The Iaiá Market

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To Portugal, my home and to my familythose who stayed and those who left

© 2021 Catarina Azevedo All rights reserved.

First edition printed in Denmark The Iaiá Market is a bachelor project from Graphic Storytelling, The Animation Worshop, VIA University College

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Table of contents 4 Foreword 6 Introduction 8 Our Girl 16 The Pewts 22 Povo 28 Worlds Collide 42 Stories in Action 48 Acknowledgements 49 About

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Foreword reader, “D ear Back in January 2020 I was invited to VIA University College for a week as a guest teacher. During

that week I got to know the students and we shared our experiences and philosophies regarding art and life.

Cat Azevedo stood out in particular as someone who applied herself diligently to her work, had passionate ideas, and who had her finger on the pulse of contemporary animation techniques and styles.

I was thrilled then, when Cat invited me to mentor her on her thesis project, The Iaiá. I was impressed by the level of detail and thought she has put into every aspect of production, in a way that shows her comprehension of the visual storytelling medium that is rare. She has found a way to work a rich back story of the real-life Portuguese market seamlessly into an alien world, with skillful character and background design. I loved seeing her culture and national pride, opening my eyes to a new world that I never knew existed. It sets the stage for a shape-shifting world that can go from the very chaotic and big to the very small and intimate, using the visual motif of the market, of tile, of the gridded nature of a market and things set out for sale. It feels very real to me, but still has the excitement of a new world still needing to be discovered.

It was an honor to see Cat’s thought process.

Please enjoy! “ -Elle Michalka, December 2020

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Foreword

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Background and style studysomewhere near the National Pantheon The Iaiá Market

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Introduction O

Iaiá /ja.ja/ “In Brazilian Portuguese it used to be the way to address little girls. In certain regions of India, it can also mean a noble lady’s servant”

lá!

Welcome The Iaiá Market! A pitch bible for an animated 2D series.

As someone who has spent the last few years living abroad, I felt really compelled to develop a world based on my origins, in other words, Lisboa, Portugal.

It revolves around Bri, a rambunctious 11-year old girl, who goes with her grandpa to sell junk at a flea market. Besides screeching vendors and waves of tourists, the market is home to a community of really small creatures that only Bri knows about, the Pewtiscaroodlers. Bri must shrink down to the Pewts’ level in order to help save the market from her overprotective Dad while also dealing with her own personal conundrums. All of this before classes start on Monday!

People spend ages developing these amazing fantasy places, from Narnia to Alderan, and yet I yearned to write a world I was familiar with, the one from my childhood. By sticking to what I know I can create more empathy and better storytelling while also pondering about the things I wish I had learned from or seen in cartoons.

The show’s premise is simple enough that it can be picked up in almost any point in the story and not make the audience feel lost. A regular 24min episode will split into 2 segments of 11 minutes each.

Its main target audience is kids, especially girls, ages 8-11.

What I want is a show where eating snails is the best thing ever, the streets are steep and paved in cobblestone, cultures from different times and spaces become entangled, therefore creating the weirdest habits and traditions, a show where the smaller you are, the better you see the big picture.

This is the main theme of the story, one that I hope people can

Title explorations 6

Introduction

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relate with- that the size of your body isn´t the size of your spirit.

Iaiá is very grounded and set in current times. Its fantasy elements generally come from the Pewtiscaroodlers, a species from another dimension, that will give our main character a helping hand and often a fair share of trouble (and another fair share of laughter).

First doodle for the project

The Iaiá Market

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OUR GIRL aka Bri Machado

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Early sketches

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B

rigite ‘Bri’ Maria dos Santos Machado always has a million ideas on her mind but still hasn’t quite figured out how to do them all, especially by being, well, herself! She is the main character of The Iaiá Market.

11 years old is quite a young age to be burdened with the task of saving a whole (tiny) civilization but she’s thankful for that because amongst the Pewts, she feels appreciated.

On the other hand, she’s very shy around humans and therefore is “terrible for business”, as her grandpa would put it but. She’s very energetic and a fast-thinker, so she’d rather let her actions do all the talking.

Her parents are divorced- she stays with her dad who lives 1h away, on the other side of the river, Monday through Friday and her mum and grandpa on weekends. The Iaiá Market runs Friday to Sunday, so Bri tries to make the most of it with the short time she has to have fun and solve problems.

Bri’s life during school days is quite full. Besides classes she’s the vice-captain of the football team and like her grandpa, is always on the lookout for discarded treasures (or as some people would call it: trash) to sell alongside her grandpa at the market. She can be pretty competitive about it but her Dad can make it even tougher for her since he refuses to let Bri become a hoarder.

Dad can also be a bit too overprotective and strict, compared to her Mum and Grandpa who give her more freedom and room for error.

WANTS: to be seen and respected NEEDS: to accept others’ help/ to know it’s ok to be a kid

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Our Girl

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Bri is portuguese-indian and the way she sometimes styles her long wavy hair is a big nod to that part of her heritage.

Part of Portugal’s population is composed of people from Brasil, China and former portuguese colonies in Africa and India. Bri’s design is inspired by real people one could run into in downtown Lisboa.

Her clothes are simple, comfy and by cheer coincidence have a colour scheme similar to the national flag.

The Iaiá Market

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The first time Bri attended The Iaiá Market was also the first time she came across the Pewts.

Somehow no other human has found out about these tiny people roaming around the market but due to an accident envoling hair scrunchies, Bri is now friend and protector to these little fellas!

Bri also feels responsible for the Pewts since their biggest threat is her own Dad, who is way too overprotective of her and whose job envolves demolishing and building things. Therefore his main task is figuring out how to end the Iaiá Market once and for all!

When not finding solutions to that problem, Bri helps the Pewts find parts to build a portal that will take them to their real home.

Much hair-do about nothing: Make no mistake- these aren’t your regular totally fashionable scrunchies! They are part of the latest Pewt technology that allows Bri’s mind to be inserted into a Pewt-sized avatar body.

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Often our little critters require Bri to stand down to their level, so they created an avatar to put Bri’s conscience on. It’s only for a few hours and the real body looks like she’s taking a nap. She needs to be close to her body in order to turn back though.

The Pewts’ species has very stretchy rubbery arms that are pretty strong!

A bit of a nuisance sometimes since they can only shrink up until a certain size but Bri makes the best of it and applies her hair-styling knowledge.

“This little problem is about to become a LOT smaller”

-Bri

The shape is very similar to the human version in order to make the character stand out and always be recognizable.

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The more time Bri is in her Pewt form, the more she understands the world that surrounds her and that it’s not that big of an issue to find her own voice in it.

Some kids feel very lucky they can have a pet like a dog or a cat but Bri’s grandpa decided to get her a rooster named Cócoró (Caw-Caw-Raw). Có is often the butt of the joke but Bri loves him dearly, much to his dismay. Có is a big help when Bri is in her Pewt form and needs to get somewhere fast.

For a rooster he’s got quite the bad temper but a threat from Grandpa that he’s gonna turn him into a stew and he quickly shuts his beak and retreats to Bri’s side, where he feels the safest.

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Our Girl

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A fine companion The rooster is one of the most common symbols of Portugal, due to the legend of a dead rooster’s miraculous intervention in proving the innocence of a man who had been falsely accused and sentenced to death. As a child, I remember my next-door neighbours having a pet rooster and me feeding it corn through my grandma’s bedroom window. My mum before marrying my dad also had quite a few pet chickens. I just thought Bri should have one too.

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The Iaiá Market

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T

he Pewtiscaroodlers or Pewts, for short, are very small creatures, their size varying from a 1cent coin to a 20cl water bottle.

Originally from the planet Phupunov, somewhere in the JK-114 universe, the Pewts arrived to Earth less than a century ago, through a Portal their finest scientists built in order to escape the Plapies, a race of Warlords whose goal is to rule over every planet they find suitable for their kind to inhabit.

Unfortunately, the original Portal was destroyed during their escape, so the Plapies wouldn’t follow suit. On the other hand, Pewts don’t like snow or cold weather, so it’s perfect they wound up in Portugal, more precisely a park smack in the middle of Lisbon. Trees and bushes and whatnot serve as home to all the hundreds of Pewts during the week, since on weekends the park is where the Iaiá Market takes place.

Throughout the years the Pewts have built several junk piles to pose as human vendors and often rely on pidgeons or distracted tourists to hop from stall to stall (since their human disguises are far too heavy and fragile to move around). The market is a precious resource for these little buggers and more so in the past few years for they’ve been trying to rebuild the Portal to go back Home.

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Size comparison

The Pewts

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“Don’t judge a Pewt by their arm length”

-famous Pewt saying Early Inspiration: Azores and Ílhavo traditional costumes - Eurasian Eagle-Owl - Iberian Lynx

Pewts are generally polite but get distressed often. Ever since they met Bri, they constantly rely on her to help fix their troubles.

feel sound vibrations, two very long arms located at the top of their heads, serving as a weird mix of hair and arms and pointy sharp teeth.

Pewts come in all shapes, sizes and darkish-muddy colours.

That’s why a lot of them like to wear light and bright colours, although it makes it harder for them to hide from humans.

What they all have in common is two antennas that help them

Living in Portugal for so long has made the Pewts fashion be inspired by classic old-timey portuguese clothes. Tight pants and other modern trends aren’t really their style.

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A Pewt’s lifespan is slightly shorter than a Human’s and they reach their adult form earlier as well. That doesn’t necessarily mean they have an adult brain as well...

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Bri has made a few close friends among the Pewts and enjoys eating the free roasted chestnuts they provide, even if it’s out of season and the weather a tad too hot.

The Pewts

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Like true masters of disguise (and yoga!), the Pewts have become really good at blending in with the market’s colourful environment. Some even go as fair as styling their arms and clothes to fit specific objects and shapes.

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Povo

people and not-quite-people

P

ovo is the portuguese word for People. In English, People for me means Humans but Povo feels right in order to describe Humans and Pewts alike.

The Iaiá Market and its inhabitants is big on diversity and celebrates everyone’s differences.

From the grumpy old folks arguing about football further down the street, to a fresh and hip Fine Arts student trying to sell tourists their weird abstract art, to the African supermarket owner that is completely unaware that his little girl is very bored and very angry to be dragged around for miles and miles of a flea market full of junk.

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Povo

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There’s so much life and noise and commotion that no one would pay any attention to the seller with a fisherman’s hat and bright pink high heels that has barely moved in hours. Or that bearded guy with a cheetah pattern fedora in a wheel chair. If someone DID pay attention, you’d realize they’re just tiny little creatures in disguise.

Everyone in Iaiá has their own little hint of weirdness so no wonder no one has found out about the Pewts’ existence.

Character lineup. The last 3 are Pewts in disguise-who knows what lies underneath?

All 3 are wearing parts of traditional outfits from several portuguese regions.

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grandpa

Benjamin

B

enjamin dos Santos is a retired bookshop owner and Bri’s maternal grandfather.

Benji entertains himself scavenging through the trash and then selling his finds at the market.

Being old doesn’t stop him from getting into trouble and stubborness is something that clearly runs in the family so when at the market you can see him arguing loudly with the other old-timer vendors and when not there he’s most likely playing chess and domino (and arguing) in the park or listening to a football match on his smartphone’s radio.

Hoarding is another of his quirks. If he doesn’t sell it at the market, it’s very hard for him to let go of all the treasures he finds and Bri sometimes picks up on that habit. Ever since he became a widow a few decades ago it has become worse and worse.

Benjamin is pretty much my own paternal Grandpa, physically and somewhat mentally.

He’d take me to these markets and haggle with the vendors a lot until they’d give up and just sell me 10 comics for 1 euro or a crazy cheap ammount like that.

WANTS: for others to find value in what he finds NEEDS: to let go of his past and find value in what he already has

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Povo

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mum isabel

I

sabel dos Santos has always been great at singing, so she has taken that path in life.

Nowadays she is a Fado singer in a terrible restaurant that only tourists go to (4.2/5 on TripAdvisor though!). She’s always working late nights and weekends which makes her super tired during the day but never too tired to cook breakfast on Sundays for Bri and her father Benjamin.

When present, she’s a big emotional support for her loved ones and often the voice of reason.

A force of nature not to be reckoned with, Isabel is very ambitious and competitive and will kick your butt at karaoke if necessary. When angry, she will call Bri by using all 4 of her names.

WANTS: to move up on her career NEEDS: to take more breaks and spend time with her family

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dad joki

J

oki Machado is one of the main antagonistic forces of The Iaiá Market and Bri’s father. The current thorn in his side is the market, the one place he has failed to have aproved for closing down. He finds it filthy and an unecessary distraction for his daughter Born from Goan parents, he had a very rule-abiding and strict childhood and enjoys routine and order in his life.

As a highly valued government employee, he’s tasked with the most difficult of assigments, usually envolving urban architecture, where to build and demolish things, what street activities come and go.

Joki doesn’t really mean to be the bad guy, he’s still a good dad who just needs to trust his ex-wife and dad-in-law’s education towards his child and respect both sides.

WANTS: to protect his daughter at all costs NEEDS: to trust his daughter will be ok

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Povo

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Early Joki sketches, slightly based on Adrien Brody.

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worlds collide The Iaiá Market

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T

he setting for The Iaiá Market is very much inspired by Feira da Ladra (Lady Thief Fair) in Lisboa, Portugal. It’s on the old part of town, Alfama, full of steep cobble streets, yellow cable cars, rickety houses and the birth place of Fado, a type of sad melancholic music.

The Iaiá Market is where Bri feels the most at home, since in a way it’s where both her worlds collide.

One world is the one where she lives with her dad during the week, all the way past the bridge, across the river, and the other is the tiny house she shares with her mum and grandpa on weekends. Though not physically there most of the time, her dad’s presence can be felt in the market due to his schemes to shut it down.

Though most of the show focuses on the market, it’s still important to showcase Bri’s home life, so we can have an easier time figuring out her habits and why she behaves the way she does sometimes.

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Worlds Collide

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A few specific elements I was trying to emulate and focus on was the light and the cobblestone streets. I try to make them present in many of the backgrounds.

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The Market

Examples of common stalls

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ven though a real flea market would have a lot more disorganization, grouping similar objects and identifying what each stall was selling at a glance was key in order for the audience to find an easier time distinguishing a Pewt’s stall from a Human’s. Pewts are over the top and showcase whatever junk they could gather the day before.

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The market is very vast and located inside a park and its surroundings on top of a hill so it requires going up and down a lot. Therefore the Pewts have a few stalls spread out across the market and rely on the kindness of the local pidgeons or other wild critters they’ve befriended to go from one place to the other, while scouting for parts they can buy to help rebuilt their Portal home.

Worlds Collide

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A Pewts stall, containing just a bunch of random objects. The Pewts’ love for colourful things and patterns can be seen here.

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This is one of the main Pewt hideouts and gathering places in the market. It’s a battered cart that sells chestnuts in the summer and ice cream in the winter, in order to be approached by the least amount of people possible.

It’s super cosy and warm and it can stay in the park even when it’s not a market day.

Chestnuts and ice cream street sellers are super common.

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Another element to consider was that the market is not permanent, so stalls have to be disassembled and materials storaged away somewhere.

The Pewts still enjoy having many safe havens spread across Iaiá, so they make the most with what they got and try to create welcoming spaces that are also fucntional.

Common elements are little snacks like candy and nuts, seasonal plants, a map of the market and comfy seats.

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dad’s place A

t Dad’s, early mornings tend to look very foggy, mostly due to the proximity to the river.

The house is part of an enormous apartment complex, complete with free parking and fake palm trees.

It’s not a huge home but it has 3 bedrooms: Bri’s, Dad’s and Dad’s office and everything in it, apart maybe from Bri’s room, looks like it came out of an IKEA catalog.

Compared to the market, there’s no mess and lots of minimalist furniture and only the occasional spot of color here and there.

A lot of the BGs had a 3D base done in Blender and then were painted in Photoshop 38

Worlds Collide

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Dad works a lot from home and attempts to cook every now and then but most of his creations are not suitable for Human (or Pewt. Or any living thing) taste buds, so he and Bri resort to takeout a lot.

I wanted Dad’s space to reflect his personality and to be different from the other locations, to feel wide, spacious and the light to be colder and less inviting.

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MUM AND GRANDPA’S HOME T

he Santos family little stuffed apartment is just a cable car stop away from The Iaiá Market. Grandpa and Grandma dos Santos managed to raise 4 kids in this cosy 2-bedroom apartment. Bri got lucky because Grandpa finally cleared up the attic, so Bri could have a room for herself.

The apartment is often a tad chaotic- Mum works late shifts and Grandpa is always out and about.

Unlike Dad, both Mum and and Grandpa are really good cooks so Bri is delighted when it’s dinner time on Sundays, pretty much the only time where the whole family is together. Apart from watching old spaghetti westerns late at night, obviously.

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Worlds Collide

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early vis dev piece- everywhere you look, this house is full of stories: photos, Grandpa’s medals from the war, faiance plates and bowls, decaying wallpaper, etc. It’s got a lot of interesting things, too bad everything is quite cramped.

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storieS in action I

t was difficult attempting to show scale and to make human-sized characters interact with Pewt-sized characters, especially since that happens every once in a while in the pilot episode, shown in the story beats below.

I tried to keep the beats easy to read and the angles simple, since at the end of the day, this is a tv series, not

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a feature film and the more backgrounds that can be recycled, the better.

For a better understanding of these, go to the next few pages and read the synopsis of the pilot episode!

Stories in Action

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pILOT EPISODE SYNOPSIS

A Manner of Business

B

ri is being dropped off by her dad to spend the weekend at her mum and Grandpa’s house. Much to her dismay, Grandpa has decided to ask for Bri’s help to sell antiques at The Iaiá flea market.

Bri tries her darnest to be helpful and enjoy herself but is easily brushed off so she decides to go explore. This funky-looking pair of hair ties picks her interest but the vendor refuses to sell so Bri steals them.

Feeling regret, Bri decides to try them on before going back, only to feel like she’s been SHRUNKEN DOWN as soon as she puts them on. Although- her body was right there on a chair, sleeping and…is she seeing double? Turns out her conscience was now in a tiny creature’s body! Luckily for her, tiny Bri is found by the vendor, who turns out to be a disguise belonging to some of the many little creatures living amongst the Iaiá market. The creatures, called Pewts, show Bri around and tell her there will be a meeting later in the evening that will decide if the market, the Pewts’ only home, will be destroyed or not. The only possible way to save it is to appeal to a committee and the market’s human vendors chose the worst person for the job: Blimunda, an excentric, kinda smelly, old lady that barely talks. 0 finesse!

The plan is set in motion and all is going well until Bri notices that the head of the party wanting to destroy the market is none other than her dad. Bri freaks out and lets one of the hair clips fall, making her return to her human body at the worst time possible.

After a few hiccups, Blimunda manages to carry a pretty decent speech.

Turned out Blimunda’s job on weekdays is being a fortune cookie writer- she does have wise things to say, just in a very...condensed way. Also she managed to be the only human vendor that none of the other hundreds of competitive, angry vendors had a quarrel with.

There’s an attempt to return the hair scrunchies to the aliens but they tell Bri to keep’em, in case they need her help again.

With the promise of helping her go back to her human body, Bri devises a plan with the Pewts to climb all the way to Blimunda’s ear and make her give the speech of her life.

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Stories in Action

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EPISODE SAMPLES (Un)Leash your potential Bri’s dad managed to implement a law that forces to have ALL pets of the market on a leash. He then plans on sending a task force to fine all of them and set his plan in motion. Meanwhile, Bri promised to help her human friend Zé with his beetle fighting project but keeps brushing him off due to having to walk the Pewts and their pets back and forth all day (the Pewts human-sized vendors cannot really move, so it’s not like they could walk the pets themselves). Bri is exhausted and there are still pets walking around unleashed! UGH!

As the task force approaches the market, Bri wishes that she could multiply herself to outnumber them. She can’t, so she does the next best thing: forcing the Pewts to install an app for pet walkers.

In the end, Bri goes back on her word but apologizes to Zé and promises to help him out by making the Pewts train with the Beetles and creating a new sport for them altogether, cuz fighting is lame.

Freaky Market Day When at home, Bri always finds more important things to do than to help her Mum out, thinking she’s got it covered and that the Pewts need her more. She then goes to the market and transforms but the unthinkable happens: Aargh, a Pewt, gets swapped into Bri’s original body! AND Aargh/Bri gets taken home earlier, today of all days.

Pewt Bri is too busy to panic because helping the Pewts for some hours is already hard enough work but helping them alone ALL. THE. TIME. can be a bit too much.

Meanwhile, Aargh tries to help Bri’s Mum but completely screws it all up, making Mum forbid Bri to go to the market the next day until all is fixed and clean.

Pewt Bri is notified of this and snaps, finally asking the Pewts for help. She tames a pigeon and manages to sneak into her bedroom window.

Aargh promises never to come near Bri’s big body ever again and flees, leaving Bri to clean up his mess but gain a new appreciation for helping her mum.

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Pride and Pestilence Dad gains a small victory by closing down the market for the weekend due to a presumed pest problem in the streets and sewers. Bri has to deal with both exterminators, pests and the fact she just dropped a family heirloom into the market’s creepy smelly sewer system.

attempt come up with a way that will allow them not just to play but also WIN, dang it!

Meanwhile some of the vendor Pewts get invited

by Grandpa for a game of cricket against other market vendors. Unable to refuse, the Pewts

Swap Sale After questioning the way he runs his stall, Bri challenges Grandpa to a bet- whoever manages to sell the most by the end of the day gets to order the other one around and run the stall for a whole month. Determined to win, Bri carelessly sells some Pewts to a tourist, who thinks they are rare action figures.

While she’s away fixing her mistake Bri recruits the Pewts to try and stop Grandpa from selling anything else before she gets back, since she’s

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ahead of him.

Tiny Bri fails to get the Pewts from the grasps of the tourist’s super anti-theft backpack and realizes that her only way to succeed is to go back into her body and give him a refund. Because of this it’s a tie, but seeing her sales ability and determination, Grandpa lets Bri be in charge for a weekend every month.

Stories in Action

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All Pewts Day After completely destroying the offering altar for All Pewts Day, a special Pewts holiday, Bri is now desperately trying to find all the items they gathered for it in the space of a year over a single weekend. Meanwhile, Mum and Dad team up in order to find Bri a birthday present but the thing she wants is sold out all over the place.

the right thing for All Pewts Day so she gives it to the Pewts instead. -Be more specific. Really know their origin story

After a fruitless search, Bri feels defeated and so do her parents when they decide to buy something else. Turns out the present her parents chose is just

as the seasons progress

SEASON 1

SEASON 2

Bri meets the Pewts

Bri, alongside Grandpa, travel around Earth, finding and re-homing their new otherworldly friends

Introduction to the world and its inhabitants After many failed attempts, Dad has finally succeeded in shutting down the Iaiá Market for good Luckily the Pewts finish the Portal that will send them Home HOWEVER the Plapies, who forced the Pewts to escape to Earth are invading through the Portal Bri must reveal the Pewts existence to her parents in order to fight The Plapiess are sent back and the Portal, alongside Bri’s scrunchie, are destroyed.

More creatures from other Universes arrive to Earth.

The Pewts realize Earth is Home too.

Now that the Pewts are out and about, they are on a quest to find a new place to do the Iaiá Market.

Dad is now working with them and shenanigans ensue Meanwhile, the Plapies return... and Bri gets new powers...

SEASON 3 A mystery for now but the possibilities are ENDLESS

The Iaiá Market

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I would like to say a big Thank You to: my mentor Elle Michalka, for all your help and knowledge my coordinators Peter Dyring-Olsen and Erik Barkman all my teachers (there are so many of you) my classmates and friends from Graphic Storytelling 2017 my Sinners Squad lastly, my family. I can’t wait to sit with you at a table again.

Obrigada!

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Maria Catarina da Silva Alves Azevedo is a visual storyteller from Portugal currently based in Denmark.

She tends to combine magical realism and nostalgia in her work and enjoys creating content aimed for kids and young adults.

Catarina’s hobbies include biking, baking, reading mystery novels and sometimes attending cons as an artist. She is very fond of Ninja Turtles and dogs!

Her clients include Brown Bag Films, Netflix, WWF, The National Museum of Denmark, Palletten and many anthology zines.

The Iaiá Market

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