Drawing Brazilians and Other People: The Brazilian Expeditionary Force in Post World War II Comics

A 25,000 strong Brazilian Expeditionary Force (FEB) fought alongside the Allies in the Italian Campaign during WWII.  In the “,” the Brazilian soldiers encountered Allied Americans, liberated Italians and Axis Germans.  They also met Brazilians, different from them in social class, cultural horizon, and ethnic, racial and regional origin.  In these encounters the lines between self and other had to be drawn and better defined.  After the war Brazilians narrated their experiences to themselves and the lines of inclusion and exclusion were drawn again in different mediums.

One important medium for the memory of the war was comics published in during the 1950’s to the 1970’s.  In dozens of comic books different artists told their readers, teens and adults alike, about their countrymen’s experiences in WWII.  The nature of the medium encouraged minimalist textual and visual narratives, making it particularly rich and revealing.  In this paper I will analyze how Brazilians told themselves who they were, who they were not, and how they differed from others.  Moreover, by drawing these stories of their past, they also commentated on their present.