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Corto Maltese


Last week I held a lecture on comics in The Knowledge of Art course. While thinking of examples I would speak on the class I popped in to my old favourite comic books: Corto Maltese stories by Hugo Pratt.

I bought my first Maltese books in Danish while I worked in Stockholm. The first one was Det gyldne hus i Samarkand.

So, I spent some good times with comic books which definetly can be classified as literature. Corto Maltese is a soldier of fortune living in a turmoil of the early 20th century. Many stories handle the chaos and culture around Europe and the world before, during and after the First World War. What happens to an idealistic individuals during a brutal war where commanders neglect the human rights and see their subordinates as cannon food?

Pratt's stories are epic and even romantic stories of a time when the foundations of the post modern era was laid. Extremely well written and full of accurate pictorial historical data. Costumes, vehicles, architecture are well examined. Pratt's own international history (he lived in Etiopia and Argentina) is mirrored in Corto's humane and equal attitude to people no matter of their background.

It is probably 20 years I read these last time. Sadly, Pratt himself died in 1995 and the series of masterpieces finished before knowing what actually happened to Corto, shipless captain without home harbour. So what happened to Corto Maltese? Some said he disappeared in a plane over Sahara like Antoine de Saint-Exupery. Poetic end for a poetic hero.
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This entry is written with Lumia application HBlog. A Finnish API, and gladly, after testing many windows mobile blogging APIs, this is at last one which really does what it promises. I recommend!
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