Gedezinho was Lucio Luiz’s first published character. At the time, he worked as press officer and editor of GDestaque, the newspaper of Colégio Gonçalves Dias (Nova Iguaçu, Rio de Janeiro), a school where he had also been a student years earlier. The character debuted in issue #4 of the newspaper, in June/July 1999. The boy’s name, and that of his pet turtle Gederuga, is a reference to the school’s initials, “GD”, affectionately used by students to refer to it.
In the story, Gedezinho is the son of a former student so fond of the school that he named his own child after it: naturally, the boy studies there too. He is 10 years old, likes school (though not too much), loves soccer (without being the team’s star player) and often gets into small scrapes. His inseparable companion is Gederuga, a friendly, smart, and very slow turtle, who carries a “GD” tattooed on her shell (Gedezinho’s own handiwork), which made her the group’s official mascot.
Strip featuring Gedezinho, Tininha, and Gederuga.
Around him, a cast of classmates with well-defined personalities: Zezinho, his best friend, who loves poetry and is an avowed fan of Gonçalves Dias; Tininha, the smartest student in class, who prefers chess and the library to any kind of mischief; Valdinho, no scholar but a handball ace; and Nandinha, good at practically every sport there is (and, as a matter of pride, fond of studying too).
Lucio Luiz personally wrote and drew every story, published in all 61 following issues of the newspaper (from #4 to #64, switching to a magazine format from 2008 onward), until the publication ended in 2009. Besides the regular comic page or strip, the character sometimes appeared on the cover or illustrated an internal article. One curiosity: during the 2002 World Cup, students painted Gederuga on the street in front of the school, a gesture that made the newspaper’s cover at the time.
Strip featuring Valdinho, Zezinho, and Gedezinho.