Cruz started his professional career as a letterer for Editora Abril, the Brazilian publishing house, for whom he lettered many Portuguese translations of American comics; then worked as a writer and art assistant for Mil Perigos, a short-lived black and white comics magazine.
At the end of the 1990s, Cruz took a break from working on comic books and returned to Brazil, where he became one of the founders and partners of an art studio/school called Fábrica de Quadrinhos ("Comic Book Factory"; currently named Quanta Academia de Artes).[3] Cruz also worked as a storyboard designer for advertising agencies, a character designer for TV shows, and an art teacher, and gave a two-year course of lectures and workshops in universities.
In 1999 Cruz gave up his projects in Fábrica de Quadrinhos and returned to work exclusively with comics. In 2002, negotiated by Art & Comics Studio, he illustrated issues of Wonder Woman. From 2004, he worked for Marvel once again, as the artist on Amazing Fantasy and X-Men: First Class.
Since 2019 Cruz published more authorial works in Brazil, such as Xampu- Lovely Losers,[4][5] Quaisqualingundum (as writer; art by David Calil), based on songs by composer Adoniran Barbosa, A Irmandade Bege e Os Fabulosos, a parody of X-Men.[6]
Controversy
Cruz was a regular on the (now defunct) Genesis Comics "Swipe Of The Week" website around 1999. The site placed two pieces of published work by two different artists side by side, and allowed the users to vote whether they were seeing an homage, a coincidence, or a direct copy. Primarily, Cruz's work was placed beside the previously printed work of Joe Madureira,[7] but also Jim Lee.[8] Cruz has acknowledged on his (now defunct) website that he learned to draw primarily by copying from other pencillers.
^Cruz's X-Men: Alpha (February 1995), p. 30, vs. Madureira's Vanguard #3 (December 1994), p. 21; Cruz's Brigade #17 (February 1995), p. 21, vs. Madureira's Vanguard #3 (December 1994), pp. 10, 11, and 20; Cruz's X-Men: Omega (June 1995), p. 7, vs. Madureira's Vanguard #3 (December 1994), p. 20; Cruz's X-Men: Omega (June 1995), p. 26, vs. Madureira's Uncanny X-Men #312 (May 1994), p. 9; Cruz's X-Men: Omega (June 1995), p. 31, vs. Madureira's Vanguard #3 (December 1994), p. 22; and Cruz's Uncanny X-Men #324 (September 1995), p. 7; vs. Madureira's Vanguard #3 (December 1994), p. 11.
^Cruz's Wolverine #89 (January 1995), p. 18, vs. Lee's Uncanny X-Men #276 (May 1991), p. 10; Cruz's Wolverine #89 (January 1995), p. 21, vs. Lee's X-Men vol. 2., #6 (March 1992), p. 21 and Lee's WildC.A.T.S. #3 (December 1992), p. 1.