Interview with Master Ziraldo

Wih dark skin and white eyebrows graúdas who does not recognize by far the collector vests? What is perhaps not everyone knows that this man is a lot of things at once: a painter, cartoonist, poster, journalist, writer, playwright and ... bundólogo! Yes, who is understood to asses.

In 1960, he launched The Pererê, the first Brazilian comic book blockbuster, representing one of the highlights in the national renewal that comics were trying to take the time. Then he stamped his cartoons in historical journals and Pif Paf The Quibbler, which he edited along with Millor Fernandes, Jaguar, Fortuna and others (was primor of humor!). And first graphic artist, also signed posters anthologies of national cinema, as The Great Train Robbery and The Rifles.

It can be said without error: there is a style that is unmistakable Ziraldo. Style that took shape from the illustrations of Jeremiah, the Good, with those "feet of iron electric" as Borjalo say, another cartoonist handful.

Today, octogenarian, has accumulated extensive work devoted to children's literature. Children's idol. Than for less interestingly, its name carries a fun game, combining Zizinha, his mother, and Geraldo, his father. Result: Ziraldo.

When it comes to successful artist, there is no escaping from The Nutty Boy, that pot on his head and hand tucked inside his coat, just like a Napoleon. Who does not know? But it's worth remembering, was Flicts, 1969, her first book for children. The Story of a color "rare and sad" do not think anywhere in the world. A work graphically innovative brand in the language of books, rushed for an order.

Ziraldo represents a call to read. He is always willing to vigorously defend the importance of this wonderful support, the book, he said, "the most perfect object that humans invented." Always with humor and without moral of the story. Congratulations, Ziraldo boy!

Do you have a favorite book?

Ah, I read a lot. I have four bathrooms, two studio and two at home. So I'm always reading four books at the same time.

What are they today?

I had fun with deeply Art of Stealing. A modern book, which can be applied to today. Shows how to steal! In power, politics, the thousand ways you can cheat and rob the people. Rousseff finished now, interesting, telling the story of Dilma, and also another fundamental book that should be translated into Portuguese, Ana Pizarro, on the season's Gabriela Mistral (Chilean poet, consul in Brazil in the 40s) here An analysis of the extraordinary literary life of Brazil at the time. An outside view of our production I've ever seen!

What was the book you most marked in childhood?

The Magic of Light Clemente, which I read at age seven. The best children's book of the season, the first original. The enchantment by Monteiro Lobato was simultaneous with my passion for comics. So I was more a friend of Batman, Heroes. But when the magician fell on my hand, it was the first time I cried reading a book in my life. Pelejo to find his family, drawing and re-edit this book. It is poignant, tells the story of a man who works in a circus and wanted to be a magician. And he starts doing magic, really. Li Grimm Tales, all the classic collection of Treasures of Youth ... but when I read the Clemente Light, I knew: that literature should be!

Do you have any favorite comic?

When did the Class of Pererê, the first Brazilian magazine comic signed by a single author, I try to find the reason for the success of Little Lulu, analyze the dramaturgical structure, temperament of each character. I realized that when I wanted to complain to Bolinha Little Lulu, the story showed all the way from his house to hers, reflecting the character, thinking. This is sensational. That was the big influence that Pererê had and certainly one of the reasons for the success of the magazine.

What do you think of new platforms for reading with emerging technology?

You accept changes in the world without realizing it. They do not traumatize! I was in the car, the cell phone rings, I answer: "Daniela, I'm going Prai, yeah raining?" And she replies "I do not know, Dad, I'm in China." I remember when, well child, I got ready to go listen to the first broadcast of a radio that arrived in the camp where I lived. It was an event! I only know Ice when I was 10! My father brought in his hand and tcharam, gone! When we know is a crazy thing, but then gets used, without notice.

How is an iPad autograph?
Well, you see? I'll autograph! What I can do is influence me why. What I can do is draw and write history. Who has to put what I do in these new platforms are "the boys". You (youths) are another race! (Laughs)

Yeah, Ziraldo, and that kids out there? They are in contact with this technological world very early. They have other training, other stimuli. Why their success stories continue doing among them?

I love it there, you know? He spent six hours giving autograph and I'm even sad when the queue ends. I do not do anything to please, or do anything that is trendy. I have no ecological book, nothing to go with the flow. I swim against the tide, because everything I liked in life is so (interrupted by the screams of children, he warns: "I'm coming, I'm coming!"). You see? My life is to be a popstar.

Do you see any difference for these children were the ones that your audience 20 years ago?

The human being does not change. The man continues to suffer, loving, betraying the same reasons. The structure is the same, what changes are the circumstances. These boys were kings before the game that made the kite caught bird, made phone box phosphorus were beasts of marble. They existed!

These new technologies can not remove these children's books?

Our battle is this. We can not let these kids get to the iPod, the iPad, without going through the book. It's the reading that leads to reflection, to the possibility of choice. There is no civilization without reading, without the word, without the written word. There's a bunch of idiot arriving at Brazilian universities without knowing how to read or interpret a text. Then the Brazilian education has no solution! How to educate a people who can not read? I went to a modern school where children spent an hour and a half dancing, jumping, playing drum. No word on the book once! It is the book that forms the citizen. Drum beat we learn alone!

A tip for those who want to learn to draw?

Read! The design is a mental art, one must read to imagine, create, put on paper. I am Scout: the problem of Brazilian education is reading. You have to give the student a tool for him to educate, enhance themselves.