Corto Maltese: l'integrale, Volume 2 - Hugo Pratt
The stories present a great variety of settings and action, and Pratt's black-and-white artwork and page layouts are of his very best, creating atmosphere and character in fluid brushstrokes, detailed where necessary, experimenting occasionally with darker, abstract blocks of ink. It's impossible not to be wholly involved in this wonderful lost world of mystery, war, romance, adventure and mysticism.
Il segreto di Tristan Bantam (1970)
We get another perspective on the nature of Corto Maltese in 'The Secret of Tristan Bantam'. In Paramaribo (Dutch Guyana) Corto meets Professor Jeremiah Steiner for the first time. He is staying at the residence of Madame Java when he witnesses the drunken Steiner being bullied and beaten by ship hands. Corto steps in out of a sense of chivalry that Steiner says he understands - "You're a frustrated boy scout!" he says, and it does suggest another way of looking at the motivations of the character.
Steiner has travelled from Prague University to study philosophy but has developed an over-fondness for rum. He's in a bad state and taken care of by Corto. Java meanwhile has received a visitor, the son of an old friend Ronald Bantam, who lets her know that his father has died. Java asks for Corto's help in deciphering the strange symbols on a map belonging to Tristan's father that seem to refer to a mysterious kingdom of Mu, the lost continent that disappeared into the sea in a rain of fire. Since learning of it, he has heard the same mysterious voices that apparently spoke to his father, whispering 'Ogun Ferraille' and receives messages from his voodoo practitioner stepsister Morgan, who he has never met. After escaping threats on his life, Tristan plans a return to Bahia with an intrigued Steiner and an indifferent Corto, but since he no longer has a boat of his own...
Il segreto di Tristan Bantam is a short Corto tale but one that evidently has significance for characters and mystical adventures that will appear in other stories right through the series. The art work - in all these early stories - is simply gorgeous, with some impressive action sequences, not least Corto racing onto his burning ship to rescue Steiner. Even more so than Ballad of the Salt Sea this early adventure and the following Appuntamenti a Bahia sets up much of what lies ahead in this part of Corto's journeys.
Appuntamento a Bahia (1970)
The strangeness continues in Appuntamento a Bahia. The small group of friends are on Tristan's boat, travelling to gather some papers that his step sister Morgan has for him. Near French Guyana the young English boy receives another strange message from a native tribesman with mystical powers. We get another intriguing insight into Corto and his past (and future) in the revelation that he cut his own line of fortune on his hand with his father's razor because he didn't like the one he had. By strange coincidence, they pick up an escaped prisoner Caienna who has unfinished business with some of the same people that Corto was entangled with, including a London lawyer Milner who appears to want Tristan Bantam dead.
No sooner arrived and introduced to his Brazilian stepsister than Tristan experiences strange dreams and messages and enters a portal to the lost continent of Mu. He finds that he belongs to the Firth Race of Man, Mu the Atlantis race is the Fourth, aligned with another planet. He is offered the skull of the god Tezcatlipoca as a link between Mu in the past and the future of Tristan's time.
Samba con tiro fisso (1970)
The adventurers - of the past, present and future, opening the doors to the unknown and the magical - now travel to Itapoa to see Bocca Dorata. She knows all about Corto's family and seems to have known them for generations. His mother was known as the 'Niña de Gibraltar', a famous gypsy, his father a sailor from Cornwall.
Corto is asked by Bocca Dorata to help provide arms and money to a native rebellion against the abusive authorities in the region under control of the colonialist Colonel. The Cangaceiros however have lost their figurehead 'redentore' (redeemer) and Tiro Fisso (Sure shot) seems too hot-headed and handy with gun to have the same appeal as a leader, but Corto convinces him he has the ability to overthrow the Colonel's regime.
Corto shows he can be pretty ruthless when necessary, making use of dynamite and a machine gun. He claims he is not acting out of any ideology, principle or moral reasons, but because he is being paid a thousand pounds sterling. He does however prove to be an inspiration in his sense of justice and independence, a belief that it is part of a fighting spirit in everyone.
Un'aquila nella giungla (1970)
Taking a well earned break from fighting slave traders, Corto lies under a palm on the beach of Itapoa, beside San Salvador de Bahia in Brazil in the house of Bocca Dorada (Golden Mouth), where things are disturbed by the arrival of Baron Hasso Von Manteuffel. Corto is about to leave but wonders what a German baron and presumably German ships are doing there. He finds a cloth badge with the emblem of Togo, a German colony, which puzzles him further.
Un'aquila nella giungla has almost the character of an interlude. The first half of the story, Corto indeed has little to do other than while he is getting ready to set sail exchange enigmatic remarks with Bocca Dorata about his rootless nature and his search for something that doesn't exist. There is the brief encounter with the German baron and a fight that he cannot win with a native with a tattooed face from the interior over the Togo badge. The artwork however is among Pratt's finest. It's not just a talking heads sequence - even that is beautifully rendered in any case - but also detailed backgrounds that capture the sense of location.
Setting sail with Professor Steiner and Tristan, whose step-sister is Morgan Dias Do Santos Bantam (see Il segreto di Tristan Bantam) one of Bocca Dorata's apprentices. They come to the island of Maraja, where three Dutch and Spanish galleons were shipwrecked in 1580. They find there is indeed an iron steam ship with the flag of the German eagle there hiding up a river in the jungle, surely too far out in the Atlantic to be able to refuel with coal. They clearly don't want anyone knowing there are there.
It's a complicated geopolitical arrangement of affairs, alliances, colonies, even with Brazil a neutral country and far from the war in Europe, but there are important commercial shipping lines in the Atlantic. Despite where you think allegiances might lie, Corto doesn't see the Germans as enemies. It's not his affair, it's not his war. It doesn't mean they are friends either though.
…E riparleremo dei gentiluomoni di fortuna (1970)
Unwilling to take any money for ideological or political alliances that he finds himself involved in, Corto is happy nonetheless to get money his own way. It's the traditional way of heroic adventurers; though ancient tales and cryptic treasure maps. He has in his possession one of four cards, aces made of whale bone that were shared between three pirates that will lead him to the Spanish galleon "Fortuna Reale".
He goes to visit the descendant of one of those pirates, Barracuda Ficcanaso. Miss Ambiguità di Poincy who had another card and discovers that someone else has been looking for it. The third ace is owned by none other than Rasputin. Corto begins think it's all too easy a trail for an old legend, and he is not wrong. Despite no one trusting each other, they use the three card to take them to an approximate location. Unfortunately there they run into a crazy man protecting the coral covered galleon and its treasure.
There's definitely a sense of high adventure here, but also an edge of melancholy that the dreams of gentlemen of fortune - and ladies -end in disappointment, death and failure. The treasure they have been looking for is loaded into the cannons and fired as shrapnel. (Interestingly, here in NI we call loose change 'shrapnel'). There is a neat twist with the fourth card coming too late from Bocca Dorata.
Per colpa di un gabbiano (1970)
In Per colpo di un gabbiano (through the fault of a seagull) Corto finds himself in British Honduras on an island called Maracatoqua, which means Seagull island. He doesn't look like he will be moving anytime soon, pinned down by an unknown gun man, his position given away thought the fault of a seagull looking after the egg in her nest. Trapped and now in delirium, Corto revisits the key events and women of his recent history as he is rescued by another, Soledad Lokäarth.
Corto is to have further trouble with women on Missionary island where the natives have unusual biblical names, including Gesù Maria, who just thinks it will be easier to kill Corto and they take him to Golgotha Point. There's a hallucinatory aspect to the story - not unusually - Corto unable to remember what took him to this strange island. He can't even recall his own name and calls himself John Smith. The name of Giuda (Judas) Lokäarth and reputation of the "Evangelist Gang" mean something however, and old family history resurfaces.
Teste e Funghi (1970)
Steiner visits Levi Colombia's shop of curiosities and hears about the city of El Dorado from the diary of an English explorer. Corbett with Pierre la Reina discovered an anachronistic cylindrical tower in the Amazonian jungle, before being killed by natives, the Jivaro. Steiner thinks that the magic mushrooms consumed might actually have been the key to the discovery. As Corto is still suffering from amnesia (from Per colpa di un gabbiano), Steiner thinks the adventure of discovery and the Mexican mushrooms might help where doctors have failed. They are soon on their way on a steam boat up the Amazon...
…With Pierre la Reine? Have the mushrooms really had a time travel effect or is it just a fevered nightmare? Either way, Corto's memory has returned and his astuteness in dealing with Levi Colombia and others looking for the lost city of gold. Without discounting that there mainly be magical elements at play. And you can be sure that elements of both, El Dorado and mysticism, will resurface in subsequent adventures.
La Conga delle Banane (1971)
Banana Conga opens with a couple of talking colt guns, leading you to wonder if there is something of the magic mushrooms still lingering after Teste e fungi. Corto has stumbled into an ambush where the ambushers and the victim all die, leaving a valise case that seems to be connected to Bocca Dorata and her revolution in Mosquito. The dying victim asks for it to be bright to Il "Rumbita", and it's there he meets Esmeralda.
The Union, the American interest in the region, has already been under attack, forcing them out of the region (Samba con tiro fisso) but there are pockets that remain, one of which is Sanders and his banana business, who are looking to retain a foothold there. With enigmatic figures and women appearing at every turn looking for the case, including Venexiana Stevenson, Banana Congo is a complicated affair of betrayals and espionage and an increasing body count that Corto finds himself in the midst of, with little clue what to do or who to follow.
Not it seems do the various players, who are all indeed being played or tested by Bocca Dorata. Some, thought dead, will reappear in later stories.
Vudù per il Presidente (1971)
Corto is in Barbados now with Professor Steiner, at Port Ducal. Steiner - always one to lead Corto into strange and dangerous places - tells him he has heard stories about the walking dead and that the president is a demon. Corto dismisses this as fantasy. It's again mentioned that Corto's mother was a gipsy from Gibraltar and a witch. His father from Cornwall was a nephew of an old devil from Tintagel. The island where they are now was once base for pirates, but the indigenous tribes wiped out the foreigners and proclaimed it an independent republic.
The trouble this time comes with the trial taking place of Soledad Lokäarth (from Per colpa di un gabbiano). Accused of occult activities, raising the dead on a sugar plantation that has been purchased from the president's brother, she is found guilty of witchcraft, but it is merely a scheme by Zola to take her land. Steiner wisely keeps away from it, and is astonished to hear that Corto has been executed by firing squad for mocking the trial as a farce, his body left for students of anatomy. Steiner, a friend of the president from time in Paris, goes to see if he can get approval to collect the body of Corto and ends up arrested also.
Corto of course hasn't been executed but with the help of the masked great devil and some black magic, as well as an incredible mask himself in disguise, Zola is defeated and Soledad rescued. And Steiner. Soledad knows of Corto as John Smith from British Honduras, but Corto still has no recollection of the incident. Maybe it was in a dream, either way it's a sad one.
La laguna dei bei sogni (1971)
The beating drums on the Orinoco let Corto know that another white man is in the area, an area known as the Lagoon of Sweet Dreams. It's not as nice as it sounds and is in fact one of the most dangerous places in the region, deadly insects and dangerous fauna that drive men crazy. That seems to be the case with the man from the prestigious English Artists Rifles regiment losing his mind in Mabaruma. Lieutenant Robin Stuart is waiting on his horse Gladiator II coming in so that he can pay off his debts, fearing the arrival of a German tank.
Yes, it's another drug-induced dream of madness Corto Maltese style, but less flight of fantasy or mystical passageway to the spirit world and one that takes him back to the horror of war and guilt over his actions. Stuart let a love rival die because he was the favourite of Evelyne, and stole the Battalions money. Pratt's inking is a little looser and heavier in places here, adapting to the needs of the story and experimenting. The story seems to have little to do with Corto, but an inscription and a symbol in his regimental badge has a connection with his mother of Spanish gypsy origin.
Nonni e Fiabe (1971)
Corto is on a steam boat to Peru with Steiner and Levi Colombia, and becomes involved in a dangerous adventure Doctor Stone's wife and son died in the region of the Jivaro Huambiza Indians. He has discovered that his son Nathan was married to a native Jivaro girl and they had a child. The child would now be seven and living with its maternal grandparents.
As if it isn't crazy enough to be looking for a seven year old child in a region of venomous snakes, headhunters and military incursions, Corto has made an enemy on the ship of Mendoza a notorious slave trader who was trying to cheat him in a game of dice. Corto suspects that the missing child is just a pretext created by missionary Father Sullivan, like many others is looking for El Dorado in regions unexplored by white men.
He learns from Sullivan that the secret to the location of El Dorado can be found in Venice in a Franciscan monastery. (A story to be followed up in L'angelo della finestra d'oriente, where he also re-encounters an enigmatic woman believed killed in La conga delle banane.) The journey is every bit as dangerous as expected, and then some. Corto's native guide is not who he expected but a powerful magician Marangwè also looking for his nephew.
Nonni e Fiabe is one of the best Corto Maltese stories. It's practically a summation of where his adventures have led him so far, the relationship between the natives of South America and the white people and a child who ideally unites them, or at least some of them. There are a couple of beautiful panels that capture the beauty and danger of the region. The conclusion to his travels in this part of the world sets the tale up for the next stage of adventures.
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