Marcelo Cassaro

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Marcelo Cassaro (born August 15, 1970) is a Brazilian author of comics, RPGs and the sci-fi book Sword of the Galaxy (Espada da Galáxia). Along with Marcelo Del Debbio, he is one of the two most important RPG authors in Brazil, he is also known for creating Holy Avenger, the longest living non-child-oriented comic in Brazil, as well as several other comics such as the 2 Dungeon Crawlers mini-series (taking place in the same rpg scenario of Arton from Tormenta/HolyAvenger), Captain Ninja, Lua dos Dragões (Moon of Dragons) and Dragonesa. He also has an unfinished work, the two-part mini-series called Killbite, a spin-off from an earlier Captain Ninja mini-series, that remains incomplete (only the first part was published). Cassaro recently expressed his wishes to release the second part on the internet.

Cassaro started his career at the age of 15, in 1985, as a design assistant for animated cartoons in the Maurício de Sousa studios. In 1989, he was hired as an artist and then as writer for comic books for Abril Jovem. He won the Prêmio Abril de Jornalismo three times, in the category "Comic Book Writing": in 1991, 1992 and 1994.

During the first half of the 90s, he was the editor of the game magazine Progames (affiliated to a big franchise of rental houses of the same name), later renamed to Gamers.

In 1995, he started his RPG magazine: Dragão Brasil, which reached issue #100 in November, 2003. Working as editor and writer in every issue up to #100, he then left the magazine after 111 issues to dedicate himself to other projects, namely comics and RPG books, but mostly the yet to be release Holy Avenger animated show. As of December 2005, Cassaro was working in another RPG magazine: DragonSlayer, which is published until today, while the original Dragão Brasil was canceled.

Cassaro is one of the three authors of the most popular campaign setting in Brazil: Tormenta. He is also the creator of the 3D&T system, an RPG known for simplicity, flexibility and total lack of realism.

1 Views
2 Works
3 See also
4 External links

[edit] Views

Far from being a political activist, Cassaro still manages to express his views on RPG and entertainment on a number of occasions, mainly introductions in books and mail sections in magazines.

He firmly believes that comics and RPGs shouldn't be directed for education, and that entertainment and fun should always be the main goals of these media. However, he also strongly believes that entertainment is much more culturally and psychologically important for people than most would think.

He also thinks that RPGs should never be seen as an intellectual sport or an exquisite form of art, but rather as a simple way of having fun that should be enjoyable by anyone.

He was born in the city of Santo André, São Paulo.

[edit] Works

It has been noted that a lot of Cassaro's characters wear masks or helmets, such as the Paladin in Holy Avenger and Captain Ninja.

Also, a strong maternal figure is present in both his science fiction book Espada da Galáxia (Sword of the Galaxy) and in the medieval fantasy tale set in Tormenta.