Hugo Pratt’s Character Corto Maltese

We once had an exchange student from France live with us for a year. She brought my son a T-shirt that featured a simple yet expressive line drawing of a face in profile. It was dramatic, done in white on a black background. She explained it was the character Corto Maltese. I had never heard of him before, but evidently he has quite a following in France. He's in about twelve graphic novels reminiscent of the Tintin stories; they have an appeal and artistic flair adults appreciate probably more than kids do.

Background

Hugo Pratt (1927-1995) was an Italian artist and writer who spent most of his working life in France. He considered himself "a teller of tales who writes with drawings." Pratt wrote and illustrated a series of graphic novels about Corto Maltese, the most famous character he created. Maltese first appeared in Ballad of the Salt Sea as one of several lead characters in this tale from the South Seas featuring pirates, cannibals, sharks, treachery, dark secrets, and the outbreak of WWI. The hero, Maltese, went on to become the focus of a dozen volumes that are still held in high regard by the current generation of writers and illustrators of graphic novels. These stories, such as Under The Sign Of Capricorn, Corto Maltese In Siberia, The Gilded House Of Samarkand, and The Celts, place Maltese in a series of fascinating adventures in all corners of the earth. He is a sailor, a roque, an adventurer, a sometime pirate with his own sense of ethics and style. (For a complete list of Pratt's works, see http://home.c2i.net/tzara/corto/albums.h... )

Born in Rimini in 1927, Hugo Pratt spent his childhood in Venice before joining his father in Abyssinia, Ethiopia at the age of 10. During the Italian attempt to establish a colony there, Pratt was enrolled in the Italian colonial police force. During WWII, he was captured by the SS as a spy, escaped, and went over to the Allies. He spent the end of the war organizing entertainment events for the allied soldiers. Toward the end of his life, Pratt lived on the Geneva Riviera.

Pratt's graphic novels can easily be seen as extensions of his own adventurous life. They are unusual for their intellectual depth, complex plots, historical figures, well-developed characters, and carefully researched exotic locations. The charm of the whole series comes from the fine research that Hugo Pratt does for each tale. Part of the Belgian School of graphic novelists, Pratt's full-color paintings are extremely well-executed. They have earned him a die-hard following in Italy and France. They have also been discovered here in the U.S.

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