SYKSYSARJAKUVAAILMAISTAFREECOMICS/AUTUMN2022#65
Kuti magazine is edited and published by Kutikuti, a nonprofit and artist-driven comics association. You can also subscribe to Kuti. The subscription fee is 14 euros for one year (four issues). Abroad, the subscription costs 22 euros per year. All issues feature translations in English. The best way to subscribe is to visit our website at www.kutikuti.com. The next issue will be out in December 2022. #65 SYKSY / AUTUMN 2022 © Taiteilijat / Artists ISSN 1796-587X www.kutikuti.com Toimitus ja julkaisija / Editorial & publisher Kutikuti Päätoimittaja & taitto / Editor-in-chief & layout Tommi Musturi Avustavat toimittajat / Assistant editors Marcos Farrajota & Pedro Moura Käännökset / Translations Antero Tiittula Kansi / Cover André Ruivo Painos / Print-run 5 500 Kirjapaino / Printer Printall AS Mainosmyynti / Ad sales kutimagazine@gmail.com Tässä numerossa (PT) / In this issue (PT) Amanda Baeza, Ana Biscaia, Sara Boiça, Pedro Burgos, Ema Gaspar, Hetamoé, Daniel Lima, Ana Maçã, Tiago Manuel, Rudolfo Mariano, Rui Moura, Ricardo Paião Oliveira, Rudolfo, André Ruivo, Alexandra Saldanha & Cátia Serrão Funded by the Direção-Geral do Livro, dos Arquivos e das Bibliotecas (DGLAB) / Portugal Kuti-lehteä julkaiseva Kutikuti ry on vuonna 2005 perustettu nykysarjakuvaan erikoistunut yleis hyödyllinen ja taiteilijavetoinen yhdistys. Voit tilata Kuti-lehden myös kotiisi. Suomeen neljä numeroa sisältävän vuositilauksen hinta on 14 euroa, ulkomaille 22 euroa. Teet tilauksen kätevimmin koti sivuillamme osoitteessa www.kutikuti.com. Kuti-lehden seuraava numero ilmestyy joulukuussa 2022. DIREÇÃO-GERAL DO LIVRO, DOS ARQUIVOS E DAS BIBLIOTECAS CULTURA
A missed opportunity. That is how one could describe the contemporary scene of Portuguese comics in the last decades. The lively genealogy of Portuguese comics can be traced back to the second half of the 19th century, when a more or less active press was fol lowing the steps of more powerful countries such as France, England and Germany by promoting a bud ding generation of artists who were experimenting in the newspapers with satirical and political car toons, short sequences of drawings and so on. Soon enough, in the 1870s, our own powerhouse and a tutelary figure, Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro, entered the stage. Thanks to his sheer output, his political verve, and of course his flamboyant and diverse legacy, it is easy to consider him the “father” of Portuguese comics. Following (and sometimes copying) such examples as Cham, Daumier, Doré, Caran d’Ache, Steinlein, and Busch, Bordalo created foundational work that would influence whole generations, up to today. His “Zé Povinho”, a prototype of Portuguese paisano, would become a de facto personification of the whole country, and is still used today in carica ture and political satire. What followed was a procession of groundbreaking, adamant and very unique artists. Contrary to countries where conditions of production would allow of a thriving “market” (and therefore, a fea sible livelihood for artists), in Portugal, most artists dedicated themselves to cartooning, and comics in particular, only as a side job, or as a youth’s fling. We had a brilliant generation of visual inventors in the 1920s and 1930s, with the crisscrossing, multidisci plinary Modernists, but the military and then corpo ratist, authoritarian regime that gripped the country from 1926 to 1974 pushed comics to a highly ideo logical, propagandistic programme of indoctrination, with few exceptions. Moreover, many of the genres, editorial choices, structures and processes that were founded in this period were inherited and continued way up until our own times: adventurous stories of genres such as seafaring, western, jungle, war com ics, or fantasy in all its guises (from high fantasy to scienceThefiction).April 25th Revolution, that reinstated democratic processes in 1974, brought also a fleeting but outstanding moment of comics creation, with all the feverish, psychedelic dreams of that generation, but it did not stand. From then on, a debilitating market of diminishing returns, usually upheld by a couple of major houses putting out the same nostal gic-tinted Franco-Belgian material for four decades, did not favor a sustainable path for younger gen erations of aspiring artists, often very active in their
Rafael Bordalo Pinheiro - a page from the album Apontamentos sobre a picaresca viagem do Imperador de Raslib pela Europa (1872) Pedro Moura
ContemporaryTheSceneofPortugueseComics
teens and twenties in zine and alternative circles, then putting out a couple of books with lukewarm reception, and finally, petering out of the picture.
collections of new or repacked old books that pander to assumed notions of what “good comics” should be – usually, trademark-like characters, adventuredriven, Aristotelian, three-act structured stories with more or less legible classic art with little or fantasytinted connection to Portuguese reality. Maybe good sales, no doubt, but zero effort in creating new read ers and new situations, or contributing to internal, aesthetic transformations of the language of the comicsOnmedium.theother hand, a handful of individual art ists that try their own very personal language and experimentation of form and content, but are un able to break into a more mainstream audience so they never find a sustainable life out of their pro duction. This is the bulk of the people filling up the pages of the issue you are holding in your hands, some of whom are very young and still holding pre carious jobs while others have been able to monetize or coordinate their artistic, academic and practical skills by working as art teachers, designers, illus trators and animators. Sometimes they have an in dependent professional life, which allows them to dedicate some time to comics, but always as a “side thing”. Bottom line is, their comics-making is wholly a pleasure-inducing activity. Bear in mind that this is an over-generaliza
In the early 1990s, there were attempts to create a more or less organized “scene” that would sustain production, including institutional and private ini tiatives, but as soon as the individuals with power left that equation, the framework of those opportu nities collapsed as well. I have written or been associated with com ics-related projects for a few years now, and I have had the mixed blessings of writing texts such as this one, trying to make sense of the whole state of the art. One thing I learned quite quickly is that it is very dangerous to assume that what I am writing today will be the same down the line in, say, five years. Things change sometimes radically. Publishers that I thought were taking off vanish into thin air. Artists who I understand are growing strong simply give up and pack their pencils. Sectors I thought would nev er develop suddenly make a spectacular emergence. New actors come into play. However, there are some trends that do remain.
Cottinelli Telmo - Page from the adventure comics A Grande Fita Americana, in ABC-Zinho (1920-1921)
Carlos Botelho - one the Ecos da Semana weekly page from Sempre Fixe (1937)
On the one hand, quite strong, savvy and dy namic commercial platforms are able to surf mo mentary interests or long-held traditional views of comics, which makes them able to put out series,
extraordinaire house Kuš has been quite attentive to global comics, so it has included a good number of Portuguese artists as well (such as the ones you find in these same pages, like Cátia Serrão, Daniel Lima, Ema Gaspar, Pedro Burgos, Hetamoé, and also Baeza with their own solo mini kuš, for instances). Chili Com Carne, co-conspirator for this issue, has done many this sort of collaborations with other interna tional titles before. But one could argue that these gestures have rarely led to a more sustained and on going attention towards our own local production.
Filipe Abranches - Original art from Diário de K (2001)Isabel Lobinho - One of the psychadelic adaptations from Mário-Henrique Leiria, in Visão (1975)
I hope this short text (and this very Kuti issue!) can bring some electrifying change.
tion. If I had the opportunity, I would point out some people who are working for publishers such as Mar vel and Boom Studios and Dark Horse doing workfor-hire for internationally successful titles, who nonetheless have not abandoned their more alter native roots. Or people who are able to navigate sev eral territories. Or artists who do break even while creating highly-individualistic, niche productions.
The important thing is, as Portugal is a periph eral country (in terms of political clout, economi cal prowess, cultural relevance in the wider global stage), it should come as no surprise that our comics are found in the same place in the pecking order. However, one should not set him or herself in the look for the “Portuguese Ware”, the “Portuguese Satrapi” or the “Portuguese Maus”, because the categories that are created by such titles are inher ently connected to very specific financial, political, cultural and mediatic circumstances that cannot be reproduced here. That is to say, to create identifying tools using those categories will only imply blind ness to the most interesting, inventive and stimulat ing artists working in Portugal right now who would deserve more attention from the international audi ence. And there are a few brilliant exceptions, where artists are able to circulate in international titles and platforms, such as Amanda Baeza. And the Latvian
You will find here a great sample that encom passes a great diversity of people, from artists that have been working within the comics milieu for the past four decades (Burgos) to almost absolute new comers who rocked the language in so many differ ent ways (Saldanha, Oliveira, Gaspar, Mariano). Or people who have established their names in adjacent territories of visual narrative and illustration, such as Tiago Manuel, André Ruivo, and Sara Boiça (from three completely different generations). People who are interested in profound formal and conceptual experimentation (Lima, Serrão, Oliveira) and people concerned with legibility and genre comics but able to bring a twist to it (Mariano, Moura, Maçã).
The family separated while fleeing. / Tell me, is everything lost? / Avenues of smoking trees and burning flowers. I can smell the beast, we can’t stop. / We are heading West. I’m cold… I need a hug.
Pedro Burgos: Exodus
Ana Maçã: Passiflora
One of my students didn’t show up to class today They told me he had gone to pick passion fruits with his mom
I found that justification to be wonderful / I felt we should all be picking passion fruits too It would be a much richer experience…
… than another lesson in a closed classroom Imagining how things work outside
Rudolfo Mariano 2 I love winter, too. 4 Hmmm… 5 They are alive? You say...
1 Planet Gnom. 4 How many did you get? / Two. Alive! And you? 5 … only one. Dead, unfortunately.
2 Hello, Maria Luísa. / Mademoiselle. 3 Forgive my delay. Did the procession start long ago? 4 Half an hour… / I have two. Living ones. 5 They are tough sons of bitches. / I don’t know… mine passed. 6 Some hours later... / Your highness...
1 bla bla bla 2 … in exchange. 3 bla bla bla 4 But since one of them is dead, we will need to make concessions. 6 All right then… 9 Thank you for coming to save me… A I apologize! B Oh… now what? C Don’t worry. We just need to find you a skeleton. D But… how did you end up here in the first place? E It’s a long story… / The end.
Hetamoé: Welcome to the Anthrobscene
Daniel Lima: Yö putkassa Can you breathe? / Feed the snake with as many… goodies as possible.
1 I have a perception of death!!! 2 Have you ever been dead? / No! But I would like to give a better answer.
Cátia Serrão: Taulukoita sarjakuvissa esiintyvistä muodoista (ote teoksesta) Tables of shapes found in comics (an excerpt)
Rudolfo: Shroomjak 1 The League of Worlds has sent a spaceship to investigate the recently discovered planet World 4470 2 After their arrival, the team of investigators is confronted with a planet covered in vegetation and apparently devoid of animal life. 3 Eventually they realize that all the trees, plants and fungi are part of a planetwide consciousness. 4 This underground network connects trees of different species through a complex network of roots and fungi. 5 Despite this being the premise of a 1971 speculative fiction short story called “Vaster Than Empires and More Slow” by Ursula K. Le Guin, it has a lot in common with the real discovery in 1997 of the “Wood Wide Web” by Suzanne Simard
1 At the same time, the human being is connected to the “World Wide Web”. At dizzying speeds various types of transactions are made, people meet and get involved and above all, they share MEMES 2 In addition to being responsible for connecting trees and plants among themselves, mushrooms have their own fungal network: mycelium 3 Sometimes in 2009 Wojak (aka Feels Guy) is born. A memetic representation of feelings of melancholy, regret or loneliness. / Other representations of social archetypes eventually appear on the net: 4 boomer / consoomer / doomer / zoomer 5 On January 30th, 2021, an anonymous 4chan user shares an image of Wojak that resembles a mushroom: Mushroom Wojak. / One of the first memes aware that it is a meme
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Amanda Baeza: Sleep 1 Sleep. 3 Everyone lays down in bed. 4 But sometimes that rest is delayed. / Screaming and crying, climbing up the walls, wishing for the eternal while the temporary refuses to knock the door. 5 I’m four nights in, forget about knocking doors, / WHAT DOOR? 6 Just knock ME down, right then and there. / Sleep. / It comes. It always does. / The most certain uncertainty. Even if things change, sleep will always be there…
1 … for us and for everything. 2 What is left after our last night? We all hope that sleep is not the only thing that lasts forever. / Maybe even something of ours. I look at you and say to myself, I know what will last for me, 3 that I have loved you deeply and so, so dearly. 8 Well, that and plastics. / Fuck. / Sweet dreams.
Tiago Manuel: So boiling hot
1 If you don´t have any crutches… then get me another mine.
2 Look! There are holes everywhere. / They’re lucky. They don’t need to dig graves to bury the dead.
2
1 It’s so hard to maintain peace. The problem with war, Mr. President… Is the lack of workforce for so much feedstock.
/
Ema Gaspar: Kuuhavaintoja / Moon-sighting
Alexandra Saldanha: Fountainhead or how we gave up on humankind There was no such person as Mrs. Long-Face, there was only a shell containing the opinions of her friends, the novels of other empty people she had read as a fashion. She was no one, yet you could mistake her for anyone, trite as she was! / Live from the Cosmic Objectivity Balcony / The question is not whether Ellsworth Toohey won or not, the question is, as a side note, why the hell do we think it in terms of victory or defeat, and the true question: why are we so willingly giving our souls away? Well, I said this before and I’ll say it again, if we keep education as a propaganda program, we will be successful in the annihilation of the capacity of humans to reason and to be truly creative, and hence we pretend to enjoy art because we don’t want to look dumb, but fuck all that.
I AM NOT BEING UNREA
Here is my *brilliant* idea, OK? / I thought I would make a soup, of Roark, Dominique and of Jodorowski, because I love mankind, but fuck – we are remarkably stupid! / Carrots are great for your [eye]s / A little time / Pretty self explanatory / The wonderful Roark / 1. Here I’m referencing my comic “La terrible histoire des trois cervaux de magnólia”, something about the intellect that I won’t get into here because I’m trying to make a different point!!!
Fountainhead is dead / What if we didn’t give ourselves up? / 1. I know that the word divine can be off-putting, but I urge you to look at an unpolluted night sky, and you will see what I mean! / Instead of polar opposite ideologies of either “me at all cost” or blind collectivism, each one of us aspired to find the divine within ourselves. / Can you expect humankind, sick as it is, intoxicated by hatred and confused by their obsession with dichotomania, to create a more tolerable existence for all individuals? / Therefore history is bound to repeat itself! Again, and again, until we either learn, or we destroy everything eventually.
Sara Boiça: Nohow On say a body. / where none. / no mind. / where none. / that at least.
‘Worstward Ho’ by Samuel Beckett, first published in 1983 by John Calder Publishing. (My edition: “Company / Ill Seen Ill Said / Worstward Ho / Stirrings Still” by Faber and Faber, 2009). Suomennos Caj Westerberg: ”Pahinta päin ohoi” (Samuel Beckett: Puuttuva sana – 5 kertomusta, Teos 2021).
a place. / where none. / for the body. / to be in.
move in. / out of. / back into. / no. / no out.
no back. / only in. / stay in. / on in. / still.
Ricardo Paião Oliveira: Oh, the new people in the Noah’s Ark
Rui Moura: I want to be here forever fading through an endless time
being water dust in the wind
drifting… listening to the echoes from a distant past
like dazed shadows of nothingness
Ana Biscaia: The day to day Was hard and suffocating. / Death was lurking around.
is not a bull. Some people are saved by drawing.
Death
In the city, the women carry bags and look after the children. There are thousands of them, without their companions. It’s just them and their children. The men are fighting. Others are on standby. They fondle the Kalashnikovs meant to kill Russians. How ironic. Killing is their great desire. The hatred is unstoppable.* *From Ukraine with love - Story 5 - Women (Adriano Miranda) / It was hard to read the paper / and not to cry.
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