'Alex e Cris'.
Walmir Amaral was a Brazilian comic creator with a long association with the publishing house Rio Gráfica Editora. Working for the company from 1957 to 1986, he produced covers and illustrations with several licensed characters, most notably Lee Falk's 'The Phantom'. He also succeeded Flavio Colin on the crime serial 'Aventuras do Anjo' (1962-1965), and worked for other publishers on such series as 'O Vingador' (mid-1960s), 'Zhor, O Atlanta' (1973), 'Zorro' (1973-1975) and 'Alex e Cris' (1974-1975).
Early life
Walmir Amaral de Oliveira was born in 1939 in the Meier neighborhood of Rio de Janeiro into an Italian-Portuguese family. As a child, he made chalk drawings on the sidewalk near his house and told the accompanying stories to passers-by.
Rio Gráfica Editora
At age 17, Amaral was hired by Roberto Marinho as art assistant at the publishing house Rio Gráfica Editora (RGE), a sister company of the newspaper O Globo. From the 1950s through the 1980s, he was one of the main artists and occasional writers for this publishing house. RGE was a commercially oriented publishing venture, with a focus on comic books related to US comic properties from Marvel Comics, DC Comics and King Features Syndicate. Local artists such as Walmir Amaral and Primaggio Mantovi took care of the remounting of American newspaper strips to the comic book format, but also provided cover illustrations and new stories whenever the source material dried out.
Cover illustrations for Cavaleiro Negro nr. 178 and Dico nr. 4.
Cavalerio Negro and other characters
At one point, by his own initiative, Amaral drew a ten-page story with 'Cavalerio Negro', the US western hero 'Black Rider', originally created for Timely/Marvel by Syd Shores. Several additional stories followed. The series' many revolvers, pistols and rifles even turned the cartoonist into an avid gun collector. In a similar fashion, Amaral was one of the local artists of 'Flecha Ligeira', Brazil's edition of Gardner Fox and Fred Meagher's 'Straight Arrow' from Magazine Enterprises. Amaral's further RGE work included dozens of covers for the comic books Flash Gordon, Fantasma (Lee Falk's 'The Phantom'), Mandrake (Lee Falk's 'Mandrake the Magician'), Kripta (a horror anthology compiled from the Warren magazines Eerie and Creepy), Cavaleiro Fantasma (Marvel's 'Ghost Rider'), Águia Negra (Peter Chapman's 'Sir Falcon'), Dico O Artilheiro (José Luis Salinas and Alfreddo Grassi's 'Dick the Gunner') and the comic magazine Gibi Semanal (1974-1975).
'Aventuras do Anjo' #72.
Aventuras do Anjo
In 1962, Amaral succeeded Flavio Colin as artist of the comic books based on Álvaro Aguiar's crime suspense radio serial 'Aventuras do Anjo'. Amaral initially worked with Aguiar's orginal scripts for the radio series, but he eventually turned to making his own stories. The final issue of the comic book appeared in 1965.
The Phantom
From the 1960s through the 1980s, Amaral was a prominent artist of Lee Falk's fantasy characters 'The Phantom' and 'Mandrake the Magician'. He not only drew hundreds of 'Fantasma' covers for the Brazilian market, but also about 26 stories with the character, created in the periods 1969-1972 and 1980-1982. The Brazilian stories were exchanged with foreign 'Phantom' publications, most notably 'Fantomen' by the Swedish publisher Semic Press, which also had an extensive local story production. RGE apparently didn't have the exclusive Brazilian rights to 'The Phantom', as another publisher, Editora Saber, released a similar monthly title between 1969 and 1975. Walmir Amaral drew a couple of stories for this title as well, which he signed with "Amaral", while his RGE work was generally signed with "Walmir". In the 1980s, Amaral directed RGE's local 'Phantom' production team, consisting of Wanderley Mayhé, Adauto Silva, Julio Shimamoto and Antonino Homobono.
Covers for Fantasma #192 and #282.
Other publishers
In addition to his work for RGE, Amaral drew for a couple of other publishing houses in the 1960s and 1970s, including the previously mentioned Saber. In the mid-1960s, he drew the adventures of 'O Vingador', the masked cowboy created by Hélio Porto, for Editora Outubro. For Editorial Taika, he drew for the sole issue of 'Zhor, O Atlanta' (1973), a sword and sorcery comic book written by Francisco de Assis P. da Silva. In November 2017, this comic book was reprinted by Criativo Editora. Between 1973 and 1975, the artist drew about a dozen stories with Walt Disney's 'Zorro' for Editora Abril, most of them written by Primaggio Mantovi or Ivan Saidenberg. With writer Octaviano Ribeiro, he was also present in Abril's short-lived comic magazine Crás! (1974-1975) with 'Alex e Cris', a sexy secret agents duo inspired by the 1960s British newspaper comic 'The Seekers' by John M. Burns.
'Zhor'.
Final years and death
In 1986, Rio Gráfica Editora's activities came to an end. In the 1990s, Amaral drew educational material for the language education programs of the Anglo-American Cultural Centre CCAA (Centro de Cultura Anglo Americana) in Rio de Janeiro, a network of language schools. In 1997, he was awarded the Angelo Agostini award for his contributions to the Brazilian comic industry. He came out of his retirement for a first time in 2011 as one of the artists for an anthology comic book adaptation of Álvares de Azevedo's Gothic fiction short story collection 'Noite na Taverna' by Editora Ática. In 2013, he participated in the horror anthology 'Zumbis e Outras Criaturas das Trevas' by Editorial Kalaco. Editora Criativo devoted a 2017 installment in their 'Sketchbook Custom' collection to Walmir Amaral and his art.
Walmir Amaral de Oliveira died in January 2024, a month after his 84th birthday.
'Zorro' (Edição Extra # 57, 1974). © Disney.