BLANK SPACEEmilio Fraia and DW Ribatski

Two brothers reprise a childhood trip in a graphic novel that combines a family story, memory, forgetting and suspense.

Two brothers, separated by time and space, are reunited in a foreign town. We don’t know ex-actly where they are, much less how they drifted apart. The memories of Lucio, the younger of the two, suggest a distant, maybe even frosty relationship, but not even he seems very sure of that. As Mirko embarks on an endless monologue, Lucio tries to understand what his older brother wants from him.

Everything would indicate that the idea is to retrace the steps of a childhood holiday, when they visited a mountainside town with an uncle. Having reached the top of a mountain trail, they found the Giants, a rock formation which Mirko wants to see one more time. After some deliberation, they set off in a beat-up old car nicknamed The Bear in search of this town, mountain trail and the rocky Giants. The only problem is that Lucio has no recollection of the Giants, or even of the trip. Whenever he tries to conjure some image of this journey, practically mythologized by his brother, it eludes him, like the phantom pain from an amputated limb.

In this story about family and memory, the author Emilio Fraia and the cartoonist DW Ribatski blend equal doses of suspense and humor, sweetness and fear in relating the brothers’ trip. Ribatski’s vibrant art and Fraia’s evocative prose combine in this upended road story, where the trip only starts when we can reconstruct it, disassemble it and re-invent it.

Emilio Fraia was born in 1982, in São Paulo. He is a journalist, editor and author. He published the novel O verão de Chibo (Chibo’s Summer), in partnership with Vanessa Barbara, and was selected by “Granta” Magazine as one of the twenty best young Brazilian authors.

DW ribatski was born in Curitiba in 1982, though he currently lives in São Paulo. His work as an illustrator and cartoonist has been published in zines, magazines and compilations. He is also a musician, producer, educator and cartoonist.

Rights are handled by Lora Fountain Literary Agency, agence@fountlit.com.

176 pages19,7 cm x 27 cm(7.7 in x 10.6 in)

THE GOLDBERG MACHINE Vanessa Barbara and Fido Nesti

For young Getúlio, Happy Mountain holiday camp is the very synonym of gloom. Picked on and ridiculed by his campmates and Phys Ed teacher, he’s about to discover a very elaborate way of getting his own back.

A hundred years ago, the cartoonist Rube Goldberg started drawing his first machines, pul-ley-operated contraptions of the type that made a watering can sprinkle water onto a boot so that the boot would kick a golf ball, which would then hit a mouse, which would run into a mousetrap triggering an electric train, which would chug about and activate a device culminating in some silly end-result, such as massaging someone’s scalp, hammering in a nail or closing a door.

“They’re a way of making things more difficult. It’s sort of a philosophy of life”, explains one of the characters in The Goldberg Machine, author Vanessa Barbara’s comic-book debut, alongside the illustrator Fido Nesti. Goldberg’s machines are the backbone of a plot that takes place at the Happy Mountain holiday camp, where teenagers are kept at the mercy of a sadistic scoutmaster.

It is there that Getúlio, a shy and plump lad, the butt of all the campmates’ ribbing and practical jokes, and who detests the camp with every fiber of his being, is about to discover that he might well be the key element of a Goldberg machine especially manufactured to execute a plan of revenge devised over decades. And this machine’s one true goal can be summed up in a single word: chaos.

Vanessa BarBara was born in São Paulo in 1982. She is a journalist, translator and chronicler. Her published works include O livro amarelo do terminal (The yellow book of the terminal) [Cosac Naify, 2008, Jabuti Prize for Best Report], O verão do Chibo (Chibo’ summer) [Alfaguara, 2008, with Emilio Fraia] and the children’s book Endrigo, o escavador de umbigo (Endrigo, the belly-button burrower) [ed. 34, 2010, with Andrés Sandoval]. She edits the periodical A Hortaliça (www.hortifruti.org), col-laborates on the magazine Piauí and writes for the Folha de S. Paulo newspaper.

Fido nesti was born in São Paulo in 1971. After working in classical animation, he started a ca-reer as a commercial illustrator. He is a frequent collaborator to the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo and The New Yorker, among other publications. In terms of comic books, he illustrated Os Lusíadas em quadrinhos (The cartoon Lusiadas) [Peirópolis] and Loucas de amor (Madly in love) [with Gilmar Rodrigues, Ideias a Granel].

Rights are handled by Lora Fountain Literary Agency, agence@fountlit.com.

112 pages18 cm x 27 cm

(7.0 in x 10.6 in)

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ElEphantinE MEMory Caeto

Following the trail blazed by the authors of autobiographical graphic novels, such as Art Spiegelman and David B., in Memória de elefante (Elephantine Memory) the cartoonist Caeto transforms his own life into the raw material for an epopee of successive letdowns, lousy jobs, uninhabitable homes and monumental binges

Comic book author and editor, vocalist in an indie punk band, artist about to progress from ped-dling paintings on the street to holding his first exhibition in a private gallery in São Paulo, at first glance Caeto’s artistic career looks promising and laced with a certain glamor. But the artist finds himself having to contend with a chronic lack of money and limited professional prospects, not to mention a troublesome love life and the pitfalls of depression and alcohol.

His father is a near-bankrupt homosexual in a serious relationship with his business partner, while his mother, in the wake of a tumultuous divorce, moves out to the countryside.

In this prodigious reconstruction from memory, nothing is left out: the bustling São Paulo night-life, his sexual adventures, a problematic dog, his family’s tribulations, his mother’s passivity, his fa-ther’s painful struggle with aids, and the fundamental contributions of all those who accompany him along his desperate road to redemption.

Caeto was born in Assis, in the São Paulo countryside, in 1979. Working in publishing since 2000, he has illustrated works by Fernando Bonassi and Heloisa Prieto. He has edited the fanzines Sociedade radioativa and Glamour popular, where he published his cartoons. Memória de elefante is his first graphic novel.

Rights are handled by Lora Fountain Literary Agency, agence@fountlit.com.

232 pages21 cm x 27.5 cm(8.3 in x 10.8 in)

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GuadalupeAngélica Freitas and Odyr

On this unusual road trip, a granddaughter fulfils her grandmother’s dying wish to cross Mexico and be buried in her hometown.

On the eve of her thirtieth birthday, all Guadalupe wants is to forget her job at the second-hand bookstore run by her transvestite uncle, Minerva. She drives an old van around Mexico City pick-ing up the book collections Minerva buys for a few pesos from grieving families. The symbol of Minerva Libros is an owl, but it could just as well be a vulture, a vulture in sequins.

On her birthday, Guadalupe just wants to drink and dance the night away with her friends. But a phone call changes all her plans. In the middle of a record-breaking traffic jam (she uses the frequent bottlenecks to read the classics), she learns that her grandmother, Elvira, an intrepid old bird, has died after crashing her scooter into a two-wheel taco trolley.

As Guadalupe has the van, she’s the only one who can honor her grandmother’s dying wish: to have a band play over her grave in her hometown of Oaxaca. So Guadalupe and Minerva (and his inseparable poodle) set off in the van with the coffin in the back. Along the way, against her better judgment, Minerva offers a ride to a hitchhiker, an exotic young man who claims to be from Gua-temala, and thus their problems begin.

In this road trip laced with Aztec mythology and magic mushrooms, the poet Angélica Freitas and the cartoonist Odyr Bernardes tell a fun and occasionally scary story. An unusual adventure into the heart of Mexico, where a fight against the forces of evil is everything except what it seems.

AngélicA FreitAs was born in 1973, in Pelotas, Rio Grande do Sul. Her published works include the award-winning volume of poetry Rilke shake, and the recent Um útero é do tamanho de um punho [The womb is the size of a fist], both through Cosac Naify. Translations of her works are available in Argentina, Spain, Mexico, the usa, Germany and France.

Odyr BernArdi was born in 1967, also in Pelotas. He is an editor, cartoonist and graphic artist. With S. Lobo, he published the graphic novel Copacabana (Desiderata, 2009), nominated for an HQ Mix award. His cartoons have been published in numerous magazines, including Sexy, Trip, Mosh, Graffitti, Revista do Globo and in the newspapers O Globo and Folha de S.Paulo.

Rights are handled by Lora Fountain Literary Agency, agence@fountlit.com.

120 pages19.5 cm x 27.5 cm

(7.7 in x 10.8 in)

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Monsters! Gustavo Duarte

Giant creatures invade the City of Santos in this fun tribute to Japanese monster movies

It is well known that monsters have a special preference for Tokyo. Whenever one of these over-sized lizards decides to go on a rampage, the Japanese metropolis always seems to top the list, with the United States a distant second.

This time, however, three monsters emerge from the sea to invade another coastal city, Santos, in the state of São Paulo. As in any Godzilla movie worth its salt, they appear mysteriously, out of the blue, and with only one thing in mind: devouring the local population.

But every city has its hero for times like these, and Santos is no different. The monsters’ nemesis, as it were, is old Pinô, a bar-owner, fisherman and famous storyteller. He’s a simple guy, with a regular life. Or is he?

The teller of this particular tale is the cartoonist Gustavo Duarte, author of the award-winning Birds, Taxi and Có, all of which earned the HQ Mix award, the most prestigious accolade for Brazilian cartoonists. In Monsters!, Duarte continues with his ambitious project: producing books with no dia-logue and an immediately recognizable style that appeal to all kinds of public, like a good Pixar film.

If the comparison seems a little exaggerated, just remember that Duarte is one of the most success-ful independent cartoonists on the market today, selling out print-runs and packing industry events since devoting himself to the genre in 2009.

That said, even those familiar with his work will be pleasantly surprised by the scope, grace and suspense of Monsters!

Gustavo Duarte was born in São Paulo in 1977 and moved to Bauru in 1985. He graduated in graphic design from Unesp and began his career as a cartoonist and illustrator with the Diário de Bauru, where he worked from 1997 to 1999. He was graphic designer at Editora Abril and has col-laborated with all the main magazines and newspapers nationwide. He is seven-time winner of the HQ Mix award.

Rights are handled by Lora Fountain Literary Agency, agence@fountlit.com.

80 pages18.2 cm x 25.5 cm

(7.2 in x 10 in)

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All Rê BoRdosA Angeli

Collected for the first time in a deluxe album, and digitally restored using the author’s originals, this volume is a complete compilation of the strips, drawings and stories of Brazil’s mouthiest — and best-loved — cartoon character.

The creature will often turn on its creator. It happened with Frankenstein and his monster and with Sid Vicious and the Sex Pistols. And when things get out of hand, the clash is always epic.

But what if the creature is the very definition of intemperance — emotional, ethylic and sexual? Rê Bordosa is a creature without the slightest regard for the most basic notions of civility, whose sole mission in life is to spend the whole day in the bath tub with a glass of vodka and overflowing ashtray.

In this specific case, the creator killing the creature was about the only thing for it, and it was no easy crime to perpetrate. Over ten years since the cold-blooded hit, Angeli, one of Brazil’s foremost cartoonists, is still lambasted for having literally erased Rê Bordosa.

Luckily for the reader, this mouthy and exuberant creature enjoyed a long life (though don’t tell her that). Seen for the first time in the Folha de S.Paulo newspaper in 1984, Rê Bordosa outgrew her cartoon strip to become one of the best-known characters in Brazilian comics.

With a caustic sense of humor and unwavering cynicism, Rê has survived some Homeric binges, epic hangovers and love affairs as lasting as a comic strip on fire. Some of Angeli’s other characters have breezed in and out of her life (and her bed), including Bibelô, Sixty-eight, and Wood and Stock, as she witnessed, with no little disinterest, the most important social and political changes of the 80s and 90s.

Collected for the first time in a deluxe album, and digitally restored using the author’s originals, All Rê Bordosa brings Brazil’s comic muse back to intemperate life. Those who know only the legend can now savor the full collection of strips, stories, and sketches, not to mention the various threats Angeli made against her life. And for those who have never forgotten her, come on in and make yourself at home, as she so often said.

Angeli was born in 1956, in São Paulo, where he lives and works. He published his first drawing at the age of fifteen in Senhor magazine, and has been a cartoon strip writer for Folha de S.Paulo since the 70s. His daily strip for the São Paulo newspaper and in the legendary Chiclete com banana maga-zine has spawned such famous characters as Rê Bordosa, Bob Cuspe, Wood & Stock, the Skrotinhos and Benevides Paixão. Alongisde fellow cartoonists Laerte and Glauco, he participated in the Los três amigos (The three buddies) series. His work has been published in Germany, Italy, France, Spain, Argentina and Portugal.

Rights are handled by Lora Fountain Literary Agency, agence@fountlit.com.

216 pages19,5 cm x 26,5 cm(7.7.2 in x 10.4 in)