Thanks to "Crash Ryan" pointing me in the right direction, a search has turned up the following (with help from Google Translate):
Dino Battaglia was confronted often during his long career as a cartoonist with some great writers of the nineteenth century especially with the work of the master of atmosphere horror / Gothic Edgar Allan Poe, which he adapted in a masterly manner, sometimes reinterpreting in part, some of the most famous tales.
Lady Ligeia Battle
A disturbing picture of Lady Ligeia
Most dellle stories was published for the first time in the magazine Linus, between 1968 and 1973, in a version in black and white, or rather in shades of gray (only later we were made of versions of the same color comics with coloring by the author's wife, Laura Battaglia, for the magazine Corto Maltese). These are stories inspired by Poe gothic and supernatural.
Linus, comic magazine cultured and sensitive, allowed the author to confront stories challenging and appropriate for a mature adult audience and making possible the realization of these little jewels of Gothic comic who could hardly find space in other comic magazines of the period .
The author's style goes well with the atmosphere that evokes Edgar Allan Poe in his writings, managing to bring in the tables environments so disturbing and yet so basically normal, the horror suggested by elegant play of light and shadow, from one unmistakable style and evanescent, that leaves the reader, as in the work of Poe, the ability to imagine what is not shown.
Battle cleverly plays with the composition of the table that breaks the regular patterns using cartoons of different shapes and sizes, for images cropped, sometimes simple shilouette; using special design techniques to get images often indefinite, scratched, faded, mysterious and always preferring image to word, reducing the essentials of the original text.
The last story from Poe, of lighter flavor and fantastic, was published for the first time on the children's magazine The Newspaper, a few years later, in 1981.
In all the adaptations that Battle draws on the stories of Poe are 8 and are as follows (in parentheses are reported the journal in which were published the first time and its date of publication in the journal of which have been published in color for the first time with its release date):
- King Pest (Linus n. 45, December 1968 - Corto Maltese n. 5, May 1985)
- The Fall of the House of Usher (Linus n. 50, May 1969 - Corto Maltese n. 8, August 1984)
- Lady Ligeia (Linus n. 55, October 1969 - Corto Maltese No. 2, February 1985)
- Hop-Frog (Linus n. 81, December 1971 - Corto Maltese n. 12, December 1986)
- The bet (Linus n. 85 April 1972 - Corto Maltese n. 6, June 1986)
- The Masque of the Red Death (Linus n. 91, October 1972 - Corto Maltese # 7, July 1988)
- The system of dr. Tar and prof. Feather (Linus n. 101, August 1973 - Corto Maltese n. 3, March 1990)
- The extraordinary adventure of Hans Pfall (The Newspaper no. 12, March 1981)
Some episodes are very faithful to the original (Ligeia, The Fall of the House of Usher), other times Battaglia takes more freedom (as they bet or The Masque of the Red Death); in any case the author always works the reductions and simplifications of the plot and characters to bring them back a few pages, being able to take advantage of the ability to recreate the atmosphere of the lyrics through his wonderful paintings.
Image from Plague King of Battle
The grotesque characters of King Pest
In some cases Battle takes only the initial idea and, not infrequently, move the place and time in which the narrated events are set, the original Poe.
One of the stories is openly horror / Gothic (The Fall of the House of Usher, Lady Ligeia, The Masque of the Red Death) where Battle is best expressed by creating the atmosphere and charm of unquestionable effect; other times the author plays the card of the grotesque (King Pest, Frog Hopper, The system of dr. Goudron and Professor. Feather) contaminating situations in itself certainly not happy with touches of macabre humor; the most obvious case is that of King Pest where the same characters are drawn in a less realistic and more caricatural.
Another exception is that of The extraordinary adventure of Hans Pfall, story definitely more weird and wonderful and so drawn with less need to black and the darker tones.
The stories are all very short, from 7 pages of The Masque of the Red Death at 13 La straorinaria adventure Hans Pfall.
The protagonist of the last story in Poe is called Hans Pfaall, for this very often version of Battle is reported as the extraordinary adventure of Hans Pfaall (with two) but in fact the title used by the author simply reports one a.
Volume Poe - Dino Battaglia - Grifo Edizioni
The cover of the book published by Poe Grifo Edizioni
The publication of the tales of Poe's Battle was quite uneven over time, the original black and white on Linus over six years the stories were then re-proposed color magazine Corto Maltese (but again without a specific rule between 1984 to 1990), who also repeated Hans Pfall.
All the stories were later published in various books dedicated to the work of Dino Battaglia. An almost complete collection of comics drawn by Poe has had on the bulletin Totentanz books published by Editions Milan in 1972. In this volume, as well as other stories, they were attended by all the adjustments to the Gothic tales of Poe; the only adaptation was missing then the extraordinary adventure of Hans Pfall.
In 1999 the publisher Lo Scarabeo has published the book Edgar Allan Poe and Dino Battaglia. Eight unpublished stories that collects all the stories from Poe including the extraordinary adventure of Hans Pfall (although of course the stories are not unusual) and most recently, in 2007, the same operation was carried out by Grifo Edizioni with the publication of volume Poe.
Dino Battaglia was definitely one of the great cartoonists who has dealt better with the work of Poe managed to make the most of the atmosphere without altering the content, even when he 'dared' to take liberties in adapting the story.
Among the other great writers who discussed so strongly with the author, and the number of comics realized that as the quality of the works, worth mentioning Richard Corben, who perhaps has diverged a bit 'more original tales but is still a risucire find its way very valuable and extremely effective.
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