ART SPIEGELMAN (Maus)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 19'
Director: Edgar Pêra
Art Spiegelman (1948) is one of the most respected comic book artists alive. His work MAUS, about the Holocaust, is the only comic book to win the prestigious Pulitzer Prize. He began his career in underground comix, and his fiction has an avant-garde and historical style. As editor of RAW magazine, he introduced various artists and took comics to a new level. He also worked for newspapers such as The New Yorker, creating covers and political satire cartoons. This episode includes interviews from 1990, at his home in NY, and 1999, in Portugal.
BRYAN TALBOT (Tale of a Bad Rat)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 18'
Director: Edgar Pêra
Bryan Talbot (1952) is an award-winning comic book writer and artist, known for his diverse style and works based on extensive research. His books Luther Arkwright and Heart of Empire helped popularise the steampunk genre, mixing futuristic technology with Victorian elements in an anti-totalitarian and anti-imperialist narrative. The Tales of One Bad Rat takes a radical approach to the problem of paedophilia. Talbot has also collaborated with Neil Gaiman on The Sandman and Teknophage, as well as publishing for DC Comics (as Batman) and other publishers. The 2000 interview took place when Talbot was finalising Alice in Sunderland, a major exploration of the world of Lewis Carroll.
DENIS KITCHEN (Kitchen Sink)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 17'
Director: Edgar Pêra
Denis Kitchen (1946) is an American comic book artist, publisher and activist, known for his satirical and surreal work, as well as his support for artists' rights. Founder of the Comic Book Legal Defence Fund and the Krupp Syndicate, he has defended the freedom to publish comics in court. He set up Kitchen Sink Press in 1969, as well as Strickly Uppa Crust (a comic book shop) and Krupp Distribution (a distributor of foreign comics). Kitchen Sink Press published avant-garde works by authors such as Robert Crumb and classics by Milton Caniff. In the 2018 interview, Kitchen talks about his career and his relationship with artists such as Will Eisner, whose work he has edited since the 80s.
ED BRUBAKER (Criminal)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 24'
Director: Edgar Pêra
Ed Brubaker (b. 1966) is one of the most awarded comic book writers in the USA, known for crime stories centred on complex characters and inspired by his youth as a delinquent. He started out in alternative comics, moved on to DC (Batman, Catwoman) and then Marvel, where he wrote important Captain America arcs, including Winter Soldier. In recent years, he has made a name for himself with pulp noir series such as The Fade Out, Fatale and Criminal. He has also written for the series Too Old to Die Young and Westworld. The episode includes interviews from 2005 and 2018, reflecting different phases of his career.
MIKE ROYER (The Demon)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 21'
Director: Edgar Pêra
Mike Royer (1941) is a comic book artist and product designer, best known for his collaboration with Jack Kirby, the great superhero creator of the 20th century. Royer is considered Kirby's most faithful art-finalist, helping to reveal his expressionist-pop side in works such as The Demon, Mister Miracle, New Gods and Captain America. He also collaborated with other artists, such as Russ Manning on Magnus, Robot Fighter and Alberto Giolotti on Korak, Son of Tarzan. Throughout his career, he has worked for publishers such as Marvel, DC, Eclipse and Pacific Comics. He has also been a product designer for Disney, contributing to designs and merchandising for the Winnie The Pooh franchise.
JERRY ROBINSON (The Joker)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 18'
Director: Edgar Pêra
Jerry Robinson (1932-2011) was a renowned American comic book artist, famous for co-creating Robin and the Joker, Batman's iconic enemy. However, his work goes far beyond that, including work as a cartoonist for True Classroom Flubs & Fluffs in the New York Sunday News and political satire strips such as Still Life. Robinson has also been active in social causes, chairing various organisations such as the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists and CartoonArts International. His books include The Comics: An Illustrated History of Comic Art and he has won four awards from the National Cartoonists Society, the Milton Caniff Lifetime Achievement Award (2000) and the InkPot Award (1989).
JIM WOODRING (Frank)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 28'
Director: Edgar Pêra
Jim Woodring (1952) is one of the most unique comic artists in the USA, known for his surreal universe. He began with autobiographical and verbal stories (JIM), but gradually his narratives became purely visual (FRANK), moving closer to surrealist silent cinema. In his introduction to Frank, Francis Coppola describes the work as ‘strange’ and full of unprecedented characters and experiences, full of blood, cruelty, sacrifice, love, betrayal, terror and happiness. In the 2005 interview, Woodring talks about the different phases of his life, from the ‘Age of Eyes’ to the dark ‘Age of Cake’ and his radical psychedelic experiences.
JOSÉ CARLOS FERNANDES (A Pior Banda do Mundo)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 20'
Director: Edgar Pêra
José Carlos Fernandes is one of Portugal's most original comic book authors. Some of his books have been translated into several languages and his work has been exhibited at international comics festivals.
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MAX (Peter Pank)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 19'
Director: Edgar Pêra
Max (pseudonym Francesc Gisbert, 1956) is one of Spain's most important alternative comics artists. He began publishing in underground fanzines in 1973 and created the character Gustavo, an anarchist revolutionary. In 1979, he was one of the founders of the magazine El Víbora, where he created the emblematic characters Peter Pank and Bardín. In addition to his career in comics, Max has illustrated children's books, album covers and worked for The New Yorker. He also had a career as a product designer, creating a watch for Swatch and the Barcelona Football Club mascot. In the 2000 interview, Max discusses topics such as super-realism, the punk movement and the unlikely relationship between Walt Disney and H.P. Lovecraft.
NEIL GAIMAN (Sandman)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 21'
Director: Edgar Pêra
Edgar Pera interviews writer and comic book author Neil Gaiman at BD Fórum Lisboa in 2003. A conversation about Gaiman's work, which combines elements of horror with fantasy and political observations about the contemporary world, mixing narrative genres.
RICK VEITCH (Swamp thing)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 21'
Realizador: Edgar Pêra
Rick Veitch (1951) is an American comic book writer and artist, famous for his participation in Swamp Thing, written by Alan Moore. However, his work is more vast, standing out in particular for his comic dream diaries, published since 1991 in the magazine Rarebit Fiends. Veitch started out in the underground comix scene and, in the 1980s, collaborated on Epic, Marvel's alternative fantasy and science fiction magazine, with works such as Abraxas and the Earth and The One. He also created Army@Love, a political satire about the Iraq war, and The Big Lie in 2011, about the 11 September attacks. In the 2000 interview, Veitch talks about Jack Kirby, Alan Moore and the role of the dream world in people's lives, as a way of connecting with a richer and more diverse world.
TOMMI MUSTURI (Samuel)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 19'
Director: Edgar Pêra
Tommi Musturi is one of today's most complex comic authors. Like a chameleon, this artist uses different styles of illustration to create comics without ever losing his creative identity.
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WILL EISNER (The Spirit)
Portugal, 2022 | DOC, 27'
Director: Edgar Pêra
Will Eisner (1917-2005) was a pioneer of American comics, known for the originality of his work and his control over his destiny. He is considered one of the great masters of the ninth art and called it ‘sequential art’. His series The Spirit, from the 1940s and 1950s, used cinematographic techniques and is an icon of that era. In the 1970s, he popularised the graphic novel format with A Contract With God, changing the landscape of comic book publishing in the USA. His works, especially on the history of Jewish immigrants in New York, won him awards. In 1988, Comic-Con created the Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, the biggest comic book award in the USA, in his honour.
