Banda Desenhada: Introducing Portugal’s Comics

No that is not a misspelling, Banda Desenhada is Portugal’s name for comics. Sure Bande Dessinee have the biggest influence, especially Tintin. But there are loads more of their comics waiting to be discovered. You just need to look in the right places.

Banda Desenhada Origins

Portugal’s comics have a very familiar beginning in the printing press.

Unless you want to go back further to the 18th century with tile patterns on the Padrao do Senhor Roubado. Those of you who don’t know your Portuguese, it’s an illustrative replacement for some church’s stolen regalia 70 years prior. See, the 12-tile patterns told the concise, cyclical, story around those items to keep the spirit alive. There’s nothing more comic book-y than timeless presentation.

Tragically comic strips would take a while to catch up to that level. Usually it was just two-to-four vinhetas. Hey, you gotta start somewhere; Aventuras Sentimentaes e Dramáticas do Senhor Simplício Baptista (dramatic, sentimental, blah-blah) is where you’ll find familiar comic strips (tiras) through some middle-aged dude’s misadventures. But maybe that’s because this was a swipe of a French strip. If you’re looking for a more original start, there’s an adaptation of a short story called História de uma Dor de Dentes in the last strip’s same newspaper.

The Foundations

For the first truly original Portuguese comic, it was Raphael Bordalo Pinheiro’s Calcanhar de Aquiles. It was a caricature series of literary personalities based on designs for ceramics he was going to do. That leads to his first magazine and comic book on Brazil’s second and last emperor… What I’m not bothering with his name.

Speaking of Brazil, Pinheiro became friends with one of Brazil’s comic pioneers. Angelo Agostini in turn gave Pinheiro inspiration for a new magazine with Portugal’s own heroes. Compared to Pinheiro’s pamphlets, Ze Povinho became a national icon as a satire of the masses. You know how people usually complain about the state of things but are practically bound to it? That’s our hero; full of contradictions and not having the power or making the effort to change. If anything, he was just saying what everybody thinks.

It was enough for the character to connect with a lot of people in the 19th century. Among them are several creators who made their own satirical magazines, some adult-aimed. Pinheiro in turn, made child-oriented content while his brother Tomas worked with some people to create the luxury magazine O Gafanhoto, starring the titular grasshopper by Raphael’s son and foreign comics like Windsor McCay’s Little Nemo.

Banda Desenhada Go On Adventures

Pretty soon, with “advances” in speech like slang and expressive visuals came more adventure stories like Quim, Manecas e o seu Cão Piloto. It’s about two kids who like play around and find themselves in WWI against Germany. Followed by magazines like O Mosquito and fanzines like O Melro. The content ranged from adaptions like Arabian Nights to experimental projects like the anti-war post-apocalypse Wanya.

As for imports, they didn’t thrive as well. For one, heroes like Tarzan and Superman were banned in the 50s. Meanwhile the adventure genre was really starting to take off with Mosquito and O Mundo de Aventuras leading the trend. Ironic since the latter started with translations of King Features Syndicate series like Flash Gordon and the Phantom. Somehow cowboys made it past the political police; I’m not making that up. The only reason it didn’t happen sooner was because comics were seen as a lower art form. Now doesn’t that sound familiar…

So how did Tintin get through the censors in 1968? Sure it took a while for people to see its significance, but people found a higher potential in storytelling. After the Carnation Revolution, a golden age began with Visão leading the charge with a few fanzines following.

Banda Desenhada Iron Age

But when the 80s roll in, adventure series like Tintin or otherwise end their runs. With the genre that got people’s interest in comics losing its icons, Portugal drifted away from the medium. By this point, most comics were imported from France, Belgium, the US, or Italy with through the Panini distributor. The most true banda desenhada were in tabloid newspapers or riding on the Disney brand. But manga had to be around somewhere; right?

Because manga influenced a banda desenhada comeback in 2010 with the Banzai magazine. That way original content like Kuroneko could coexist with Italian Disney comics; publishing’s weird. But while those were happening, some more Banda Desenhada got released with The Adventures of Dog Mendonça & Pizzaboy being a standout. It is one of the few Portuguese originals to get released in America. Can’t say the same for other series from Edições Tinta-da-China, or other publishers like Devir.


Frankly there are loads of others, probably even more than some lists would say. Although it’s safer to say a lot of them are on the web. Which isn’t a bad thing when fans have websites to show how good some of them are.

Thanks for coming to the end and as always remember to look between the panels.