Romics 27th edition from 2nd to 5th April 2020
Milo Manara is one of the few comic artists who manages to make erotic comics and still succeed in keeping a reputation as a genuine artist. This is especially true of his serial, 'Giuseppe Bergman', which is a combination of experimental narrative and explicit sex. Manara is known to be interested in painting in general and the classical painters like Raphael in specific. As a boy, he even ran away from home to see an exhibition of the painter Giorgio de Chirico.
Born in Luson (Bolzano), Maurilio Manaro became interested in comix in the late sixties. His first work appeared in the 'Genius' pocket books by publisher Furio Vanio in 1969, and in magazines like Terror, Telerompo, and the French magazines Alter-Linus and Charlie Mensuel. Other early creations include the sexy pirate 'Jolanda' with scriptwriter Francesco Rubino for publisher Erregi (1971-73). For the children's magazine Corriere dei Ragazzi, he adapted 'Le Decameron' and worked with Milo Milani on the series 'La Parola alla Giura'.
In 1976 came 'Lo Scimmiotto', the first of his more ambitious projects. Manara illustrated five episodes of the collection 'L'Histoire de France en Bandes Dessinées' for the French publisher Larousse between 1976 and 1978. In later years, Manara continued to work on similar educational collections, such as 'La Découverte du Monde en Bandes Dessinées' (Larousse, 1979), 'L'Histoire de la Chine' (1980) and 'La Storia d'Italia a Fumetti' (Mondadori, 1978).
Manara produced erotic works like 'Le Parfum de l'Invisible' (two volumes, 1986 and 1995), 'Candid Camera' (1988), 'Kama Sutra' (1997), 'Le Piège' (1998), 'Révolution' (2000) and 'Piranèse, la Planète Prison' (2002), and also new stories with 'Giuseppe Bergman'.
However, Manara also kept on working in other genres. With Hugo Pratt, for whom Manara has great respect, he worked on 'L'Été Indien' (in Corto Maltese) and 'El Gaucho' (in Il Grifo). Manara also worked with one of his other heroes, Federico Fellini, on 'Voyage à Tulum' (Corriere della Serra, 1986) and 'Le Voyage de G. Mastorna dit Fernet' (Il Grifo, 1992). With Enzo Biagi he participated in Mondadori's series about 'Christophe Colomb' in 1992.
In 1995, Manara made 'Gulliveriana' for Les Humanoïdes Associés, loosely based on the oeuvre of Jonathan Swift. He worked with Neil Gaiman on 'The Sandman: Endless Nights' for DC/Vertigo in 2003 and relaunched 'Giuseppe Bergman' in BoDoï in 2004. In 2004 Manara teamed up with Alejandro Jodorowsky for a new series about the 15th century Pope family Borgia. He did an 'X-Men' project for Marvel with Chris Claremont, called 'X-Women', in 2009, and worked with Vincenzo Cerami on 'Gli Occhi di Pandora' ('Pandora's Eyes') in the same year. In 2013 he started to do variant covers for issues of Marvel comic books.
Besides comics, Manara has produced a great variety of portfolios and illustrations for collections like Glamour Books. He has also done character designs for the animated TV series 'City Hunters'.