Marcello Quintanilha, Fauve d’Or in Angoulême: “I like to represent the characters in the crudest way”

It is the first time that a Brazilian author has won the Fauve d’Or at the Angoulême International Comics Festival. Marcello Quintanilha had already won the thriller award for “Tungsten” in 2016. This time he portrays the fate of a woman and her daughter in a Rio de Janeiro favela in “Listen to pretty Marcia” (ed. Cà e là), a album with pungent colors that speaks of violence and hope. A powerful portrait of a woman. Interview in French with a Brazilian author who has lived in Barcelona for twenty years.

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SHE. How did you feel when you received the supreme prize in Angoulême?

Marcello Quintanilha. It is very difficult to express what I felt on the theater stage when the award was presented to me. I had already received the thriller award for “Tungstène” a few years earlier. It was something very strong. Like the first time. Like a second first time.

SHE. How was born the character of Marcia, your heroine, carer in a hospital in Rio, dealing with her daughter who wants to do what she wants?

sqm I had an idea a long time ago. I wanted to work on a character who is faced with a very difficult decision to make. Without saying too much, it’s about a mother who has to make a decision about her daughter. My idea was to show how, sometimes, life imposes inevitable and very difficult choices on us, without us knowing if we are making the right or wrong decision. There is no one to tell us how to do it. We are alone in the dilemma.

SHE. Is it easy to slip under the skin of a heroine?

sqm As with many of my stories, I’m inspired by a character I know. With Marcia I was inspired by a friend of the same name who gave her face to her character. In fact, the characters imposed themselves on me quite naturally. I didn’t anticipate wanting to work specifically on female characters. This is the humanity I work on. I never think about this question of the masculine, the feminine. It’s not the first time I’ve cast a woman as the main protagonist. I had already done it in “Talc de verre”. It’s very difficult for me to put things in a box by saying this is a woman’s role or that is a man’s role.

SHE. Do the women you portray still have great personalities?

sqm Life is much harder for women than for men in the favelas. In a place where the state is absent, women have no choice but to be strong and courageous.

SHE. You have chosen a very flashy and spicy range of colors, why this choice?

sqm I wanted readers to experience an explosion of color. I wanted to draw with colors. That’s why the line is very discreet, even non-existent. I didn’t want to insert information that oriented the reader’s gaze, that made things inevitable.

SHE. You also staged round women, very round, is it a voluntary choice? Their bodies, their faces sometimes occupy the entire box. Why this treatment?

sqm Marcia and her daughter Jacqueline have the same body. Marcia sees a part of herself when she talks to her daughter about her, like a mirror, as if she can change a part of her personality about her through her daughter about her. I like to portray characters in the rawest way. I draw real people. I don’t like to idealize.

SHE. You are the first Brazilian to be awarded the Fauve d’Or in Angoulême. How did you become a designer?

sqm. I was born in Niteroi, in a popular neighborhood. My father was a footballer and my mother a teacher. I read a lot of comics in the newspapers. Even before learning to read, I was fascinated by graphics, comics… And when I finally learned to decipher letters, it was even better. As a child, when I drew, I always made several to tell a story. Even though I didn’t think it was possible to make a living from comics in Brazil, that’s what I wanted to do very soon. I thought I’d practice with a classic job that would allow me to live and draw in my spare time. Like at 7pm^And, when no one could live on literature. And at some point it happened. When I started publishing stories in the early 90s, it was very difficult. Comics didn’t interest many people in Brazil at the time. Today everything has changed, there are more and more publishing houses, the readership has grown considerably.