Cascão by Mauricio De Sousa

Above: a couple of issues of the Brazilian comic Cascão.

Mauricio De Sousa is the name of a cartoonist whose work I did not know. This was a guy who had a good job at a newspaper in the 1950s, but quit it to pursue cartooning. He succeeded in a big way.

When I first saw a pile of comics that a cartoonist friend had in his studio, I had no frame of reference for Mônica or De Sousa. I didn't know that De Sousa's comics about "Mônica and Her Gang" sold millions in South America, outstripping the usually strong international sales of imported Disney comics. Perhaps that's why Disney chose to advertise in its rival.

Mr. De Sousa's early work at the Lambiek link above looks much like the John Stanley version of LITTLE LULU. And the content is similar.

Well, I don't speak the language, but below is a nice sampler from one of the comics. This is a comic about Mônica's friend Cascão. Most of Mônica's friends received their own books. Mônica, by the way, is the name of one of Mr. De Sousa's real-life daughters.

The character of little Cascão is, so far as I can tell, such a fan of garbage that he gleefully swims in it ala Scrooge McDuck swimming in his cash. This is so disgusting that one of the real world cartoonists refuses ... well, go and read for yourself ....

This is from Cascão #92 (the cover is the one on the right, above) which was printed in 1986 and (I am pretty sure) is copyright 1986 by Mauricio De Sousa.






Mr. De Sousa was an admirer of Will Eisner. Below is from the Mauricio De Sousa Web site:



Below: some of these comics by Mr. De Sousa were originally mailed to Will Eisner.



-- Edited from an August 8, 2008 blog entry.