Carlos Zéfiro

Carlos Zéfiro is the pseudonym of Alcides Aguiar Caminha (26 September 1921 – 5 July 1992), a Brazilian comic artist who drew pornographic minicomics. and photo comics pornography from Sweden.

Real identity

Just a few months before Caminha's death, on July 5, in Rio de Janeiro, Zéfiro's identity was revealed. As he feared legal action against his work, his real name, Alcides Caminha, never came up until November 1991, when a report about Zéfiro was published in the Brazilian version of Playboy magazine. The report was signed by Brazilian journalist Juca Kfouri, who was the managing editor of the magazine in Brazil.

Songwriting

Caminha was also a writer of samba lyrics, and had as a music partner the Brazilian samba singer Nelson Cavaquinho. They met in Tiradentes Square, in downtown Rio de Janeiro, a place where sambistas used to get together. Caminha and Cavaquinho were partners in the composition of at least two songs: Notícia and A Flor e o Espinho.

A Flor e o Espinho represents a controversial matter. The sambista Guilherme de Brito, who also wrote the lyric for the music, said in an interview to Brazilian newspaper Folha de S.Paulo that Caminha had only paid Cavaquinho to sign the composition. De Brito told the same version of the story to Flávio Moreira da Costa, author of a book about Cavaquinho. A Flor e o Espinho was recorded several times, one of them by the famous Brazilian singer and actress Elizeth Cardoso, in 1965. The official record of the Brazilian Union of Composers shows the name of Caminha among the authors of the lyric.

Tributes

After the death of Caminha, Zéfiro's work began to be prized as nostalgia, and original editions of his books fetch high prices at auctions. Caminha was honored at events like the first Biennial International Comics Festival, in Rio de Janeiro in 1992. He received the award Troféu HQ Mix, for the importance of his work.

In 1996, Zéfiro's work also illustrated the cover of the CD Barulhinho Bom, by the Brazilian MPB singer Marisa Monte. In August 1999, in Anchieta, a neighborhood where Caminha lived, a cultural center named Carlos Zéfiro was opened, with a show of Marisa Monte with Velha Guarda da Portela, a traditional Brazilian samba group. The cultural center had many other shows and workshops, but was closed in 2008.

In 2007, Brazilian journalists Lucas Frasão and Marcio Orsolini began to investigate Caminha's life. After a year, they finished the first version of Zéfiro's biography, which is still being written. Zéfiro was the theme of another three books, published before his death: O Quadrinho Erótico de Carlos Zéfiro, by journalist and cartoonist Otacílio D'Assunção (first editor of the Brazilian version of Mad magazine), A Arte Sacana de Carlos Zéfiro and Os Alunos Sacanas de Carlos Zéfiro, by Joaquim Marinho.