Mauricio de Sousa | |
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![]() Mauricio de Sousa (2015) | |
Born | Maurício Araújo de Souza October 27, 1935 (age 88) Santa Isabel |
Occupation | Comics artist, entrepreneur, journalist, writer |
Works | Monica and Friends |
Awards | |
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Maurício Araújo de Sousa (Portuguese: [mawˈɾisju dʒi ˈsowzɐ]; born October 27, 1935) 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".[1][2]
At 17 years of age, he worked for a daily newspaper called Folha da Manhã as a crime reporter. In 1959, Sousa quit that job and began his comic book career, and created Monica and Friends. Sousa's characters were inspired by children he knew from his childhood and by his own children. His later style is slightly reminiscent of that of Osamu Tezuka, a famous Japanese manga artist and personal friend.[3] De Sousa's work has garnered recogniation both in his home country and abroad, which includes a number of international awards.[4] In 2011, he was honored in the seventh edition of the Festival Internacional de Quadrinhos, at Belo Horizonte.[5]
Brazil's most famous cartoonist is Mauricio de Sousa, especially for his Turma da Mônica (1970) series, which is translated into nine languages and exported to seventeen countries, with international sales of 25 million books per month.
Sousa soon set up his own production company, and now Mauricio de Sousa Produções owns not only a successful publisher of comics but also amusement parks based on Monica and her gang and the fourth largest animation studio in the world. The toothy main character, Mônica, was based on one of Sousa's daughters, as was one of her gang, Magali.