Pop Culture: Turma da Mônica

Turma da Mônica (Monica’s Gang) is a nationally renown comic series created by Mauricio de Souza.

An iconic picture of the 90's of Mauricio and his most famous creations 

The characters first appeared in comic strips for the newspaper (a la Peanutsor For Better or Worse), and eventually became so popular that they started to be made as comic books. 

Nowadays they come out in monthly and weekly installments, with various editions dedicated to showcasing stories that focus on a specific character as a protagonist.

These comics are so popular that they have their own tv show, movies, theme park, and store.

It’s not just something for the kids. This is huge in Brazil. They’re on cute baby diapers. They’re on food wrappers, shampoo bottles, and pet products.They have toys and dolls. They have every type of children’s memorabilia you can think of, from school notebooks to bed covers.

In fact, people often use the character names as a way of calling someone something related to the most famous traits of each character.

It has been translated into Spanish, English, Chinese, and Greek. 

Turma da Mônica was officially translated into English as “Monica’s Gang”, but its meaning is something closer to “Monica & Friends”)