I think he's currently working at least on the Scorpion (though it's been a while since the last issue) and the Eagles of Rome (written by Marini himself BTW).

Edit: And the Scorpion is written by Desberg, who is a remarkably better writer than Thierry (writer on Gypsy), though I tend to find him pretty uneven (loved his Gaspard de la Nuit, hated his I.R.$.). For Dufaux (writer on Raptors), my feelings are about the same; quite diverse writer both in subject as in quality.

Eagles of Rome is that homoerotic thing, right? I think I have the first two volumes unread on a shelf somewhere.

Yeah, the Scorpion being an expert on relics is vital to the plot. But it also makes sense given what learn of his personality that it is a point of pride to him that he delivers genuine relics, even if his clients do not appreciate them. It is a neat piece of characterisation as there are multiple points in narrative where the sensible thing to do would have been to walk away, but his pride and stubbourness won't let him.

Hugo Pratt is an Italian cartoonist, and I don't think it's an exaggeration to put him on the same pedestal as Foster, Eisner or Raymond. In fact, I don't think it would be irrational to put him on the same level as Hemingway, when it comes to certain parts of his work.

He's better known than many other European cartoonists in the US (he was inducted to the Will Eisner Hall of Fame in 2005) but I don't think his books have been available in English for a while, now, and anyway most of his output was not transtated in English. (Which is really, really, unfortunate)!

Pratt had an interesting life, which provided some material for his tales of exotic adventure. As a kid he lived in Venice and then in Italy-occupied Ethiopia; he was interned in a prison camp in WWII. As a cartoonist, he worked in Argentina with the famous Hector Oesterheld and then in England before returning to Italy. He remained an active traveler all his life.



His style is very elegant, almost sketchy, but carries tremendous emotional force and can convey a mood like nothing else. It works quite well in black and white (and some purists insist that it should always be in B&W), but personally I also like Pratt's subtle work with colors. (The big hardcovers collecting his stories usually include many watercolor sketches -Pratt did a lot of studies before starting a tale).



Storywise, Pratt favors Hemingway-like tales of adventure featuring tough-talking and very colorful characters (men and women alike). He also likes to input a little politics in his stories, as well philosophy, and a lot of arcana. I'm sure he and Howard Chaykin would have seen eye to eye. But it's not all action; in fact, while he goes for high drama, he doesn't do a lot of action scenes. He prefers to create tension using dialog and plot, and has a thing for bittersweet endings.

Pratt created may characters, but the most famous will always remain Corto Maltese. Corto is a sea captain, but a sea captain without a ship. (His boat burned down in his very first solo adventure, as I recall). His status as a seaman helps him maintain a certain aura as a romantic figure, one who endlessly travels the world. And Corto will indeed see a lot of the world.



Funnily enough, he was created as a supporting character in a tale of piracy on the south seas, "The ballad of the salted seas", which was really about a scion of a noble English family who had turned to piracy and ended up reclaiming his honor. But Corto (and, to a lesser extent, the infamous pirate Rasputin) were so well-received that Pratt kept them going. In that sense, Corto Maltese is like another famous comic-book sailor: Popeye himself.

Pratt may write dialog sharp dialogs, but he's no slouch when it comes to visual poetry. The sea is often pictured in "the ballad of the salted sea", to no one's surprise I'm sure. But it's not just a flat expanse of blue... it's a living sea, with swells, waves, fish and seabirds. In a particular scene, two characters spent many pages on the Pacific, guided by the fin of a shark. (Tarao the Maori explains that sharks are friendly to his people, and that they can guide them to wherever they want to go. I would not have trusted such a guide not to eat me, but it made for a very good sequence).



Look at how the sea is drawn... There is a great economy of lines, here, but the mood is beautifully rendered. (I often judge a cartoonist's talent by how few pen strokes he or she needs to do justice to a scene).

That newcomer is Cush, of the Beni Amer tribe. He's my favorite supporting character. So cool you'd swear he had ice water in his veins. He's a muslim revolutionary, a disciple of the mad mullah, and a very dangerous man. Even his mother says he should not have been born, because of all the widows and orphans he's made! (Although you can tell that this is more of a compliment than an insut). Luckily, he's a man of his word, takes matters of honor very seriously, and is wise enough to know that if your enemy is also the enemy of a worse enemy, then a compromise may be reached (if temporarily).



At the end of this story (which includes the attack of the fort, Corto Maltese impersonating a muezzin so badly that the praying crowd think he's drunk, and more than a few deaths, there's a typical Cush scene. As Corto rejoins him and the rescued prince Saoud, he asks why the Danakil keeps annoying the prince with the end of his camel whip. Answers Cush : "because when he's grown up it won't be possible anymore".

Holy crap, this is why I love comics. See how the silence grows heavy in the first few panels, and how the characters don't move at all. And see how Cush, the integrist religious warrior, is ready to commit a sin just to give the finger to the imperialist.




Shades of the Hemingway type of manhood again: "my friends are real MEN! They don't need NANNIES!"

Needless to say, Corto's prediction will turn out to be true. Gruesomely so.