The man who made comics sexy, drunk, and deeply sad — all in watercolor.
Several key words emerge from Hugo Pratt's work, inseparable from his life: travel, adventure, erudition, esotericism, mystery, poetry, melancholy... and of course, Corto Maltese, his hero and alter ego, who established him as one of the greatest names in comic books. Born in Italy in 1927 and dying in Switzerland sixty-eight years later, Hugo Pratt, born without an H and with only one T, grew up in the shadow of a fascist father who took him at a very young age to Ethiopia, which was occupied by Mussolini's forces. The teenager developed a fascination for the wide-open spaces of Africa, soon followed by an irresistible attraction to the Indian world. This was the starting point for a life of travel, success, conquests, rare failures, and marked by his veneration for the American cartoonist Milton Caniff, his absolute master.
Direction
Thomas lets Pratt's art breathe — no frantic editing, just reverence.
Cinematography
Gorgeous scans of original pages, ink still wet with melancholy.
Director
Thierry Thomas
Trivia, insights & behind the scenes
Pratt insisted on signing his name without the 'H' and with one 'T' — a deliberate act of self-creation that his father hated.
Corto Maltese predates Indiana Jones by a decade, yet Hollywood never touched him — too drunk, too sad, too European.
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