Since the publication of Will Eisner's A Contract with God, the comics market has seen the development of graphic novels as a new and alternative format for publication, for it has given a new status to comics in the society. Considering the characteristics of the global comics market and its high dependence to US comics, the graphic novel format rapidly spread to other countries. However, in developing countries, due to economic and market constraints, local artists have not always chosen graphic novels as a privileged medium for disseminating their work. In spite of the fact that the publication of foreign graphic novels can be seen quite often in developing countries, few native artists have really tried to produce them. In Brazil, for instance, most of the artists still prefer to create comic strips or stories for comic books. Most of the Brazilian graphic novels are still published out of the commercial market, using the alternative channels for production and distribution common to underground comics and fanzines. Only recently the first Brazilian artists have dared to create graphic novels for the mainstream market, or, in other words, prepared by commercial publishers and distributed to book and comic stores. One of these artists is Lourenço Mutarelli, who appeared in the Brazilian comics scene during the early 90s. Initially, Mutarelli produced underground comics published in fanzines and other alternative publications, and later in the internet. In 1998, on a major turnaround in his style, he started producing only graphic novels, which were offered for publication to a medium publishing company in São Paulo. He works alone on his creations and elaborates both the art and argument for his books. He has already written three adult graphic novels. Much appreciated by readers and well accepted by the intellectuals and critics, his graphic novels are now being published in Portugal and will soon be translated to Spanish, demonstrating the viability of the format for developing countries' artists.