João Paulo Cotrim is one of the leading names in comics in Portugal. The book "Salazar-Now, at the time of his death," published in 2006, was a sales success, proving that there is still room for graphic novels in our country.
Being recognized for your work as a comic author, a world that is dominated by big companies like Marvel, Disney and others with a great merchandising machine behind, there is still room for the authors, and is there a market?
João Paulo Cotrim: I think that despite everything are two issues: One is the market, and for now we leave it, and whether there is another space, I think yes there is. The issue of the comic author is above all, more than the question of the market, the author's will to do it. Before being publish. It is a medium that requires only paper, pencil and will. Thus it is easy to draw. Publish is something different. But I think this idea that we have to create a market for a different kind of comic book is based on an idea that is out of fashion, it has to do with the 70s and 80s when comics exploded. It was above all the Marvel heroes, a certain imaginary urban youth and this indeed shattered, today there is no such great weight. Comics sells fewer, there is a great competition from video games, a series of extensions of the comics that ceased to have this expression and this force. Then, we watched following all this the emergence of a number of young authors in Europe, but also in Japan, is more or less simultaneously, and perhaps before in the U.S. in the aftermath of the 60s because of the indirect censorship of distributors for interesting things. And thus opened the way, which explodes in the 90s, for example, one of the trends of contemporary comics is the autobiography. What we have shown is that there have been some major publishers who interpreted this interest, although there are differences between countries, they sensed this author market and invested in them. Today live beyond the authors for the masses, some publishers have room for a graphic novel more or less experimental.
It is a reality that applies to Portugal or not? Or is it a different case?
JPC: No, we also have some special things. Some 10 years ago I translated a book by Lorenzo Mattotti that sold both here and in France. Precisely is a smaller market, the smaller is closer in some cases, alternate currents that ultimately functions. My book about Salazar, "Now, at the time of his death" had three editions and a book is not only the subject, but as the way it was approached by me and Miguel Rocha turned out to be a graphic novel with quite a reasonable success. Even today, the big publishers like Leya, Asa are give attention to some of these trends minority. Also since the 90s until 2000 had a number of new Portuguese authors to produce very interesting graphic novels, which broke with some canons. Now, in the Festival of Amadora appeared a number of interesting authors, there is an even a new comic prize for professionals with published work. The work that Marco Mendes is developing the "ghost world" is absolutely the most interesting and radical I would say of this area of autobiographies and so I think there is room and production, though, has declined.
Going back a little while ago and talking about the work of Salazar, it was curious that has been the life of a dictator to arouse much curiosity, leaves certain unease in the air.
JPC: It turns out to be a novel. The idea came from the publisher itself, the Partnership A.M Pereira, who is very old, edited books back in the time of Salazar and after April 25th made some historical work on these issues, with Fernando Rosas and they remembered to do something around the dictator. The question I asked if I was going to accepted I had complete freedom, even from the point of view of the format and what we were doing and suddenly it put me a question that any novelist stands before a certain theme: what does this have to do with me? Though I was born still in dictatorship, I was very small when the Carnation Revolution happened, I think that despite everything, we, today, we continue to live and now I think it has changed a little, but still, we continued to look at the figure of Salazar as a myth, not as concrete figure of flesh and bone, defects, with quirks, as I think to some extent he reveals. Salazar's Character from that point of view is rich, how he relates to women, how you manage the relationship with the military, the church, beyond the influence he had, makes it an important romantic character. Then also from the point of view of the image, propaganda, many images were produced, not say it's information, it is more of a construction around the figure, all that mattered to me in that sense. Only we can eliminate him from our lives when he is a real person. We cannot kill myths, figures of flesh and blood we can finish with them. Then there is another influence more pernicious is that today we live in the aftermath of this period in how we cannot get organized in such a situation of crisis which we live.
You think we are searching for the father figure?
JPC: No, I think we keep a slightly Sebastian version, which we cannot get rid of. We live in a country where people pride themselves on not going the condominium meetings, it is our home, there is nothing that interests us more than our home, it all has to do with the lack of civil society that has very to do with Salazar. This process was absolutely fascinating work for me with Miguel Rocha, is very integrated, very ping pong, there is not text on one side and the image of the other. Turned out to be interesting.
Were you surprised by the publishing success, taking into account that it was comic and the theme itself which is always controversial?
JPC: The truth is that the figure of Salazar continues to fascinate many people, to be produced not only in historical research, but also by the way some novels and other approaches that are not essayistic, a biographical story with some scientific rigor around this personality. Long after disappearing I find this all weird, we have a strange way of relating to these issues, this view was amazing. Then we must have disappointed someone who thought that the work should be more conservative. We did the work from the perspective of the dictator, the man who is dying, only in either case we dare to comment on the work. For me he helped to create a desert which still suffers the consequences a bit, but I cannot say I have been surprised by the impact of the work. What surprised most people are the fact of being a graphic novel. There is still much prejudice that is something for the kids, or for the nostalgic of their childhood, which is historically incorrect. Rafael Bordallo Pinheiro is an extraordinary author of comics and probably edited the first album of autobiography. IT is his return journey from Brazil, it is extraordinary author and comic is a common language of political commentary. In major newspapers, for example, there are fewer figures such as Luis Afonso or José Bandeira. Maybe the surprise was the strangeness to be dealing with a comic book about Salazar, when we should be I think, we should have 300 novels about the colonial war and many movies, and we should deal with these taboo topics, because it demonstrated that it is a healthy society that treats them on the field of fiction and artistic expression.
Speaking of heroes, they are not naïve anymore, like Tim Tim, Asterix and others ...
JPC: And even the superman. I think it has to do with the times. It is obvious that comics as all forms of artistic expression captures the air of an era and that we have arrived to the 90s with the loss of innocence and there are many interesting work, which take superman, Spiderman although no longer is an innocent, is a teenager with problems. The superhero had a moral uprightness distinguish him, he knew was right and wrong and things got mixed up fruit of time, the authors figured that superman would be easily avoidable, came from the middle of the USA, were he landed and suddenly comes to a big city to be a journalist which was easily fooled. There are a series of works that explore this more human side I would say of the super heroes. Now we are in a time when innocence is over, we are more pessimistic in thinking that this is the worst of all worlds and a comic reflects this.
How the next heroes will be like in the future? More gloomy?
JPC: I think that they are hardly gloomier than these. Are clearly more amoral, more in a violent stage, well, these things are cyclical and can appear to be a different kind of hero who solves problems. In the background is always this issue, the heroes are updates background of mythologies.
The other question also arises of sexuality, formerly ...
JPC: They were more asexual.
Now we have the Japanese mangas that are quite explicit.
JPC: It is the same sequence of humanizing the heroes. Sexuality is no longer taboo in a sense, but in another is broader and therefore is also an obvious area of evolution. The other fundamental work to make this superhero denser is Watchmen; they are heroes for the worst reasons. The same reason of being a superhero is not revenge, or a desire for good, it makes things quite more dynamic and interesting.
