‘Pirilampo’: Uncle and Nephew’s Comics Unravels the Amazon in Underwater Adventure

Bruno Pacheco – Cenarium Magazine

MANAUS – The illustrator Leon Sarmento and his uncle, screenwriter Rony Sarmento, will launch between April and March of this year the HQ Comics “Pirilampos”, an adventure about a gold-digger who explores the Amazon in search of precious stones, but finds, at the bottom of the river, an underwater world full of mysteries. The project was awarded the “Amazonas Criativo 2021 Award” by the Amazonas State Government. The goal is that the work will be distributed for free in five schools in Manaus.

“For us, it was a huge surprise that the project was awarded, because it was the first time we applied for a public notice and were approved. The comic is being developed in partnership with my uncle Rony Sarmento, who scripted the story and gives me all the creative support in the production of the work. We are working daily to honor the project and make the best version of it, with the goal of representing the comics from the North throughout Brazil,” said Leon Sarmento.

To CENARIUM MAGAZINE, Leon told this Sunday, 27, that the distribution of the comic will be made with a brief presentation of the project, aiming to encourage the reading of comics among children and teenagers and awaken the interest of those who already draw. “We want to open the kids’ minds to this path, that there is a career for those who like the ninth art, that one can live through this trajectory”, reinforced the illustrator.

The educational units that will receive the comic book will be the Municipal School Deputado Federal Ulysses Guimarães, the State School Professor José Bernardino Lindoso, the State School Profº Juracy Batista Gomes, the Municipal School São Judas Tadeu, in the North zone, and the State School Monteiro de Souza, in the South zone of Manaus.

COMICS

In 40 pages, the work shows the diver coming across underwater wildlife at the bottom of the Madeira River, a region of the Amazon where the largest amount of ore, gold, and precious stones are found. The name of the comic strip was not by chance: “fireflies” is the same as a firefly, insects that emit a bioluminescent light and which, in the tale, make reference to the luminosity of a precious stone and to the alligator’s eye, which glows in the dark.

“The diver ends up facing some wild animals at the bottom of the river, like the alligator, and he needs to fight for his life in order to survive and reach the surface again. It is a story of survival that involves great mysteries found in the depths of the Madeira River,” described illustrator Leon Sarmento.

Leon Sarmento also says that Rony describes, in a detailed way, each of the scenes in the comic, just like in a movie script. “It was a great help, just by seeing it I could already imagine the scene and it made the process of sketching the drawing easier”, said Leon.

“The process of illustrating the pages was very laborious and arduous, but because of the colorization, I did all the drawing and graphic design. I spent several sleepless nights, especially during the final part of the project. I was restless. I, more than anyone else, wanted to see it finished. For me, it was a great challenge”, highlighted the artist.

The illustrator remembers that he had to redo several pages and discard others, as demanded by his uncle, to improve the work more and more. Leon also jokingly says that, because of this, he can now draw an alligator easily.

“But I confess that my uncle was very demanding about the quality of the illustrations, the shots, angles, and framing. He presented me with several images, with references from several different photographic shots, helping me to see better through his original vision and what he really wanted to get across with the script,” Leon emphasized.

Campus Party

At first, the project was thought to be a panel for the 2021 digital version of Campus Party, one of the largest technology events in the world that promotes debates, lectures, and online activities. The work would be presented in storyboard format, i.e., as an illustrated visual guide that shows the main scenes of an audiovisual product, but problems with the local internet in Manaus prevented Leon and Rony Sarmento from delivering the material in time.

“We did the project at very short notice, my uncle had just sent the script at the time, and I decided to submit it as a storyboard only, because I would be able to finish it in time and would not need to finalize anything. I would just deliver the rough drafts and the project in its rawest form. We submitted the proposal, were selected, but on the day of the presentation, we had problems with the internet connection. At the time my provider was NET, which was very bad. It couldn’t rain or close the weather and the signal started to oscillate and this made our presentation sink. I was very sad about this situation and even thought of giving up,” recalled Leon Sarmento.

The illustrator remembers that he received encouragement from his uncle to continue with the project and to improve it together. “We kept going and then the opportunity of the public notice came up, and that’s when we decided to sign up. Now, the idea is to expand the project, take it with us to events, to the partner stands here in Manaus, and try the Comic Con”, he said.

Art in family

At 27, Leon Sarmento is a cartoonist, comic book artist and designer from Amazonas. He is also co-author of the comic book “Super Grandpa” and author of the role-playing game “Ubiratã”, which pays tribute to the Amazon culture, indigenous mythology and Brazilian folklore. To CENARIUM, the illustrator tells that he got to know the world of comics when he was still a child, through the productions his uncle collected.

“When he was younger, my parents would leave for work, dropping me off at my grandmother’s house. There, I remember to this day having access to titles like “Elektra Assassina,” “The Fall of Murdock,” “Wolverine Weapon X,” “Ronin,” “Pirates of the Tietê,” among others. As a child I had access to these titles. I remember the strong images, I fell in love with the drawings, the shapes and colors, I tried to draw some of the characters, and it was then that my uncle started to buy books that brought teaching guides on the art of drawing, at that time not everything was accessible on the internet as it is today,” he finished.