Monica's Gang

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Monica

Monica's Gang, originally Turma da Mônica (Portuguese for "Monica's Gang"), is a popular Brazilian comic book series. The series was created by Mauricio de Sousa, who signs his work "Mauricio". Plots are centered on the adventures of a group of six-year-old kids - who are friends - and their pets in a neighborhood in São Paulo.

Jimmy Five

The main character, Monica (spelled Mônica in the original version), is a bright girl with powerful (sometimes even superhuman) strength. She is always with her blue rabbit toy called Samson (Sansão). She defends her friends when ever they meet trouble, but is also always ready to provide her own punishment. Her close friends (and sometime enemies) include; Jimmy Five (Cebolinha - Portuguese for little onion), with his "infaillible plans", always plotting to steal and tie Samson's ears together and sometimes gathering the other fellow boys of the gang just to pick on her. In some stories, he devises background plans to find out the secret of her strength, but they all end beaten solely by her. Even with these frictions, Jimmy and Monica are still good friends to each other (so much, it's a common non-canonical statement between readers that they might have a love affair). He is also incapable of pronoucing his 'r's'

Smudge

Smudge (Cascão), Jimmy's best friend, who is immensely scared of water and has never, throughout the entire series, taken a bath; Maggy (Magali), Monica's best friends, and a sweet girl that loves food - a lot of food.

Maggy

Mauricio began his comic universe in 1959 with a newspaper comic strip titled Bidu. Cebolinha followed in 1960. The character Mônica first saw the light of day in 1963. Comic books featuring the characters started appearing: Mônica (1970), Cebolinha (1972), and many more. The stories have been translated to several languages and sold in dozens of countries. The series has been running steady for over forty years, and generated uncountable spinoffs in the realms of merchandising, animated cartoons, video games, theme parks, and more. Mauricio employs a large staff to execute these projects.

The characters are drawn in a simple cartoon style and the stories often finish with a happy ending, for children. In the end of each comic book, there are three panels with a quick joke, such as newspaper stripes. Comparing with the Peanuts characters, Monica's gang is less reflective and a bit more fantastic, less psychological and more active.

Characters often break the fourth wall, acknowledging they are 'performing' or even talking to the writers from inside the papersheet.

[edit] Related works

Most other works made by de Sousa are related to Monica's Gang. They are usually separated storie at all from Monica's gang, but sometimes some cross-overs are presented. Just Chuck Billy (originally Chico Bento), which actually came in the same year (1963) as Monica itself, has a separate comic book, but once in a while there are stories from one into another book.

Quoting the official website, about Chuck Billy:

Silly country bumpkins who are comical yet so very wise in their ways. They'll love you; you'll love them. In Chuck Billy's world - a small country village complete with church square, bandshell and schoolhouse surrounded by farmland and rolling countryside - everybody knows everybody and life is full of wit and creativity.