The creator of Corto Maltese

Comics historian Paul Gravett looks at the life and art of Corto Maltese creator Hugo Pratt:

The famous author of The Name Of The Rose, Umberto Eco said it all: "When I want to relax I read essays by Engels. When I want something more serious, I read Corto Maltese."

Our first sighting of him is through the telescope of the pirate Rasputin. He spies Corto, tied spreadeagled and half-naked to a raft, left to the mercy of the Pacific ocean. Corto is rescued by the Russian rogue, whose crew have also picked up two teenage cousins lost at sea, Cain and Pandora Groovesnore. The Ballad Of The Salt Sea, serialized from 1967 in Italian magazine Sgt Kirk, relates their encounters in the South Seas with pirates, natives, and opposing navies around the time of the outbreak of the First World War. From then on, wherever, whenever, the globetrotting free spirit washes up, Corto Maltese is bound to become a part of history in the making.

It seems Corto was born in 1887 in La Valletta in Malta, which gave him his name (Frank Miller named a country after him in Dark Knight Returns as a tribute). The illegitimate son of a gypsy woman from Seville and a British sailor from Tintagel, his choice of a seafaring life was inevitable. The life of his Italian creator Hugo Pratt was almost as adventurous. Living in a variety of countries, multi-lingual and widely read, he was fascinated by the cultures of the world. Hugo Pratt was also a relative William Pratt, better known as Boris Karloff.

Pratt himself has seen his share of scrapes, at one point in 1964 becoming lost, presumed dead, in the Amazon rainforest until he was rescued by Indian tribesmen. His crisscrossing of the globe was a constant source of ideas for his comics. Other huge influences were Milton Caniff's chiaroscuro or light-and-dark graphic approach on the newspaper adventure strip Terry & The Pirates and Caniff's enthusiasm for research and authenticity. Out of these ingredients Pratt imagined the rugged, enigmatic adventurer Corto, in his cap, earring and bellbottoms, whom he could involve with the real events, places and people of early 20th century history...

More from Wired Temples; Corto Maltese Tribute site; The original version of this article appeared in 2005 in the magazine Comics International.