| Author: Hugo Pratt |
Series: Corto Maltese – New edition black and white
Volume: 12
Soft cover
Black and white
172 pages
Dimensions: 23.7×29.4×1.8 cm
Price: € 24.00
iSBN: 2203033630
EAN: 9782203033634
Release Date: 13/06/2012
Sailor suit, brown hair, ring in his left ear. The slender and elegant. A glimmer of fun and irony, in the eyes. The air of stay away. The art of observing people and things with detachment. Some say the pirate. He claims to be a gentleman of fortune …
This is Corto Maltese, the son of an Andalusian gypsy and a sailor from Cornwall. A face, a personality, a destiny. A legend of the comic strip became legend, period.
Certainly, Corto is a creature of paper, invented by the great Hugo Pratt. But by seeing haunt our imagination, we end up questioning. And if he really existed? And if Pratt had not become the repository of memories, the humble biographer of a destiny too good to be a mere fiction?
Corto Maltese is ever present to his readers, that draw upon the books of Hugo Pratt to feed their dreams elsewhere.
And as for this particular book: the crew of a ship anchored near a small island in Central America are a mixed bunch – Steiner, Rasputin, Soledad, Tristan Bantam, Golden Mouth, Levi Columbia; all fellow adventures of Corto Maltese. And why are they on a ship moored off a small island? They are all seeking access to Mu, the legendary lost continent.
But, of course, they are not alone. There is also a Chinese junk, usedby pirates, hostile Indians, Mayan gods, the survivor of an air crash and even a congregation of Amazons armed from head to toe. All these characters will cross, and sometimes continue to love through the maze of the City of the Dead: a strange ruined city that seems to exist simultaneously not only in this world, but also in others. But how to distinguish reality? Between dream, poetry and irony, Hugo Pratt orchestrates masterfully an entrancing journey through the corridors of history and spirit.
Hugo Pratt once drew a European super hero –a no-prize for whom-so-ever comes up with the characters name!
Initially, when you look at Corto Maltese you think “What is all the fuss about?” The style seems almost simplistic at times. However, sit down, open the book and…time goes by. Pratt knows how to tell a story that is easy to follow if you do not speak French –someone who knows sequential art.
There are pages where I just looked over them once…twice..and they are brilliant. There are some very strange and weird things going on in this book. I can understand what all the fuss is about. Lush.
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