match Since I was a kid, I always liked drawing, comics, and movies. When I was finishing middle school, I discovered fanzines and works from other artists and comic creators who published independently here in Curitiba. Around that same time, I took a comics course and started writing my own stories and publishing my own comics. I did everything by hand – the panels, the drawings, the letters, everything, and I would sell them to my classmates, sell them at the traffic lights in front of school. Quickly I got a taste for creating characters, creating and telling stories, and also “publishing” independently. I would make the original, make copies, stapled them, and then I would go out and sell them.

When I started college in industrial design, I got an internship at an illustration studio. Right away I realized that I didn’t want to work as a designer, or in a design studio, and I kept investing in illustration. I took a break from comics and kept focused only on illustration. For 11 years I worked in an advertising agency as an illustrator, and then in 2015, after 7 years away from comics, I came back to publishing. That’s when another transition happened – I left advertising illustration to work with illustration for audiovisual productions, storyboard, shootboard, book editorials, and also producing my own comics – creating stories, writing, publishing independently or through publishers as well.

In 2022 and 2023, I published two comics with JBC Publishing – Kophee and Soundtrack. Going back to comics, it once again became one of my focuses – both professionally and as a personal project – because it reignited my passion for comics. Coincidentally, at the same time, I became more interested in sneakers and started to dive deeper into that world. I always liked sneakers a lot, but I didn’t have that connection or that care as a collector or enthusiast. Stepping away from advertising, starting to do other things, also made me more of a sneaker nerd (laughs).

match The comic came out in December 2023 and I made it in partnership with the MC Rashid. I’m a big fan of dystopias and post-apocalyptic fiction. The story takes place in the near future, in a dystopia, where there is a technology in which people can use music as a form of therapy, sharing a projection of their subconscious. It’s as if people are listening to music and are transported into their inner world – their subconscious world. There they deal with their own internal issues – traumas, fears, anxiety, longing, grief, many things. In each chapter, the protagonist Mayk, a rapper, conducts a session in this inner world. Almost like a therapist, Mayk helps the characters face their conflicts — just like, in our world, music often helps us deal with them.

It’s a play on the concept that there is a song out there that feels like it was made for you, one you identify with a lot. Rashid and I created the story and characters together. After we decided the themes of each chapter, I went on to the visual part and he dove into the characters, creating the background of each one and, obviously, since the protagonist is a rapper, he also wrote some rhymes in the story. The drawings and written dialogues in the story are mine, but we created the project together. It was super fun, it was a really interesting experience.

match For all of my comics, I always choose the protagonist’s sneakers . But in this case, since I had several chapters and different worlds, I was able to choose several different sneakers (laughs), so he keeps changing sneakers throughout the story. This part of putting together and creating the outfits, the character layouts, is one of my favorite parts – creating stories and characters.

It was an interesting and challenging experience to draw the sneakers carefully, so that a sneakerhead could take a look and say “wow, he’s wearing the Jordan III!”. And this ends up connecting me with the readers, because many people who follow me also like sneakers a lot, and then when they pick up the comic, they see it and say “wow, you like sneakers too, right?”, and that’s a part I really enjoy.

Soundtrack was a very important project because it was done in partnership with Rashid, because it was published by an incredible publisher specialized in manga, JBC, which today is part of Companhia das Letras group. In fact, many of my favorite mangas and authors were published by them. So, for me, it is a pleasure to have such a cool project this big, with an artist I admire so much, and with a publisher that is also very meaningful.

match I always liked them a lot. One of the coolest videos I have from when I was a child was the first time I got a Chuck Taylor. I was clearly euphoric (laughs). My uncle couldn’t find sneakers in kid’s sizes, so it was much bigger than my feet. But even so I wore it, and I have several pictures of me as a kid wearing huge sneakers, looking like clown shoes (laughs).

I really liked basketball because of my uncle, who was a coach. As a teenager, when I trained basketball, I liked basketball sneakers, but later I went through a phase where I was very into All-Stars (Brazilian Chuck Taylors)  and then moved a bit to Vans. But Converse was the sneaker I wore the most.

When I started working at the agency, earning some money, I started buying other sneakers, but at that time I wasn’t very interested in the stories behind the models, the materials, or the technology, etc. But then I met my friend, Fellipe, who is also a designer and sneakerhead. I remember we would always talk about sneakers and whenever I had a question about a specific model, I would ask him.

I remember the first sneaker that really caught my attention was an adidas Originals Grün Forum Mid, which was from adidas’ eco-friendly, recyclable, and sustainable materials line. Instead of a velcro strap, it had a wooden button. It was full of details, in white, gray, and natural rubber – basically my color palette. I fell in love with that sneaker. I researched it online and saw that it wasn’t going to be released here in Brazil. I mentioned it to Fellipe and he said he had one, and I wanted to know how he bought it, where he got it, and that’s how I discovered more about this whole sneaker universe – that there are other ways to discover sneakers and even buy the ones that aren’t sold in regular stores, and mainly, that there’s a lot more history behind sneakers than it seems.

When I was finally able to buy my own sneakers, I started following profiles, blogs, and channels about the subject, like SneakersBR and some international ones, and that broadened my passion. On trips, it became mandatory to stop by coffee shops and sneaker stores — sometimes I bought a special model, but mainly I started taking better care of them, cleaning, storing, and avoiding them from getting too worn out. That’s how I started creating a collection: before, I would trade or pass pairs on, but over time I kept the ones I was more attached to. This has happened over the last ten years, coinciding with my marriage and getting my own house. There were phases: at first, very focused on Adidas, influenced by the forum; then, more into Nike, and more recently into Jordan. This evolution also came with more purchasing power, traveling, and access to information, which sparked an almost nerdy interest in details — collaborations, materials, release years, retros — and ended up pulling me deeper into this universe.

Even with household expenses, married life, and fatherhood, I keep following releases on Sneakernews. I already look at the next year’s models, check the release dates, and sort of decide beforehand which ones I want to buy, so I don’t end up buying without thinking and losing control, you know?

match Although I’m very specific about the sneaker model and color, not every release gets me hyped. I even get lucky sometimes because a sneaker I really want comes out, and there’s not too much “hype” around it, then I just get them really easily.

Even the Air Jordan Legacy, it’s a sneaker that’s often sitting on shelves. I think it’s an amazing sneaker, very comfortable, beautiful, and it’s always available, thank God (laughs). The adidas Forum is the same thing, I like it a lot and it’s always around. It makes it easier to choose the models, see which sneakers I really like and want to have.

match This has long been my favorite sneaker in my collection. There are others I really like, even ones I wear more, but this Legacy has some things that are special to me: the story and the concept behind it. This was my first Jordan, after I started diving into Jordans, researching models and the stories behind them. When I saw this sneaker, I realized it had elements of some Jordans I really liked, with a beautiful design, like the I and the III.

I was always browsing the Nike Brazil and US websites to see the releases. I kept searching for Jordans, and filtering them by color — because I’m picky about that — until I found a model I had never seen. I looked up its story, liked the characteristics, but this gray colorway didn’t sold here. Coincidentally, Luiz, who is a friend and owner of Supernova Coffee, traveled to the United States a lot. I had already done several illustrations for them — packaging, t-shirts, cups, pins, a bunch of stuff. At the time, I was designing a paper cup for his brand and he was about to travel. It was right around the time I was laid off from the agency, in July 2019, so I wasn’t buying anything. Then I thought: I’ll trade him for it. I asked him to bring the sneaker and it would count as the value of the cup design. He agreed, bought it there, dismantled the box, and brought the whole thing for me.

This sneaker is special not only because of the model, but also because of the story with Luiz. Besides being a friend, he always supported my work, he was someone who taught me a lot about coffee — another passion of mine — and he even took part in Kophee, my other comic project about coffee. So this Jordan ended up being the first in my collection, with a colorway that I think is amazing: these shades of gray and the slightly aged midsole, I just find it really beautiful.

match That’s because I’m this paranoid guy who cleans even the soles, keeps them wrapped in tissue paper, inside the box, with the paper stuffed inside, stored perfectly (laughs).

The only thing is that the rubber is a little more yellowed than it originally was, here at the front. Other than that, it’s well preserved, it even still has all the little stars on the outsole. I have this thing with taking care of shoes: when there’s some element, some object that I start to get really into and want to keep, I really make sure to preserve it – from my comics, my figures, my animal skull collection, things like that. The difference with sneakers is that you wear them on your feet out on the street, which requires extra care (laughs). I wear all my sneakers, but I always take care of them so I can keep wearing them for a long time.

match I really like this idea of it being a hybrid sneaker, combining elements from other Jordan models to create something new. That has everything to do with my illustration work as well — as an artist, we always start from references, get inspired by other artists or work to transform them into something of our own. In manga, this idea of legacy is very present, almost like a passing of a baton: there is the relationship between master and apprentice, studying and absorbing someone else’s work until mastering that language, and from there being able to create new things.

In Japanese tradition, many manga authors start their careers as apprentices and assistants to other authors, until the moment they gain some authority and experience in the scene to publish their own works. They also often create references in character names, elements, cities, categories – many elements in the stories are direct references to other authors who came before them.

I carry this into my life: in my comics I have direct references to other authors, artists, and illustrators who came before me, very clearly and without any hesitation. Even when people say “your style looks a lot like Akira; your characters, your writing style reminds me a lot of Taiyō Matsumoto”, for me it’s exactly that. I’m straight up copying it because it’s part of this tradition, this culture, of referencing very objectively.

match There are some controversial things. The first colorways of the Legacy were attached to Don C, and Nike marketed like it was his shoe. But doing some research, I saw that Don C only signed some colorways. At the same time, it had the name “Legacy” — meaning legacy — and “312” is Chicago’s area code, where Don C is also from, so that was some of the marketing behind it.

But regardless of the marketing, the story is really good. The idea is to be a sneaker that mixes references and that shows that very clearly. And I really like hybrid models – even though I know many people don’t –  the whole concept of combining references and presenting them in another way. For me, it makes perfect sense. I think it’s a beautiful shoe, and to me even better than some OG Jordans, and most of the other Jordans that were released after it.

match Most of the sneakers I’ve drawn so far are sneakers I like. Usually I think about what makes sense with the character, what would match the character, or the situation. For example, in Kophee, the story takes place over five days. Each day he’s wearing a different outfit, but on his feet, the same Nike Air Force 1; while the barista in the story wears an adidas NMD, since she’s standing all day, it makes sense for her to wear a very comfortable sneaker.

In the case of Soundtrack, since the character is a rapper, and there’s already this connection between sneakers and hip-hop culture, it made a lot of sense for a rapper to have several sneakers. When he’s in the projection of the inner world, he projects his appearance in the inner world, so he’s wearing whatever sneaker he wants in that imaginary world. That’s why I used different sneakers in this story. I think about the purpose of the sneaker – what its characteristic is in the real world and how I can use that in the story in a way that makes sense.

When he’s in the desert, the costume references for the characters are clothes that resemble Kanye’s first collection, so I put him wearing a Yeezy. Since he’s in this sort of cyberpunk universe, it makes total sense for him to be wearing that sneaker.