New publishers and loyal readers are helping comics journalism catch on in Brazil. As trust in traditional media wanes, reporters say the format can create emotional connections that straight news often can't.
Freelance journalist Cecília Marins learned about comics journalism in a roundabout way, only after experimenting with different career paths in media.
Announcing a Russian soccer tournament here, covering the economy for Forbes Brasil there. Then one day she saw a non-fiction article published in comic format that caught her eye.
“Quatro Marias,” authored by fellow graduate Helo D’Angelo and Joyce Gomes, centered on the experiences of four women who had abortions in Brazil.
“I went up to her [D’Angelo] and said, ‘Look, did I just see that with my own eyes? I really want to know what it is, and I want to learn,’” Marins told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR).
Marins is part of a growing community of comics journalists in Brazil –many working as freelancers– who are finding spaces for their creations in the country’s media outlets.
Compared to its counterparts in Europe and the United States, the Brazilian comics journalism scene remains modest in size and scope. However, there have been signs of growth since 2018.
Norberto Liberator is editor at Revista Badaró, the only Brazilian magazine specialized in publishing comics journalism. Launched in 2019 by students from the Federal University of Mato Grosso do Sul, it has received one of Brazil's major journalism prizes: an honorable mention from the Vladimir Herzog Award.
For him, comics journalism production has grown a lot in the last 10 years, but has yet to break through.
“There’s still a strong tendency for it to be something that college students discover during their undergraduate studies, and it hasn’t gone mainstream yet,” he told LJR. “But I think it has great potential to go mainstream precisely because comics are a medium that captures people’s attention.”
And although comics journalism has roots in Brazil stretching back decades, it was only in May 2026 that the country saw its first national symposium on the subject—held at the Federal University of Ouro Preto (UFOP, for its Portuguese initials).
Among the attendees was Mariana Viana, a journalist for Fora do Plástico, one of a few news sites that specifically cover comics in Brazil. She told LJR that the symposium highlighted how the national journalism-focused comics scene has truly flourished over the past 15 years.
“We saw tremendous growth during the pandemic—the number of publishers increased, and while the number of readers didn’t grow as much, more people became interested in comics in general,” she said. “So this growth has also revitalized Fora do Plástico’s market to the point where we’re able to publish news every day.”
An expanding field with more topics, and outlets
Augusto Paim, who has been active in the research and creation of comics journalism since the early 2010s, said the market has evolved into something more than just a genre or a format, becoming something akin to a field of practice.
“And within this field, there are countless possibilities, including new genres to explore. The best-known is a comics feature,” Paim, author of “Pequeno manual da reportagem em quadrinhos” (Small manual of comics journalism), told LJR.
He said comics journalism can be presented in other formats, such as interviews, news stories, fact-checking, profiles and so on.
The possibility of using comics journalism to do more than just a feature seems to be one of its defining strengths. Marins, for one, thinks comics can be a great way to bypass preconceptions.
“People aren't really in the habit of reading long articles anymore. And they're even less likely to believe the articles they read online, so I think comics are a way for you to use a language that people are already familiar with—one that creates an emotional connection—and get a message across that they're a little more open to,” she said.
One of the few comics journalists who has found a full-time position at a media outlet is Pablito Aguiar, who works for environmental news site Sumaúma. However, he previously spent years working intensely on freelance projects.
“It gives me more peace of mind, you know, to focus on the stories, and they also give me space to create—space to have time to think about the reports,” Aguiar told LJR about his new experience. He added that this changed his relationship with the craft, because now he has to follow a rigorous editorial process of fact-checking, review and editing.
“Now that I’m part of the editorial team, it’s a process that lends more credibility to what I do and gives more strength to my drawings as well,” he said.
Growing spaces
Freelance comics journalist Gabriela Güllich has been active in the field since 2018 and focuses on human rights and the environment, solidifying herself as a contributor to sites like Agência Pública, O Grito! and ((o))eco - jornalismo ambiental.
She told LJR that outlets are increasingly receptive of stories or interviews done in comics, and grants have been more flexible with accepting new formats.
“In the case of the article ‘Freedom Denied: The Lives of Migrant Women After Prison,’ which I published [alongside Nduduzo Siba] on Pública through their microgrant focused on formerly incarcerated people issues, the proposal was accepted as part of a multimedia call for submissions—that is, it was published alongside articles in various formats without necessarily having to fit the mold of a comic book special,” Güllich said.
Although she, Marins and Viana agree that there are many struggles in making comics their primary activity as journalists, they said there has been a more welcoming atmosphere.
Güllich, for example, said more conventions are making room for talks and workshops focused on the field, such as the Curitiba Biennial, the Amazon Comics Circuit and FIQ [International Comics Festival].
“In this exchange with the public, it’s clear that we’ve managed to attract curious people from both sides,” she said. “Whether they’re avid comic book readers who don’t have much exposure to nonfiction and become interested in the topic, or people in the communications field who consume journalistic genres but don’t usually read comics and end up becoming interested in the format.”
