Banca de DEFESA: DAMIAO MARCOS PEREIRA SILVA

Chico Bento in: a historical analysis of his editorial success (1961-2013)

History of Sertões; Comics; Mauricio de Sousa Productions; Chico Bento.

Thinking about the contributions that the study of comics can provide for the human sciences, this research is the result of an analysis of the character Chico Bento and his relationship with the concept and history of the hinterlands. For this reason, this work seeks to understand the editorial success of the character Chico Bento in the world of comics, as a countryside character produced by the comic book company belonging to the Brazilian cartoonist Mauricio de Sousa. Analyzing the comics published by Mauricio de Sousa Productions, it was possible to perceive that the construction of the character Chico Bento as a countryside character gives us a possibility of contribution not only to the field of studies of comics in the Brazilian academic space, but also allow us to visualize our historical processes, in a direct relationship with the concept of hinterland. In an attempt to develop an in-depth study of his success in the publishing market of national comics, we noted that it would be necessary to critically investigate and historicize the construction of the sertanejo Chico Bento, from the perspective of history, in order to scientifically study the publications by Maurício de Sousa Productions, considering its historical production context, between 1961 and 2013. Therefore, to carry out this research, we used the following methodological steps: (1) Identification of the roles of the characters in the plot, focusing on the protagonists; (2) Analysis of the physical and psychological characteristics of the characters; (3) Identification of the interests behind the narrative and the conclusions that we can draw from each of them through the semantic analysis of the comics; (4) Recognition of graphic and aesthetic elements that allow us to identify country aspects in the selected stories; (5) Historical analysis of the sources based on reflection on their temporal context. At the end of our study, we concluded that the editorial success of the character Chico Bento in the national comics market consists of four primary factors: following the train of history (1 ); have an attractive theme (2); the construction of strong features (3), and constant updating by Mauricio de Sousa Produções (4).