In December 2019, the publisher Comix Zone brought the first four comics by author Lourenço Mutarelli to the Brazilian market again. The album, titled “Black cape” brings together the albums Transubstantiation (1991), Bastards (1993), I love you Lucimar (1994) and The Fork Confluence (1997). Edited by Thiago Ferreira and Ferréz, the compendium of stories is a dive into the universe of Brazilian comics in which the original pages were redigitized to expand the reader's graphic experience.
To celebrate the “birth” (or rebirth) of these albums, today I had a coffee and had a chat with Mutarelli about the work, creative process and references in his work. See below.
Interview Lourenço Mutarelli
Vince: How does it feel to be reunited with your own work thirty years later?
Mutarelli: It's impressive, but at the same time it's scary. It's you realizing that thirty years have passed since I published my first album. Reconnecting with this work is realizing that I am dying, but at the same time being reborn for new audiences who were unable to discover my work back then. The launch of “Capa Preta” with the original boards in this beautiful format moved me; I have a lot to thank Ferréz (who is like a brother and a father to me) and Tiago (from Comix Zone).
Vince: Do you read your work after it is published? How is your relationship with your comics and texts?
Mutarelli: I am very distant from my work. I rarely re-read what I write and publish. There's an interesting fact about this: Companhia das Letras is going to launch an audio book version of the book “The Smell of the Drain” and invited me to read the text in its entirety; So, it was very interesting because I think it was the first time in a long time that I picked up one of my works and read it from beginning to end. As for “Capa Preta”, I couldn’t reread the comics. The edition is wonderful, but I can't read again what I produced in those years; It is a reflection of the terrible years I spent in my life, but which I understand were essential for this work to happen. Of course, I have some more beloved works: the books “The art of producing effect without cause” and “O grifo de Abdera”.
Vince: Those who follow you on Instagram at @mutarellilourenco always see you writing, drawing, reading texts and making collages. You always share your ideas there. Hence the question: what is your creative process like and what has changed in it since the time you started working in comics?
Mutarelli: I have several notebooks and I generate things in them: doodles, ideas, phrases, montages with photos, drawing on top of photos, experiments with paint, etc. I'm always trying to access something that isn't rational. I go into a trance when I'm doing this and seek a materialization of my unconscious. It's like that when I draw. It's like that when I write. When I want to have ideas, I take these notebooks and revisit what I produced for hours and hours. Inspiration and the creative process are there.
Vince: What inspires you? What are you reading now? What are you listening to now?
Mutarelli: Literature and music are two great inspirations. I've had little time to read, but the last great book I read was “Luminous Romance” by Mario Levrero; It was a narrative that grabbed me from beginning to end in total immersion. In relation to the musical world, I listen to Current 93 a lot and I have recently discovered the work of Anna Varney (from the Sopor Aeternus project) which I have been listening to a lot too.
Vince: Your style is always different. If we look at the albums that make up “Capa Preta” we see a Mutarelli that starts from a hard black and white to a Mutarelli that experiments with gradients and watercolors in shades of gray. In “Mundo Pet” there is work with colors. How do you see this evolution of your work?
Mutarelli: I try to make each of my work with unique detail. I often change a small thing, but I have always tried to bring about some kind of change in my work (whether in drawing or in text). I think I put a lot of bad things out in my first works (as I said: it was a terrible time in my life) and I think that – over time – my work “softened”.
Vince: What's coming up? What works will we have next?
Mutarelli: Well, the film based on my book “Jesus Kid” is in the final stages of production, so I think we will soon have something in audiovisual form of my work. Cia. Das Letras is preparing a relaunch of a work from a comic of mine that I really like, which is “A Caixa de Sand”. At the moment, but this is a release for 2021, I'm working on an autobiography, but with a surrealist feel (I hope it turns out cool).
About the author: Born in 1964, Lourenço Mutarelli attended the Faculty of Fine Arts and, for three years, worked at Estúdios Maurício de Sousa. In 1988, some colleagues thought it would be a good idea to simulate a kidnapping to take him to a surprise party. The hazing triggered a chronic depressive crisis. The author found in comic books the remedy to overcome this trauma and personified, in his heroes, the dramas he experienced.
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