Political opening in the country, launch of the Cruzado Plan, end of production of the Beetle, radioactive accident in Chernobyl. It was amid this scenario that, in 1986, the states of São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul gained regional editions of O Pasquim.  The periodical, which had established itself in Rio de Janeiro during the military dictatorship, with an irreverent, critical and, often, censored editorial line, began to speak with the accent of those two states for a short period of time.   Related news: World Cup: Fenaj denounces embarrassment to journalists in the USA. Entities repudiate the arrest of a journalist persecuted by Zambelli. MPF wants to investigate new companies complicit in the dictatorship. To celebrate this history, which completes four decades, the 114 regional editions of Pasquim were digitized and made available to readers at the National Digital Library. The collection already included 1,072 Rio editions of the alternative newspaper. When the idea of ​​taking Pasquim to São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul came up, the tabloid no longer had the relevance it had in the 60s and 70s. Two journalists took the lead on the project, driven by the admiration they felt for this one of the hallmarks of Brazilian journalism.  In São Paulo, young Paulo Markun embarked on the adventure (his own definition), taking Manoel Canabarro with him and supported by Dante Matiussi. As soon as he learned that the newspaper would open to other markets, Flávio Braga took a bus from Rio Grande do Sul towards Rio de Janeiro, willing to convince the cartoonist Jaguar ─ at the time, director of O Pasquim ─ to authorize a Gaucho branch. Flávio believes that people may even know the importance of Pasquim, but they hardly have the real dimension of what it meant for an entire generation.  The journalist exalts the transgressive role expressed in articles and interviews led by names such as Millôr Fernandes, Tarso de Castro, Sergio Cabral, Ruy Castro and Paulo Francis, in addition to cartoons and caricatures by Jaguar, Henfil, Ziraldo. Everything interspersed with profanity, political satire and counterculture. "And this in the middle of a military dictatorship", he points out.   Cover of edition of the newspaper O Pasquim. Photo: Pasquim/Reproduction Local agendas with the same irreverence One of the particularities of regional editions was the agenda. The subjects covered were local, although, occasionally, they used interviews and reports from the Rio headquarters.  In the South, Pasquim maintained a satirical tone to, for example, talk about the typical "southern male", which provoked confrontations and debates, recalls Flávio.  In São Paulo, it mirrored the "political effervescence, the result of the end of the dictatorship, which had ended very shortly before", says Markun. The regional editions also exposed behavioral aspects typical of the counterculture and which were much more visible in Rio de Janeiro, such as, for example, sexual freedom and recreational drug use. The political satires, responsible for much of O Pasquim's success, found a great deal in politicians like Paulo Maluf. Governor of the state of São Paulo and, twice, mayor of the capital, Maluf did not have the political support of any of his collaborators in the São Paulo region.  "Everyone was against Maluf. There were supporters of Eduardo Suplicy, who was from the PT, Orestes Quércia, who was from the PMDB, and even Antônio Ermínio de Moraes, who was, at the time, from the PTB, a businessman running for the Brazilian Labor Party, you see", says Markun. Another of O Pasquim's particularities in its regional editions was to give relevance to the work of local cartoonists and journalists. In São Paulo, Markun mentions names such as Marangoni, Régis, Laerte, Jau (Jaguar), Jô Soares, Augusto Nunes, Gabriel Priolli, Alberto Dines and Fernando Morais.  “In fact, the two had a public fight in Pasquim São Paulo, over the defense of their candidates for governor", he says about Dines and Morais. In Rio Grande do Sul, Flávio remembers: "Edgard Vasquez, who continues to draw to this day, Santiago, Bier (Augusto Franke Bier), Canini (Renato Vinícius Canini), the journalist Reverbel and many others. The newspaper would not exist without them".   Cover of edition of the newspaper O Pasquim. Photo: Pasquim/Reproduction Survival in the post-dictatorship Financial subsistence, crucial for any publication yesterday and today, was one of the determining aspects for O Pasquim to last just over a year, both in São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul. In the South, the newsroom was in Porto Alegre, and the tabloid sustained itself with strategic partnerships and major advertisers, such as the extinct airline Varig. In São Paulo, says Markun, there weren't many advertisers, and individual sales were reasonable, but less than necessary.  "There were many people who still resisted the idea of ​​advertising on Pasquim, due to its more irreverent past", analyzes Markun. "The scenarios were different: during the dictatorship, Pasquim was such a sales success that it wasn't the advertisements that made money, it was single sales. It sold 200 thousand copies, an impressive number", he points out. For Markun, the lack of clarity regarding what the role of an alternative newspaper would be, once the dictatorship ended, was another aspect that made the survival of regional editions difficult.  "The traditional press already opened space for debates and discussions that were previously prohibited, so there was a very small fringe left for us to operate on."   Cover of edition of the newspaper O Pasquim. Photo: Pasquim/Reproduction Digitization This week, the Federal Regional Court of the 2nd Region (TRF2) unanimously upheld the decision that obliges a cultural producer to return to the Union R$812,000 raised through the Rouanet Law, for the “O Pasquim” digitization project.  The producer had already been convicted in the first instance by the Federal Court in Rio de Janeiro. The project had been approved by the Ministry of Culture and received sponsorship from Petrobras.  The problem arose at the time of reporting, as it was not proven that the newspaper's entire collection would be made available free of charge on the internet. The digitization of the collection by the National Library was voluntarily coordinated by insurance broker Fernando Coelho dos Santos, another admirer of O Pasquim, as well as a friend of several of the journalists and cartoonists who made the newspaper famous.  After retiring in 2016, Fernando worked free of charge on digitizing the original collection, the Rio editions, and also coordinated an exhibition at SESC on the newspaper's fiftieth anniversary, in 2019.  Afterwards, the admirer of the alternative periodical worked on the regional editions of São Paulo and Rio Grande do Sul together with the National Library, in an extensive "little ant" work, which included everything from gathering the material to technical operationalization. Of all the editions published regionally, only two remained to be scanned, which the broker was unable to find.  "Today, the Pasquim website within the National Digital Library has 100% of the main one and 98% of the two franchises. And franchises are something new, because many people don't remember that they existed", he says. According to Fernando, the work was a kind of donation. "I donated my share for this story to stay. It has so much history! And I'm very happy that the National Digital Library supported the idea and went further, because the website is the only one that has everything from a periodical that marked an era and is one of the most important in Brazil." Anyone who wants to know more about what O Pasquim was like and what it meant, both in the original editions and in the regional franchises, can access the address: https://bndigital.bn.gov.br/dossies/o-pasquim/   Cover of edition of the newspaper O Pasquim. Photo: Pasquim/Reproduction