Monica (Portuguese: Mônica) is a Brazilian fictional character and Mauricio de Sousa's best-known creation.

Introduced in 1960, she serves as the main protagonist and title character of the Monica and Friends (Turma da Mônica) comic book series and media franchise.

[7] But Mauricio improved her visual over the years giving to Monica a cute and friendly appearance and making her more naïve and kind.

For most of the 60s she was considered a supporting role for Jimmy Five, however her popularity increased significantly at the end of the same decade when Mauricio received a contract with the food company CICA (a defunct and now Unilever-owned Brazilian company) to use Monica and Thunder (another Mauricio de Sousa character) to appear in television commercials.

[10] Monica is a 7-year-old (6-year-old in older stories) toeless, strong and decisive girl, who does not tolerate impertinence, but at the same time, has her moments of femininity.

[11] Her buckteeth (more precisely the maxillary central incisor) are her trademark, but also the main reason for people to call her toothy.

Samson is a constant victim of Jimmy Five, Smudge or other boys who love to tie his ears in knots.

Originally in the very first strips Samson was also yellow, but was later changed to blue to match the new rabbit plush that Mauricio's daughter won in place of the old one in a TV show in her 7 years.

[13] In the first comic strips that appeared constantly was used as a weapon to beat and scare the boys of the neighborhood (mainly Jimmy Five).

Ditto looks so much like her (including the Banana-like hair and the prominent teeth) that the boys decided to buy it with the initial purpose of mocking her as soon as they saw the pooch on a pet shop window.

Later on, she joins her friends in a crossover with characters by Osamu Tezuka such as Princess Sapphire, Astro Boy and Kimba.

[19] Monica starred in a series of games for Master System and Sega Genesis developed by TecToy.

[27] Despite the good reception, the character was also the target of much criticism in the early years involving her great resemblance to Little Lulu, which was even considered the main rival for Monica in the sale of comics in Brazil until the 90s.

[28] In 2016 memes based on Monica's Gang started to become popular on the internet, originally through a shitposting club on Facebook.

[30] The cover shows Monica using a computer (showing the faces of the other characters) and breaking the fourth wall looking at the reader, in the meme the faces of the characters were erased and replaced with texts of responses to be used in comments on Facebook, the most popular being the "ata" (a corruption of "ah tá", a sarcastic way of speaking "okay" in Portuguese).