Portuguese news agency Lusa reports that illustrator Ricardo Tercio died this week, between Tuesday and Wednesday, at the age of 43. The cause of death will be confirmed after an autopsy. Tercio was best known in the English-speaking world for illustrating 2007’s “Spider-Man: Fairy Tales” #1, and 2008’s “Avengers Fairy Tales” #4, which respectively reimagined Red Riding Hood and the Wizard of Oz with writer C.B. Cebulski.
A graduate of the Faculty of Fine Arts at the University of Lisbon, Tercio worked in animation for children’s series, and music videos before going into illustration. According to his listing at Shannon Associates, he provided illustration and visual development work for companies like Hasbro, Fisher-Price Toys, Pearson, Random House, Scholastic and more. He was a member of the Lisbon Studio collective of comics creators, illustrators and designers, and at the time of death was working on a comic with Belgian writer Stephen Desberg.
On Twitter, Cebulski commented he was “heartbroken this morning after learning of the sudden passing of my old friend Ricardo Tercio. With his quirky smile and big heart, you could not help but love the guy. Hard to believe this amazing artist has put his pencil down for the last time. You will be missed, Ric!”
