Passionate about the design band, João Paulo Cotrim commands the launch and directed the Bedeteca de Lisboa for six years

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Journalist, writer and editor, João Paulo Cotrim was one of the great promoters of comics in Portugal, having helped to launch and directed for six years at Bedeteca de Lisboa. He was also founder and director of publishing house Abysmo. He was 56 years old.

The news of the death of João Paulo Cotrim was advanced by Newspaper. already the Public informs that the editor was hospitalized at Hospital dos Capuchos, in Lisbon. The Directorate-General for Books and Public Libraries, however, has a note on social media:

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João Paulo Cotrim started working as a journalist at the age of 20, at ANOP. He worked at Expresso, O Independente, Cosmopolitan, RTP, SIC and TSF.

Among the various media outlets in which Ler Magazine was formed, Elle, Máxima, Marie Claire, Oceanos, Visão, Grande Reportagem, Colloquio-Letras, Der Spiegel, Le Monde and the DNA supplement.

He directed from its opening, in 1996 to 2002, at Bedeteca de Lisboa. He curated kitchens. He was the director of the Salão Lisboa de ilustrada e Banda Desenhada during the four editions and responsible for its programming and the catalogs Geral and the ilustra Portuguesa exhibition.

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Screenwriter for animated films, João Paulo Cotrim wrote graphic novels, essays and poetry and stories for children and adults.

His vast work includes graphic novels (“Salazar – Now, at the Time of His Death”), fiction (“The White of Chinese Shadows”, with António Cabrita), essays (“Stuart – A Rua eo Riso” or “El Alma de Almada El Ímpar” – Graphic Work 1926-1931), aphorisms (“My Cat”) and poetry (“Má Raça”, with Alex Gozblau), as well as stories for childhood (“To Want Much”, with André da Loba).

João Paulo Cotrim was also a professor at Ar Co, in the Illustration and Comic Department, as well as at IADE – Faculty of Design, Technology and Communication, and collaborated at the Portuguese Book and Libraries Institute (IPLB).

Following the confinement imposed by the covid-19 pandemic, João Paulo Cotrim created, in 2020, “Torpor. Voluptuous dance steps in sudden braking”, a free digital magazine created and made available by the publisher Abysmo.

The edition seeks to capture the effect that the pandemic crisis and confinement had “both in the arts and in life”, an initiative that was not previously planned, “the result of successive dilettante tours through the networks”, in which João Paulo Cotrim discovered a world that artistic creation throbbed, the editor told Lusa, in May of last year.

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The novel “O Plantador de Aboboras”, by the Timorese writer Luís Cardoso, which won the Oceanos 2021 Award, which highlights the best works published in Portuguese, was one of the books published by Abismo. On December 8, the writer, who lives in Lisbon, dedicated the award to his editor, João Paulo Cotrim, indicating that he was already ill.

On his Facebook page, the former mayor of Lisbon paid tribute to his friend “cultured, intelligent, in a good mood”.