It will be the first complete English-language version of the series based on IDW’s record and the quality of the first two entries- Under the Sign of Capricorn was nominated for a 2015 Eisner Award-it appears that Corto Maltese has finally arrived in the U.S. Another volume, Beyond the Windy Isles, was released earlier this month, with 10 more to follow. The most widely circulated review was a blog post titled “How to Destroy a Comics Classic.”īut Universe’s misfortune had at least one positive outcome: IDW Publishing, known for its award-winning collections of classic American newspaper strips like Dick Tracy, Little Orphan Annie, and Terry and the Pirates, issued the second batch of Corto Maltese stories, Under the Sign of Capricorn, in January. As welcome as it was, the Universe edition was a critical disaster-the resized and reformatted book broke up the narrative flow of Pratt’s story and art, shrinking the original albums down to the size of American comic books. In 2012, the small publisher Universe released a translated edition of the first Maltese story, The Ballad of the Salt Sea, a long tale of high-seas double-dealing set on the eve of World War I. A few scattered translated editions appeared over the years but quickly went out of print, and import copies have only been available at premium prices. Like most European comics, though, Pratt’s Corto Maltese adventures have remained inaccessible and virtually unknown in the United States. Through the 1970s and ’80s, Maltese became one of the most popular and acclaimed comics characters in Europe. “Maybe I’m the king of idiots, the last representative of an extinct dynasty that believed in generosity! In heroism!” he sneers sarcastically after standing up to a bully. He’s a peer of Sergio Leone’s Man With No Name, Raymond Chandler’s Philip Marlowe, and the protagonists of Easy Rider. Maltese fit the mood of the times-a classic antihero, a romantic dropout whose jaded sensibility masks a crusading impulse, a roguish loner who always finds himself in the middle of a lost cause. The Italian cartoonist Hugo Pratt introduced his most famous character, the cynical sailor and “gentleman of fortune” Corto Maltese, in 1967.
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