaster and comics creator. In the late 1950s, Borges created the radio series As Aventuras do Flama for Borborema AM radio station, in Campina Grande, starring the superhero Flama that the author had created while still in his childhood. With the great success of the program, Borges created in 1963 a Flama's comic book that attracted a legion of fans and became one of the first Brazilian comics superheroes. In addition to his radio work, Borges was also general director of Diários Associados in Paraíba state and was TV and radio director. In 1973, he became the culture editor of the newspaper O Norte, in João Pessoa, introducing comic strips. In the 1980s, together with his son Mike Deodato, he created the sci-fi saga 3000 Anos Depois, reprinted in the American market as Fallout 3000, where he was credited as Mike Deodato Sr., as well as other works. In 1999, he was awarded with the Prêmio Angelo Agostini for Master of National Comics, an award that aims to honor artists who have dedicated themselves to Brazilian comics for at least 25 years.
Bienal de Quadrinhos de Curitiba is a Brazilian comic book festival held since 2011 in Curitiba.
PerifaCon, also informally called Comic Con da Favela, is a comic book event held since 2019 in São Paulo with a focus on reaching mainly the public from the outskirts of São Paulo, who are hardly able to participate in large events such as CCXP due to cost and distance.
Bigorna was a Brazilian website about comics with an almost exclusive focus on Brazilian comics.
Mariana Cagnin, better known as Mary Cagnin is a Brazilian comic artist.