Comic Book / Dudão

The cover for Issue 5

Dudão is a Brazilian Christian comic book series that originally ran during 1992 and then from 1995 to 1997, having an unreleased prototype edition from 1990 and a single-issue revival in 2006. It was created by the Pastor Eduardo Samuel

The series takes place in a Brazilian neighborhood at Rio de Janeiro, focusing on a group of kids. The main character, Dudão, is a Christian boy who always teaches his friends what's right and what's wrong, although he gets frequently bullied due to his weight. All the other characters are also made fun of due to one trait or another in them.

During The '90s, Dudão was a huge success in Brazil, having plenty of shows and presentations with the characters. However, after it ended, it remained obscure until circa June 2020, when a couple issues were posted in Facebook, making the series famous again, this time due to the bizarre morals and character designs (especially the infamous design of eyes).

In the same month, user Luan G.B. 2003 began posting unofficial dubs of all the comics, where he voices basically all characters with a few exceptions. The dub became widely popular and one of the most remembered things about the series, being basically considered official by fans.

With the reemerging success of his creation, Eduardo Samuel has created a YouTube channel where he talks about the series. He also plans to release more issues again and create an Animated Adaptation, but as of now, nothing's concrete.

Examples:

• Abusive Parents: Besides Dudão's father Seu Jesão, almost all the other characters' dads are known to beat their children, such as Zuca's and Rebeca's (who is implied to have been hit with a baseball bat by her dad).
• Affectionate Nickname: Dudão's mother calls her son "fofão" (which translates to "big cutie", but is also the name of another Brazilian character).
• Ambiguous Syntax: In an occasion, after Binho wakes up, he says he'll "eat breakfast and street". He meant he will have his breakfast and then go to the street, but the phrasing makes it sound like he will eat the breakfast, and then, eat the street.
• Ambiguously Brown: Until 1997, all characters had a tanned skin, except for Zuca who is explicitly black; however, it's still supposed to represent white skin, as in an issue, Zuca imagines how he would look like if he was white and he has the same skin tone as the others. From 1997 onwards, the characters now have clearly white skin. The 2021 revival will bring back the tan skin colors, as fans grew to appreciate it more.
• Anatomy Anomaly: All characters have the classic "peculiarly-shaped" eyes... Except for a background character seen in one panel.
• Animated Adaptation: The YouTube channel "MÓ TRAMPO" has adapted a few comics into animations, where every single scene looks the same as it is in each panel of the original comic, except it's now moving.
• Apathetic Student: Zuca and Tato are shown to be this in Issue 2; they don't give a damn about school and only want to play. Ends up backfiring when they get low grades and are forced to study while Dudão, who got good grades, can play freely.
• Ascended Extra: Tato and Pita were originally minor characters created by the artist instead of being based on actual people like the others. They were eventually turned into part of the main cast.
• Art Shift: The art style went though numerous changes from the pilot in 1990 until the final edition in 2006. Here are Dudão's four main designs. Among the fans, the 1996 design (third in the image) is widely considered the best of them.
• Berserk Button: Tato will kick the butt of anyone who wins in a competition against him.
• Beware the Nice Ones: Dudão doesn't get angry often, but when he does, things get bad for his friends. He gets to the point where he ignores his own pacifist, anti-violent thoughts.
• Big Fun: Dudão may come off as annoying sometimes, but he often is the one who solves the problems in the comics.
• Black Comedy Burst: One of the main characteristics of this comic book, standing out as it's supposed to be Christian and made for kids.
  • In the story about accepting defficient people as equal, Zuca is seen jumping in one leg and says he's imitating an one-legged boy he just saw. Then, Tato is seen running against a boy in wheelchairs, and after he wins the race, he also has the audacity to say "This loser wanted to be better than me!". Conveniently, during that night, they dreamed about having the respective defficiencies they made fun of, and learn how it is to be in the defficients' shoes (or, in the one-legged boy's case, on his shoe).
  • Paçoca, after stopping a fire in a black man's house, tells said man he already got all burned. It's unclear whether he said it out of malice or innocence, but it's most likely the former.
• Breaking the Fourth Wall: Several stories end with Dudão, and sometimes other characters, telling the reader about the episode's lesson, such as "Don't say swear words", "Don't imitate the superheroes at TV, only idiots do that", and the controversial "God made man and woman, never want to be different!"
• The Bully: In one of the comics set at school, Zuca and Paçoca are shown stealing a girl's lunch and bullying her. Dudão sees it, but doesn't care and only thinks about retrieving his pen he lost, instead.
• Cat Up a Tree: The third and last comic of Issue 1 is about Dudão rescuing Binho's pet cat, who is up a tree.
• Chuck Cunningham Syndrome: Zuca is the only main character who's completely absent in the 2006 issue.
• Double Standard: Dudão clearly takes Binho's mistakes much more lighly than he takes the others'. For example, he gets much angrier at Rebeca saying swear words than Binho being racist.
• Girls vs. Boys Plot: In "Ioiozando", Rebeca trains her yoyo abilities so she can play it better than all the boys and show the girls are better. At first, she wins against Baldinho, Tato and Dudão, but the latter was just pretending to lose so she could win; after Dudão plays properly, he proves being better than the three, and says that this shows boys and girls are equal and Rebeca is now convinced that both of them are good. However, technically, a boy did win the competition.
• Green Aesop:
  • Rebeca's first appearance has her finding Binho and Dudão planting a tree to comemmorate the "Ecology Year". She gets confused and ends up getting in an argument with the boys, but later makes up with them and starts comemmorating the Ecology Year with them, while a crowd starts marching for nature holding a sign saying "Thanks for the green, Jesus!".
  • And then, the last issue (not including the 2006 revival) has a story where Zuca has to carry a couch to the dump, but he gets too tired and exhausted, so he just throws the couch at a river instead, thinking it's harmless. Later that day, the city gets flooded exactly because of that couch.
• Forgetful Jones: The last published comic as of now involves Pita forgetting everything he's supposed to do... That is, until he accidentally gets electrified by a low-tension wire at the street; after that, he can remember everything.
• Hair-Trigger Temper: Tato. He wants to always be the best at all things, or else he gets furious.
• Hate Sink: The characters who are portrayed as being in the wrong in the stories, while Dudão is portrayed as right. Some examples include Binho being racist towards Zuca or refusing to eat any of the food his mother made (and having the scruples to say his mother makes him upset), Zuca kicking or otherwise harrassing several animals, and Tato beating up Rebeca for winning against him.
• Informed Flaw: In one of the stories, Rebeca makes fun of Binho for having big ears, when actually his ears are drawn the same size as the others. In another comic, he does have a big ear, but only because a bee had stung it.
• Internal Homage: The iconic sidewalk where Paçoca sits during the classic story "Rindo à Toa" reappears in some other issues as a minor reference to this comic.
• Insistent Terminology: After Zuca is found spraying a wall while singing, he tells Dudão that he's not pichando (Portuguese term for vandalist spray painting); he's pixanlotando, which is supposed to be a Portmanteau between "pichando" and "cantando" (singing).
• Laser-Guided Karma: Characters who do bad things always either get their comeoccupance or learn their lesson at the end.
• Limited Wardrobe: Most of the characters always wear the same clothes, unless they're going to a party. It's even been shown that Dudão's wardrobe actually consists entirely in blue t-shirts and yellow shorts.
• Lost Aesop: In a comic, Binho becomes racist towards Zuca until the latter rescues the former from the top of a tree, which made Binho acknowledge they're all equal. However, in later stories, Binho calls Zuca a "dry java plum"^note Java plum being a pitch-black fruit, and compares Zuca's hair to steel wool, meaning he's still being racist.
• Long Runner: Although the comics were discontinued in 1997 and again in 2006, activity books of the franchise still get published to this day.
• Momma's Boy: Dudão, who gets lots of care and love from his mother, instead of being physically abused like his friends are by their mothers.
• Picky Eater: Once, Binho was portrayed as being this, refusing to eat any of the diverse kinds of food his mother made him for lunch; he says the only food he likes is steak with fries, and instead of breakfast, he only eats a yogurt. Averted in the end when he starts eating everything, after meeting a boy who can only eat one single candy all day.
• Power Trio: Pita, Tato and Zuca, the three teenagers of the gang.
• Soft Reboot: In the last two issues (1997 and 2006). The most notable changes are the characters now having white skin, and the drawings being digitalized, with the 2006 edition even using Comic Sans as the font instead of writing manually.
• Signature Laugh: "Ah! Ah!" instead of the more common "ha, ha". This is especially associated with Paçoca.
• Slapstick:
  • Rebeca gets pushed away, hair-pulled or slapped by her friends a notable amount of times.
  • Social boundaries are no barrier; one issue has Paçoca beating up a blind boy just for accidentally stepping on his toy car.
• The Smurfette Principle: Between all the kids, Rebeca is the only girl. All the other relevant female characters are mothers.
• Space Whale Aesop: Some of the comics have these, the most infamous ones being "Be Yourself because, one day, a TV presenter may want to cast you in a commercial because of your unique appearance" and "always greet people, or you're going to melt".
• Trademark Favorite Food: Deconstructed in a comic where Dudão and Binho visit a poor boy named "Zé Rapadura". All he eats literally the entire day is the Brazilian candy "rapadura"... Because it's the only food his family can afford. After witnessing this, Binho stops being a Picky Eater like he was in the beggining of the comic, and even prays to God he never gets to be "Binho Rapadura".
• Token Minority: Zuca, the token black kid.
• Tuckerization:
  • Dudão is a nickname for Eduardo, which is also the name of the comic's creator.
  • Binho's real-life counterpart is named Fábio, so his nickname is likely short for the other abbreviation, "Fabinho".
  • Similar to Dudão's case, the minor character Lipão is based on the creator's son Lipe, said name being short for Felipe.
  • A variation; Paçoca's real counterpart was obviously not named Paçoca, but he was also nicknamed that way due to having a strong liking to the brazilian candy of the same name.
• Two Guys and a Girl: Dudão, Binho and Rebeca.
• Uncancelled: The comic book was originally published by Editora Louvor in 1992, lasting only five issues, then did not release any new issues until 1995, under Editora Vida. Editora Vida also republished the first five issues, although some were republished in a different order.
• Violence is the Only Option: Most of the characters think this way, except for Dudão, who tries to convince them otherwise. However, sometimes even Dudão resorts to violence, accidentally proving this trope right.
  Paçoca: He hit me just because i'm smaller.
  Dudão: Zuca is gonna end up badly.
  Paçoca: I'm gonna hit him with a piece of stick!
  Dudão: That would be worse. We must love him!
  Paçoca: He hit me, and I have to love him?
  Dudão: That's what the Bible says!
  Paçoca: But I'm not Christian!
  Dudão: But you should be.
• Vitriolic Best Buds: Binho and Rebeca. If they are together on the same comic long enough, the reader can expect them to start fighting and arguing, usually for minor reasons. Thankfully, Dudão is always there to stop their argument.
• What the Hell, Hero?: In the story "Ioiozando", Dudão, Tato and Rebeca are in a yoyo competition. Knowing how Tato is, Dudão tells Rebeca she's the best and tells her to leave already, because if Tato loses to her, he'll beat her up. When Rebeca refuses to leave, Dudão ends up pushing her hair to make her go, and Tato is the one who has to stop Dudão from harrassing Rebeca.
• Why Did It Have to Be Snakes?: There's a comic all about this, whose aesop is teaching kids not to feel afraid of anything.
  • At first, Pita is found sleeping outside his house; when asked about it, he says he is afraid of the dark of his bedroom at night. Later in the story, he loses his fear after praying to "Dudão's Jesus" to help him get over it.
  • Rebeca is shown to be terrified of cockroaches after Zuca uses one to scare her. When Dudão asks Zuca about his own fears, he says he doesn't have any because "men like him don't feel scared", but he's Instantly Proven Wrong when a dog approaches and he runs away in fear.
• Would Hit a Girl: Rebeca, who's the only girl between the kids, can almost be considered a Butt-Monkey by how much she gets hit or at least hair-pushed by the boys - Tato, Binho, and even Dudão himself!
• Would Hurt a Child: Tato and Zuca are clearly years older than the other children, and frequently hit them.

Tropes exclusive to Luan G.B.'s dub:

• Accidental Misnaming: There is a Running Gag added on Lipão's appearances where people forget his name and call him other things that end with "-ão", such as "Limão" or "Lesão", much to his annoyance, as a way to poke fun at his smaller role.
• Shout-Out: All voices are based on pop culture characters or real people. Dudão's voice is based on Homer Simpson and the Brazilian ex-president Lula; Binho's voice is based on Ash Ketchum; Rebeca's voice is based on Peppa Pig; Pita's voice is loosely based on SpongeBob, and so on.
• Killed By The Adaptation: The dub of the last published story, "Os Artistas de Ouro" features an additional part at the end, where Dudão ascends to Heaven and meets Jesus personally, being told that he succesfully fullfilled his task in life to convert his friends to Christianity. Needless to say, the actual comic itself does not feature any deaths.
• Hilarious Outtakes: Sometimes, Luan reads a character's line with another character's voice by mistake, then realizes and makes the right voice, but doesn't cut the error.
• Hypocritical Heartwarming: In the issue where Rebeca cries due to her dad beating her, and Dudão goes to argue with the dad, he says "How dare you beat Rebeca, only I am allowed to beat her!" Ironically, he actually does act like this in other issues.
• Simpleton Voice: Dudão speaks with one. When he's angry or says something perceived as stupid, the "simpleton" tone is more aggravated as well.