António Rebelo de Sousa
Alfredo Cunha
António Maia
Cartoonist
His scathing cartoons have defined, with enviable accuracy, the various political moments of the country and of the world. His work spans four decades, filtered by studies including Sociology, Law and History of Art, producing a cultural broth to which his Ribatejo origins certainly granted some additional seasoning. He has published cartoons in some of the major media outlets and usually measures the pulse of this genre through the Cartoons do Ano collection, which he directs. He also dedicates himself to painting, having shown his work in several exhibitions.
How did your interest in cartoons begin?
I’ve always had an innate knack for drawing. It came from my mother who drew and painted very well. At school, I always got full marks in my drawing exams. What can you do with this talent? One day, some saint, in his strange mercy and with a sense of humor, placed me in the offices of some newspaper, showing some drawings to the director. It was in 1978, forty years ago now. The director was the journalist Fernando Dil and the weekly paper Edição Especial. It came out on Sundays. Fernando Dil told me: «I want, for the day after tomorrow, a cartoon for the front page!» And that’s just what happened.
Are people always expecting you to crack a joke? Do you usually come across this cliché?
Cartoonists generally use up all their humour through the tip of their pen. This means that as a person, you may not be the slightest bit funny. That’s how it is. Comics, however, cultivate spoken and performed humour. Of course this confusion is common and we have to live with it. As for me, besides having a stab at graphic humour, which I lovingly cultivate, I’m working on a certain style of sarcasm and irony. To survive.
«Cartoonists generally use up all their humour through the tip of their pen»
What are your favorite subjects?
My favourite subjects are political and social. The way we live, the customs and habits we invent to be able to live in droves, the meaning we seem to give life, our own little lives. And politics comes into all this.
Have you ever had any personal trouble because of a cartoon you’ve published?
As for trouble from cartoons, they are few when compared to the many joys they give me. And the troubles were for sometime have been unfair to my target, which torments me, or because certain cartoons have given rise to certain messages for the newsrooms, which relieves me. The target has been hit.
Are there especially Portuguese taboos?
We, the Portuguese, a unique people in the universe, are unique because we have characteristics, habits, culture, language and other extraordinary flaws. And taboos, too. Religion, sex and envy. Oh my God, envy. And to make this firmament shine, we have a centuries-old lack of self-esteem that grips us and holds us back in so much. But that’s just how we are. We are unique, we are Portuguese.
