'Zumbi'.
Álvaro De Moya was a Brazilian cartoonist, journalist, TV producer, professor at the University of São Paulo and one of his country's foremost comic scholars. As a comic artist, he worked for Brazilian Disney magazines in the 1950s and made comic strip adaptations of literary works and the 17th-century resistance leader Zumbi dos Palmares. He also studied comic history and its sociological effects, publishing various articles and books about the subject. Last but not least, he organized some of the earliest comics expositions in Brazil and in the world.
Early life and career
Born in São Paulo in 1930, he began working as a caricaturist and newspaper illustrator in São Paulo from July 1950. In that year, he also participated in the inauguration of Brazil's first television station, TV Tupi. De Moya was responsible for the design of the opening show on 18 September 1950. He additionally participated in the launch of the revolutionary TV station TV Excelsior (1960-1970), for which he produced and directed several shows. De Moya also took part in the launch of TV Bandeirantes (1967) and was artistic director of TV Paulista and TV Cultura, and creative director of Tupi Television Network.
Cover illustrations for O Pato Donald and Mickey.
Disney comics
Between 1952 and 1956, De Moya was an illustrator and production artist for the Disney magazines of Editora Abril. Trained by Abril's house artist Luis Destuet, he mostly provided cover illustrations for the magazines O Pato Donald and Mickey and also drew additional headers and introduction panels for some of the American comic stories.
Nationalist comics
De Moya's further comic book work was mainly of a nationalistic nature. In 1955, he wrote and drew a comic book biography of Zumbi dos Palmares, one of the pioneers in Brazil's resistance to slavery, for La Selva. He additionally made an adaptation of the Afonso Schmidt novel 'A Marcha' (1955) for the comic book Edição Maravilhosa by Adolfo Aizen's publishing house EBAL. For Editora Outubro, he adapted Shakespeare's 'MacBeth', with assistance from inker Jayme Cortez.
'A Marcha'.
Books about comics
However, De Moya has gained most fame for his contributions to the study and promotion of comics in his country, done as a journalist, book writer and organizer of shows, exhibitions and cultural events . In 1951, he was one of the organizers of the Exposição Internacional de Histórias em Quadrinhos in São Paulo, the first exposition of international comic art in Brazil, and one of the first worldwide. He was a pioneer in comic book research in Brazil with the book 'Shazam!' (1970). The book not only researched the history of comics, but also provided studies for the pedagogical and psychological influence of comics, the medium's influence on culture and its usage for communication purposes. Several books followed, such as 'História da História em Quadrinhos' (1993), 'O Mundo de Walt Disney' (1996), 'Anos 50 - 50 Anos' (2001), 'Vapt Vupt' (2002), 'Gloria in Excelsior' (2004) and 'A Reinvenção dos Quadrinhos' (2012). He represented his country during several comics conferences around the world, from Buenos Aires and New York to Rome and Lucca, and contributed to French, Spanish, Italian and American encyclopedias. His journalistic articles appeared in magazines like Abigraf, the newspapers O Estado de São Paulo and Jornal da Tarde and the US cartoon magazine Wittyworld.
Death
In the mid-2010s, De Moya was preparing a book with interviews with Will Eisner, when De Moya passed away following complications from a stroke on 14 August 2017.
Álvaro De Moya.