Vittorio Giardino (Bologna, Italy. 1946)

After graduating in electronic engineering and working for nine years in that field, he left it to devote himself to comics. His first comic strips came out in 1978, collected together under the generic title Storie da dimenticare in the weekly magazine La città futura. In 1979 he moved to the magazine Il mago, where he created his first major character, the private detective Sam Pezzo, who was to move later to the pages of Orient Express. Giardino created for the same publication another detective-type character in 1982, the French ex-secret service agent Max Fridman. His first adventure, Rapsodia Ungherese (Hungarian Rhapsody), led to the author’s international acclaim, which grew even more with the following instalments: La Porta d'Oriente and No pasarán which was set in the Spanish Civil War. In 1983 he changed his tone with Little Ego, a new take on Little Nemo by Winsor McCay. Vittorio Giardino has received numerous awards for his work, including the Lucca Festival’s Yellow Kid in 1982, Angoulême Festival’s Alfred, and a Harvey award given in the San Diego Comic-Con.

This year Norma Editorial is publishing a complete edition with all Sam Pezzo’s cases and Il Libraio di Praga (The Bookseller from Prague), the last Jonas Fink album, one of his most prized series by the public and critics.

The author is a guest thanks to the cooperation of Norma Editorial.