Comic books are very popular today, inspiring not only literature but all pop culture: films and series are betting on adaptations of these works, with increasing financial returns. And if you think comics came up with Superman or Batman in the late 1930s, know that you need to go back a lot more in time. Very much!

Aurelio Clemente Prudencio, born in 348 AD, usually called Prudencio alone, was the first person to write a comic. The work was called “Psychomania, ” but it is also known as “The Soul Contest, ” and it dealt with the sin and fragility of human beings.

Prudencio was a Roman and Christian poet, with much religious influence in his works. He was in the midst of a midlife crisis when he devoted himself to poems with Latin and religious language. "Psychomania", one of these works, is considered the first pure allegory, bringing concepts of chastity, humility, anger and pride, all illustrated by monks of the time.

"Psychomania": the great-grandfather of modern comics

And most curious is that this comic book featured the first superheroines of all time, called The Virtues. They clash with the great villains of humanity, who were part of the gang The Vices, also formed by female entities.

It is unknown how many copies were produced at the time - all manually - but at least 300 original manuscripts of these comics survived over time. The drawings spared no graphic detail, and the villain deaths were violent. Sobriety, for example, uses a cross of Christ to sabotage the chariot of Indulgence before striking it with a stone. Already Chastity faces Lust with a sword.

Villain Pride arrives riding a horse to face Humility and Hope

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