Milo Manara

Milo Manara (born Maurilio Manara in Luson, province of Bolzano, on 12 September 1945) is an Italian comics artist regarded as one of the leading masters of erotic comics. He is best known for works such as HP and Giuseppe Bergman (1978), El Clic (1984) and El perfume del invisible (1986), but his career began in painting.

His first vocation was painting. After failing to earn a living from it, he worked as an assistant to the Spanish sculptor Miguel Ortiz Berrocal, whose library introduced him to comics. While studying architecture at the University of Venice, he published Genius in 1968, a mix of noir and eroticism in pocket format. During the 1970s he combined comics with posters and graphic work for political groups, producing politically charged stories such as Alessio il Borghese and Strategia della Tensione, written by Silverio Pisù. With the same writer he made The Monkey King (1976), based on a Chinese folk legend.

In 1979 the magazine À Suivre published HP, the first instalment of the Giuseppe Bergman adventures and his first work as sole author, an homage to Hugo Pratt. He later collaborated with Pratt on Indian Summer and El gaucho. In 1983 came El Clic, his most famous work, which spawned several sequels and was adapted for the stage and for live-action film. Within the genre he followed with El perfume del invisible, Cámara indiscreta, Gulliveriana, Kamasutra and WWW. Revolución (2000) took a more satirical line, criticising television networks. Later he mixed eroticism with science fiction in Piranesi: the Prison Planet.

Manara also worked with Federico Fellini, producing posters and a comic version of Viaje a Tulum, and illustrated a novel by Pedro Almodóvar, Fuego en las entrañas. Today most of his work is in illustration and advertising. Critics have noted that his erotic work shows both the clean, elegant draughtsmanship and the weaknesses common to the genre. His legacy lies in helping establish erotic comics as a recognised part of European author comics.