February 24, 2022 – New York, NY – Comixology Originals and Stout Club Entertainment present Red Tag, a 5-issue limited comic series from the minds of Rafael Scavone, Rafael Albuquerque and Roger Cruz. A fast-paced thriller set on the streets of Brazil, Red Tag is written by Rafael Scavone (A Study in Emerald, Hit-Girl, Funny Creek and Hailstone), illustrated by Roger Cruz (X-Men, Shampoo) with colors by Cris Peter, letters by Bernardo Brice, and edits by Bis Stringer Horne. Red Tag #1 arrives from Comixology Originals, the exclusive digital content line of Comixology, an Amazon company, on March 1, 2022 and will be available simultaneously in both English and Portuguese.
“At first glance São Paulo’s buzzing streets can look chaotic, but if you look carefully, you will find voices on every wall,” says writer Rafael Scavone. “It doesn’t matter how high those walls stretch up, they already are or will be tagged with Pixo. I’ve always wondered about the people behind each one of those tags, these artists who embrace all sorts of risks to have their voices heard, to leave their mark and message. These people are the perfect characters for the story we wanted to tell in Red Tag, a story of everyday heroes fighting a system of oppression.”
Lis (aka Lisa), Lu (aka Luciana) and Leco (aka Leandro)—three friends bonded by their love for Brazil’s unique street art “pixo” also known as pichação or pixação, a distinctive style of tagging unique to Brazil—strive to be good in a place where corruption still thrives.
After Lis witnesses injustice and abuse of power on the streets of São Paulo, she enlists her friends to take matters into their own hands. Their plan works until they realize they’ve become privy to sensitive information belonging to holdovers from the country’s brutal dictatorial past who are plotting against the movement for reform and an upcoming election in São Paulo. Armed with a can of spray paint and the help of a journalist, can they escape the dangerous and life-threatening plot they’ve mistakenly become entangled in?
“I grew up on the outskirts of São Paulo, an hour away from the Historic Center, where most of the Red Tag story takes place,” says artist Roger Cruz. “I used to go downtown a lot when I was a teenager, always looking for things I couldn’t find in my neighborhood, like Heavy Metal records, comics and art supplies. When Albuquerque and Scavone first told me about Red Tag, I was very excited and jumped at the chance to be a part of it, not only because it takes place in São Paulo, but also because of the plot involving the pixos universe—which I learned a lot about during the production of this series—and especially because the plot encourages us take a look at our past and invites us to discuss our present.”
“The São Paulo portrayed in Red Tag works as a synthesis of Brazil nowadays – a place bursting with life and talent, where artists and citizens are being systematically hampered down by those who dare to define what is or isn’t art, what is or isn’t justice, or even what is or isn’t democracy,” continues Scavone. “Red Tag is a story of fight and hope in which the villains are fictional, but also very real.”
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About the Creative Team:
Rafael Scavone started writing comics in 2014. His main work includes Wonder Woman, All-Star Batman and Mark Millar’s Hit-Girl. In 2017 he adapted the popular Neil Gaiman tale A Study in Emerald. Rafael’s latest works are Hidden Society, for Dark Horse Comics and Funny Creek and Hailstone for Comixology Originals.
Rafael Albuquerque is an Eisner, Harvey and Inkpot Award winner for The New York Times Bestseller American Vampire. He has been working for major comic book publishers in the United States since 2005. Best known for his work on All-Star Batman, Batgirl, Animal Man, Huck, and Eight. He has adapted the Neil Gaiman tale A Study in Emerald, Mark Millar’s Hit-Girl and Dark Horse’s Hidden Society.
Roger Cruz has been drawing comics for the US market since 1994. He’s known for X-Men First Class, X-Force, Generation X, Darkness, Spider-Man, Doctor Strange, Ghost Rider, Hulk, and 10th Muse, among many other titles for Marvel and Image. In Brazil he published Os Fabulosos, A irmandade Bege, and the award-winning comics Xampu and Quaisqualigundum.
