José Carlos de Brito e Cunha, known as J. Carlos, (Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro

Rio de Janeiro , commonly referred to simply as Rio, is the capital city of the State of Rio de Janeiro, the second largest city of Brazil, and the third largest metropolitan area and agglomeration in South America, boasting approximately 6.3 million people within the city proper, making it the 6th...

, July 18, 1884 — Rio de Janeiro, October 2, 1950) was a cartoonist

Cartoonist

A cartoonist is a person who specializes in drawing cartoons. This work is usually humorous, mainly created for entertainment, political commentary or advertising...

, illustrator

Illustrator

An Illustrator is a narrative artist who specializes in enhancing writing by providing a visual representation that corresponds to the content of the associated text...

 and graphic designer

Graphic designer

A graphic designer is a professional within the graphic design and graphic arts industry who assembles together images, typography or motion graphics to create a piece of design. A graphic designer creates the graphics primarily for published, printed or electronic media, such as brochures and...

. J. Carlos also did sculpture, wrote vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 plays, wrote lyrics for samba

Samba

Samba is a Brazilian dance and musical genre originating in Bahia and with its roots in Brazil and Africa via the West African slave trade and African religious traditions. It is recognized around the world as a symbol of Brazil and the Brazilian Carnival...

, and was a major talent in Brazilian Art Deco

Art Deco

Art deco , or deco, is an eclectic artistic and design style that began in Paris in the 1920s and flourished internationally throughout the 1930s, into the World War II era. The style influenced all areas of design, including architecture and interior design, industrial design, fashion and...

 graphic design.

Biography

His first work, a drawing of a newcomer, was published in 1902 in the magazine Tagarela. He soon became a regular contributor to the magazine and within less than a year, designed a cover. He collaborated in design and illustration in all the major publications of Brazil from the 1920’s until the 1950’s, including O Malho, O Tico Tico, Fon-Fon, Careta, A Cigarra, Vida Moderna, Eu Sei Tudo, Revista da Semana, and O Cruzeiro.

His oeuvre is estimated to be more than 100,000 illustrations, with a varied range of fictionalized personages and Brazilian popular figures of the time. From a quintessential Brazilian archetype

Archetype

An archetype is a universally understood symbol or term or pattern of behavior, a prototype upon which others are copied, patterned, or emulated...

 comic strip

Comic strip

A comic strip is a sequence of drawings arranged in interrelated panels to display brief humor or form a narrative, often serialized, with text in balloons and captions....

, the whimsical little black girl named Lamparina, and other curious cariocas type, to middle class characters and famed politics and society people, nobody in the Brazilian conscious mind escaped J.Carlos elegant line of perception

Perception

Perception is the process of attaining awareness or understanding of the environment by organizing and interpreting sensory information. All perception involves signals in the nervous system, which in turn result from physical stimulation of the sense organs...

.

In the 1930s

1930s

File:1930s decade montage.png|From left, clockwise: Dorothea Lange's photo of the homeless Florence Thompson show the effects of the Great Depression; Due to the economic collapse, the farms become dry and the Dust Bowl spreads through America; The Battle of Wuhan during the Second Sino-Japanese...

, J. Carlos was the first Brazilian to draw Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse

Mickey Mouse is a cartoon character created in 1928 by Walt Disney and Ub Iwerks at The Walt Disney Studio. Mickey is an anthropomorphic black mouse and typically wears red shorts, large yellow shoes, and white gloves...

, premiered Carlos drew the character in covers and advertisements in the magazine O Tico Tico.

In 1941, Walt Disney

Walt Disney

Walter Elias "Walt" Disney was an American film producer, director, screenwriter, voice actor, animator, entrepreneur, entertainer, international icon, and philanthropist, well-known for his influence in the field of entertainment during the 20th century. Along with his brother Roy O...

 visited Brazil, Disney was impressed with the style of J. Carlos and asked him to work in Hollywood, the illustrator declined, But Disney has sent a drawing of a parrot

Parrot

Parrots, also known as psittacines , are birds of the roughly 372 species in 86 genera that make up the order Psittaciformes, found in most tropical and subtropical regions. The order is subdivided into three families: the Psittacidae , the Cacatuidae and the Strigopidae...

inspiration for the creation of Joe Carioca.

In 1950, while discussing his friend’s, João de Barro, known as Braginha, upcoming record cover illustration, J. Carlos suffered a brain stroke and died two days later. In the October issue of the magazine O Careta’s, J. Carlos' last contribution was much sought after.

External links

• Biography at Lambiek
  Lambiek
  Lambiek is a comic book store and art gallery in Amsterdam, founded in 1968 by Kees Kousemaker .It has held exhibitions of art by comic creators, including Robert Crumb, Daniel Clowes, Erik Kriek, André Franquin, Tanino Liberatore and Chris Ware...
  
  's Comiclopedia (focuses on his comics work)
• JotaCarlos.org