- Chuck Billy (Chuck Billy 'n' Folks)
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For the Testament vocalist, see Chuck Billy (vocalist).
Chuck Billy (Chico Bento in the original Brazilian strips) is the main character from Chuck Billy 'n' Folks, created by Brazilian cartoonist Mauricio de Sousa. He is the biggest work of Mauricio after Monica's Gang, and he has his own cartoon magazine and even some VHS and DVD movies, following Monica's steps.
Contents
History
He was created back in 1961, inspired on Mauricio's real life grandfather's brother. It first came to public in 1963, in a short cartoon with two other characters, his best friend Benny and his Japanese friend Taka.[1]
Back in the 1980s the cartoon was polemic due to the dialogues. Mauricio was trying to represent how a hilly billy would talk by writing his lines with typical mistakes and incorrections of Brazilian Portuguese (actually the caipira dialect, which is not considered a dialect in Brazil). Later on that was adapted and every mistake is indicated either in bold or some variant ways.
In 2009, a polemical short strip featuring Chuck Billy and an annonymous character was featured in an issue of Viva! magazine, released in the Brazilian state of Bahia to assist teachers of the state schools. The strip featured a boy saying "My father has more than 800 heads of cattle"[2], to which Chuck answers: "Tell him to take them all up his ass." [3] In the original strip, the boy asks the same thing but ends his sentence with "...what about yours?". Billy then simply answers: "My father has only one cow, but it is in one piece."[3] Mauricio de Sousa later state in his twitter profile:[3]
“ It's obvious, but I'm going to explain: I would never make such an impolite thing, as my readers know very well. ” Governor of Bahia Jaques Wagner later apologized for the error.[4]
Description
Chuck is a stereotypical Brazilian hillbilly child (more like a country person), who walks bare foot, always with a straw hat and lives in a country fictional little town, called Vila Abobrinha. He goes fishing, steal and swims in the local river in his freetime.
Different from other Mauricio's characters, Chuck Billy attends school, and some of his strips are even set in the local school, even though he is not a good student at all. He makes every kind of mistake a student can, such as being late for school, getting bad grades and not paying attention to class - though he also attains some success every once in a while.
Because the set is the Brazilian countryside, where there's Nature aplenty, many of Chuck Billy's stories are taken on the subject of environmental awareness and Brazilian folklore. The sacis are recurring characters, nearly always against the humans, such as popular folk creatures such as the werewolf, the Headless Mule and the Boitatá.
See also
References
- ^ Chico Bento at Monica's Gang official website
- ^ in Brazil, when referring to the number of individuals living in a cattle, people normally use the expression "cabeça de gado", which means "head of cattle".
- ^ a b c Weber, Demétrio (31 July 2009). "Na Bahia, Chico Bento de boca suja" (in Portuguese). O Globo. http://oglobo.globo.com/cidades/mat/2009/07/31/na-bahia-chico-bento-de-boca-suja-757053867.asp. Retrieved 27 March 2010.
- ^ Weber, Demétrio (31 July 2009). "Governador da Bahia pediu desculpas pelo erro em fala do Chico Bento" (in Portuguese). O Globo. http://oglobo.globo.com/cidades/sp/mat/2009/07/31/governador-da-bahia-pediu-desculpas-pelo-erro-em-fala-do-chico-bento-757057574.asp. Retrieved 27 March 2010.
External links
- Official site (features list of characters, games, downloads, and more):
Monica's Gang Creator Main characters Minor characters Blu · Chuck BillyRelated Works Categories:- Monica's Gang
- Fictional hillbillies
- Fictional Brazilian people
- Child characters in comics
- Comics characters introduced in 1961
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