Biography of Guido Crepax

My daughter Valentina

July 15, 1933
July 31, 2003
Born in Milan on July 15, 1933 Guido Crepax began working in the field of illustration and graphics while he attended the Faculty of architecture, creating advertising posters and book covers and records (including those devoted to Gerry Mulligan, Charlie Parker or Louis Armstrong). Sign the first big hit in 1957 with the designs of Shell gasoline advertising campaign awarded the Palme d'Or.
In 1963 he returned to the world of his first love, the comic, and a few years later gives birth to the unquestionable protagonist of her stories, the now famous book first appeared in issue # 3 of Linus, the legendary magazine founded and directed by Giovanni Gandini. Valentina, truth be told, comes first as a boundary character Philip Rembrandt, alias Neutron, art critic and amateur investigator, boyfriend with Valentina Rosselli, photographer with an unmistakable headband black; only that the charism of the latter outperforms that of protagonist so that as early as the third episode scalza.
A character with strong erotic veins, Valentina, who scored a precise style, not only in the sense that, but just in the anthropological sense, almost in the manner of a pop star or a famous person. Just gotta say that Valentina is paper and countless attempts to give a body consistency, through films and various incarnations, they don't seem very successful. Valentina, although inspired by silent film actress Louise Brooks, is a being indecipherable, elusive, something that belongs to the mind and to an abstract type woman; for this reason, any effort to identify it in a real woman is doomed to failure. At the same time, it is not rare to hear define a girl with certain characteristics as "a Valentine". Valentina is the only cartoon character with an identity card. In fact, is born on December 25, 1942 in De Amicis Street 42 in Milan and officially released in 1995 to 53 years in the last Board of history ' to hell with Valentina! '.
Very prolific author, Crepax has later given short life with numerous other heroines (Belinda, Bianca, Anita ...), and also created sophisticated comic versions of some classics of erotic literature like Histoire d'o, Justine and Emmanuelle. In 1977 produced a book of adventures in color: "man of Pskov" followed the year after "the man from Harlem". His latest book ' In art ... Valentina ' was released in 2001 on Lizard editions. Comic stories Crepax have been published abroad and in particular France, Spain, Germany, Japan, United States, Finland, Greece and Brazil. From sick time, Guido Crepax passed away on July 31, 2003 in Milan at the age of 70 years. His work dealt with signifiers he sought the likes of Roland Barthes speaking of comics as the "great metaphor for life."
Article contributed by the team of collaborators.