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Cyril Pedrosa – Portugal – Dupuis, Aire Libre 2011.
One of the most ambitious and most personal books in the prestigious Aire Libre collection published by Dupuis. In this book Cyril Pedrosa leads his readers on a quest full of humanity, aided by the astonishing efficiency of his spontaneous graphic style. JC de la Royère, BCSC
\"I was 33 years old when I went to Portugal in May 2006 at the invitation of the Sobreda Comics Festival, a small festival near the ocean, in the Lisbon suburbs. I spent only three short days there...
Before that I had last come to Portugal when I was still a child, barely ten years old, so I had not set foot in the country for 23 years.
I could not find the right words to describe the flood of mixed feelings and emotions that I experienced during this stay - just as I found it difficult to explain why I had stayed away from this country for so long. But when I left, as soon as I boarded the plane, I knew that I would make a book about it.
I suppose this is why I draw comic strips: to tell of things that I don’t know how to say any other way.\"
Cyril Pedrosa was born on 22 November 1972 in Poitiers, France.
An avid reader of comics during his childhood and adolescence, he followed studies in the sciences for a time. After a few tentative steps in drawing he took classes to prepare for the entry exam to the Grandes Ecoles and won the competition run by the Olivier de Serres National College of Art and Design. He finally learned the art of comic strip drawing at Gobelins, a Paris institute dedicated to the visual arts.
Pedrosa first began drawing comics to scripts by David Chauvel for two series published by Delcourt: Ring Circus (1998-2008) and Shaolin Moussaka (2004-2006).
In 2006 and 2007 he drew Les Cœurs solitaires to his own scripts for the \"Expresso\" collection (Dupuis), then Trois Ombres for the \"Shampooing\" collection (Delcourt).
Also in 2007, but working in a more juvenile register, he again teamed up with Chauvel and the pair began the series Brigade Fantôme in the \"Punaise\" collection (Dupuis).
In the summer of 2008, Cyril returned to Portugal to stay in the house built by his grandfather to work on his book, and in particular on the last part of the script. He returned to France three months later with many images, photos, drawings and videos and a finished script, and it only remained for him to put these together into a 250 pages comic strip.
Dupuis publishers
In collaboration with the Embassy of Portugal and with the support of the Instituto Camões and the Bank BCP.
