Good Fortuna

I just got back from Brazil where among other things I attended the 2nd Rio de Janeiro International Humor Festival.  It was an amazing exhibition with a special retrospective of one of my favorite Brazilian cartoonists, Reginaldo José de Azevedo Fortuna (better known as "Fortuna") who died in 1994.  He has a very loose and edgy style.  It was great to see his work close up.

Fortuna's drawing style reminds me a lot of the European cartoonists who emerged in the Post-War period, such as Saul Steinberg, Jean Jacques Sempé and André François.

 

His work was published in in most of the larger Brazilian newspapers and magazines, such as Senhor Senhor and the Correio da Manhã. He was a member of the founding team of the magazine O Pasquim in 1969. He also worked as an art editor for the magazine Veja and as director of editing of the magazine Claudia. He edited the alternative comic Bicho and contributed sketches to the Folhetim, the supplement to the newspaper Folha de São Paulo and also to Revista da Semana and A Cigarra.

 

Most of his drawings are without any text.  Apparently he used the seemingly ill-advised pseudonym 'Chico Forte' early in his career (Strong Boy in Portuguese).