EDGAR FRANCO
Interview by Monalisa
Unmasking the horizons of the human essence, its feelings,
pains and the eternal duality inside of us. Revealing us the deliriums of the daily in a
deep way with mythical character but human sensibility, in mythological sceneries, sweet
and bitter as ourselves. A creator of texts and original lines that it comes conquering
his space and recognition in zines and magazines of Brazil and of the world, an artist
that looks for in deeper essence the inspiration to create, this is Edgar Franco, comics
artist, illustrator and poet, creator of beautiful comics of Philosophical Fantastic fund.
We will hear a little of his concepts.
You are in the cene of underground comics for a long time, give us a
historical of his trajectory.
Edgar Franco - I Began to collaborate in the cene with fanzines of the eighties, when I
began my production of comics, in that time I liked horror pictures a lot and I was
influenced by the magazines of the extinct publishing D-art (Masters of the Terror), I
loved the art in black and white of masters as Mozart Couto, Flávio Colin. My first
comics was of horror, but already in that time I wrote poems, to the few went
incorporating my poetic and philosophical reflections to my comics that I finished
intensifying when I met the work of European artists like CAZA and DRUILLET. The zines was
(and they are still!) indispensable vehicles for the grew of my work, in them could always
try with freedom and I still obtained readers' critics and I maintained contact with other
artists. With passing years my language if crystallizing, in the architecture graduate
could mature my line and to try several drawing techniques and painting besides deepening
my knowledge in history of the art. Due to my great participation in the zines, they went
appearing invitations to collaborate with magazines like BRAZILIAN HEAVY METAL, METAL
PESADO, FEROCIOUS FEMALE and NEKTAR and I published my first album for the publisher MARK
OF FANTASY, entitled AGARTHA, also already participated of several zines of the exterior
and I have been working as designer and illustrator of covers of Cds, books and magazines.
Talk about the comics in Brazil now?
Edgar: Unhappily most of the Brazilian production of authorial comics of quality is still
concentrated in Fanzines, I say unhappily not because the zines is an inferior vehicle and
yes because many of those works would deserve to be published by great publishers and
distributed in the country arriving to the any interested reader's hands. Unhappily Brazil
lacks of the Editor's comics, they pay badly (when they pay) and they believe that are
doing a favor to the they publish our work.
Which are the difficulties of the comics artists in Brazil?
As I said in the previous answer, the great problem is the inexistence of editors and
serious publishers interested in publishing the authorial artists. Brazil still needs to
create a public reader for the authorial comic and for that the magazines should arrive to
the country, but they are overfilled of titles for adolescents (muscular heroes that give
blow in everybody) and still other titles for adolescents put adults (the such line
American Vertigo). Is impossible for an authorial artist to live of comics in Brazil, what
is very sad because we cannot be devoted like this completely to our art.
Do yours characters, sceneries and architectures have mythological and
mythical elements, which areyours inspiring sources??
The archetypes of the collective unconscious can be found in the larger secrets of Tarot,
in the hexagrams of the milenar oracle Chinese I Ching, in the Greek, Celtic mythology and
in the Brazilian folklore, the movies also possesses rich examples of mythical tems, from
films like Metropolis, going by Traces of Hate and arriving to the movies of Fantastic
Science: Stars Wars, Alien, TheLegend and the Silence of the Lambs , all the mythical
essence of those films and oracles serve as inspiration for my poetic and philosophical
reflections. I am also in general a specialist of the oriental philosophy and I admire
obscure and fascinating agreements as " Madam Blavatsky's Secret " Doctrine and
the studies of Ouspenski, Aldous Huxley, Bontempo, among so many others. I love the music
that exercises a fundamental paper in my creative process, I listen of Mozart to obtuse
and insane sonorities like Dimmu Borgir, Celtic Frost ,In Flames and Purulence, have been
listening the progressive rock of bands a lot as King Grimson, Pink Floyd, ELP, and Doom
metal like Medicine Death, Amorphis, Imago Mortis and Tiamat. The largest inspiration
source is my life and my existential questions.
Your texts possess a lot of sensibility, with deep philosophical reflections.
Where does the energy come to undress the human beings and theirs feelings from?
Above all I am a curious man , the old subjects that populated the great philosophers'
mind in whole the ages they also pursue me, the art, in the case the comics, show my
reflections. I am a to be very worried with the destinies of our race, with the reasons of
the existence, and with the old dilemmas of power and glory that are causing to
deterioration of the human societies. The egoism that takes us hate our neighbor and also
takes the rulers they to declare war to other nations, games of power that try to fill the
men's ego, because they don't notice that the ego is a bottomless abyss and it is
impossible to fill it. The communication means proceed in its dehumanize process of the
masses, just exploring aspects that feed the man's animal side, ID, their reptilian brain,
that is to say, feeding the sex anguish with the lust and feeding the ancestral fear of
the death (that takes us to feel attraction for the morbid), with violence scenes,
mutilation, disease, death, rottenness. it is against those things that my art rises, in
the fund I always talk about sweetness and love, about peace, and in my routes feebler
treatment on the obscure roads of the ego and about its unnamable emptiness. We lived in a
world of inverted values, everything that is vile, mundane, poor and emptiness is in the
top and what is sincere, pure and wise person lives in the limbo or in the forgetfulness.
My work also works as catalyst of my process of alchemic evolution, my evolution while to
be, that implies in the elimination of the longings and desires, I take my dilemmas for
the art, I transform my pains in histories that objectify to take the people to question
the same things that I question, I am also a human being as any other one, I live day by
day in mine a fight to eliminate my ego, to destroy the anxieties, vanities and desires,
but I should say that is a battle very it lasts and constantly the ego appears and it
expires, but while it is alive I will fight. For me the most important of the art is its
content, which she has to say, the art is powerful because it involves intuitive aspects
that dialogue directly with the men's soul. The aesthetic aspect is in second plan, it
should never surpass the essence, the current art became just aesthetics, that is to say
an art of the vanity.
Finally, I am inspired by the human race and I speak for the human race, I am aware that
little people have access to my work, but that doesn't matter, if I get to do a person it
to question, I will already be very happy, a person can change the world ...this is Theory
of the Chaos.
In your newer work, AGARTHA , you talk about the religions and thepromised
paradises by them, give us your opinion regarding that.
That is a very complex subject because I play in a serious wound of all the western dogmas
in my album " AGARTHA ", the promise that do from a paradisiac position where
the good ones will live for the eternity. If we go like this for a place and we stay with
our essence INDIVIDUAL (EGO), it is the paradox among her divulged eternal life and the
absence of conflicts and desires. I am not owner of the truth and nor I have such
pretense, but that eternity model is of a ridiculous fragility. The well exists only as a
reflex of the evil, they are actually an only concept, the western religions don't propose
the unit, but they elevate an only face of the coin " BEMAL"(God+ Evill), the
Universe is in constant process of chaotic balance and that involves construction and
destruction. I would like that the people as free for a moment of the blindness imposed by
the dogmas and they looked at all those subjects starting from other prism, a holistic
prism , that is to say that involves a reflection based on all the philosophies , in the
science and in the Nature.
Who to be interested in knowing a little more on my reflections, it is worthwhile to
acquire the album AGARTHA, a comic of 64 pages negotiating on that subject, with layer in
two colors and square hill. The requests should be made sending order check or it is worth
postal in the real value of U$ 8 (including postal expenses) on behalf of Henrique
Magalhães for the Publisher Mark of Fantasy - Rua Manoel de Sousa, 95/302 - João Pessoa,
PB - ZIP CODE 58045-090 -Brazil
To the heavy bands, death, black, doom and progressive, I would like to say
that I work with illustrations for covers of CDs and demos, besides logos creation,
already tends dozens of works in my curriculum, check a sample of my art :
My site : www.oocities.org/SoHo/Workshop/4166
My Adress:
Avenue 19, number 616 - Ituiutaba - MG -38300 000 - Brazil. Or send me an e-mail:
ritualart@zipmail.com.br