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Inevitably, considering Hugo Pratt's travels, living and working around the world, his collection of war stories written between 1969 and 1992 for Gli scorpioni del deserto (The Scorpions of the Desert) are far from typical. Actually, there's nothing inevitable about it of course, as the plotting, motivations of the characters and the wide perspective from all sides of the international conflicts are far from what is commonly found in wartime adventures and exploits. It's a measure of how great an artist Pratt is that even as an Italian national, his view of his home country's operations in North Africa is seen from the perspective of the allied forces and not from what we might expect as a tolerant or excusable view of ordinary Italian soldiers caught up in the conflict, but even the 'enemy' are given a fair hearing. Such an approach is not unlike those found in the adventures of his most famous character Corto Maltese then, and similar characteristics can be...

The third volume of the complete adventures of Corto Maltese - surely the greatest comic book creation ever in terms of its scope and the brilliance of Hugo Pratt's illustrations - neatly brings the adventurer from one side of the world to the other. Having learned in Peru that in Nonni e Fiabe  (at the end of Volume 2 of the collected Corto Maltese ) that there is a map in Venice detailing the location of the legendary city of El Dorado, the next story L'angelo della finestra d'oriente takes Corto to Venice while Europe is in the middle of war. The lust for gold however is not confined to El Dorado, but is chased by an Austrian army officer and it seems half of the nations of Europe in Sotto la bandiera dell'oro . Money doesn't just make the world go around, it keeps wars going. The white man's madness however extends further than Europe, this volume also taking in Corto's travel to Abyssinia where his guide and colleague Cush also finds that the lust for...

Many of the early stories collected in Volume 2 of the complete Corto Maltese have a feverish quality, taking place in the tropics, in the Amazon, in South American jungles, Caribbean islands and British Honduras. Corto's companion on most of these adventures is Professor Jeremiah Steiner, an academic with interest in the arcane, who has a habit of getting drunk and in trouble, as well as finding ways to open doorways to adventure, hidden treasure and mystical lands. The stories are relatively short, but they cover a lot of adventure, with native uprisings, pirates, witches, headhunters, voodoo rituals, slave traders, German steamships in the jungle and deadly female adversaries. 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 n...

La Giovinezza (1981) I wasn't keen on opening the Corto Maltese l'integrale complete Italian language Corto Maltese collection with a later work as it's far from Hugo Pratt's best work, but chronologically I suppose it belongs at the start. A short introduction by Corto relates how he was a friend of Jack London in Manchuria during the 1904/1905 Russo-Japanese war and it was there that he first encountered Rasputin, who makes his 'first appearance' with a series of typically senseless killings. The war is nearing an end, but one of the Siberian regiment is not ready to put down his arms. Rasputin is introduced immediately as ruthless and challenging of authority not out of principle but it's in his nature. He intends to join up with other like minded rebels and head for the coast, but since he doesn't make himself likeable to the Japanese either - nor indeed anyone - he doesn't get too far. The famous adventure writer Jack London however makes arran...

I've read and admired Hugo Pratt's work on the Corto Maltese series for a long time recognising it as one of the greatest creations of comic art. Unfortunately, English editions have been randomly produced over the years, with little sense of continuity and variations in quality, and quickly go out of print. Some have been colourised with approval of Pratt, but even some black and white editions in an effort to make them more accessible have been reformated for pocket editions, cropping artwork and frames. None of this has taken away greatly from the brilliance of Hugo Pratt's artwork and creation, but I always felt like I wasn't getting the full experience. Having only previously read a few Dylan Dog adventures in Italian while on holiday, I sampled a few of the Italian eBook editions of Corto Maltese: ( Vudù per il Presidente ,  Concerto in O' minore per arpa e nitroglierina ,  Le Elevetiche Rosa Alchemica   to see how readable they were, and found that with aid...

We usually know where Corto Maltese stands in terms of political allegiances, which is less to do with ideology than being in the side of the ordinary people against oppression, on the anti imperialist and anti-colonialist side of any conflict - but more often he remains romantically more than ideologically involved. That's the case when in Concerto in O' minore per arpa e nitroglierina he arrives in Ireland in 1917 just after the Easter Uprising to find trouble on the streets of Dublin. Soldiers patrolling in 'autoblindos' armoured cars come under attack from a group of IRA operatives led by Banshee O'Dannan. Corto's first objective is not to get involved in the struggle, but to visit the grave of the recently deceased Pat Finnucan. When he is asked what is is looking for, he replies in his usual wry manner ' La pentola d'oro del lepricano ' (The leprechaun's pot of gold). Finnucan had been the leader of Sinn Féin, hoping to take the revolution...

We're more used to see Corto Maltese deal with mysticism in the context of African or Asian ceremonies and dark voodoo rituals. There's another stream of European mysticism to be found in (of all places) Switzerland in Le Elevetiche Rosa Alchemica . The manner in which Corto is drawn into this world is very much like that of a hallucinogenic trip, and it's a very trippy experience that takes up the majority of the album. Corto accompanies old friend Professor Jeremiah Steiner to Montagnola in the canton of Tessin, Switzerland. He's as interested as Steiner in a conference being held by Herman Hesse on esoterica and alchemy. Arriving at their destination, they are met by a strange ambiguous figure of indeterminate age, who looks 10 but claims to be either 4 or 730, who introduces themselves as Klingsor or Hermann Hesse. They are in a strange place all right, but it's about to get even stranger. Soon Corto is conversing with images of medieval sages on the wall about ...

In Vudù per il Presidente , Corto Maltese gets mixed up in a very dangerous business - what else? - while in Barbados with Professor Steiner, but here the threats come not just from the living but the undead. In Port Ducal, Steiner tells him he has heard stories about the walking dead and that the president is rumoured to be a demon. Corto dismisses this as fantasy, even though he knows from his own personal background that stranger things have happened. It is revealed here that Corto's mother was a gypsy from Gibraltar and a witch, while his father from Cornwall is a nephew of an old devil from Tintagel.  Corto's immediate problems however are more earth bound, rescuing Steiner from a prison cell in Port Ducal. Once base for pirates before the indigenous tribes wiped out the foreigners and proclaimed it an independent republic, the island still remains a dangerous place for foreigners. Corto attends a trial taking place of Soledad Lokaarth, who accused of occult activities, ra...