Hugo Pratt
See also: Pratt
Draftsman and scenario writer of cartoons Italy N, Hugo Eugenio Pratt were born with Rimini in Italy, the June 15th 1927. He died in Pully (close to Lausanne) in Suisse, the August 20th 1995.
Married twice:
- with Gucky Wögerer (Yugoslav) in 1953, with Venice. Divorced in 1957, with the Mexico. They had two children: Lucas and Marina.
- with Anne Frognier (Argentina) in April 1963, in Venice. Separated in 1970. They had two children: Giona (Jonas) and Silvina.
Work of Pratt one can retain some key words, indissociable its life: voyages, ventures, scholarship, esotericism, mystery, poetry, melancholy… One said of his drawing that it was “intelligent”. Its direction of contrasts between the black and the white and its talents of storyteller did of him one of the largest Masters of the “the ninth art”.
A life of adventures
In what Pratt of its own existence tells, one does not know really which is the share of exaggeration or plot which it introduced.- I have thirteen ways of telling my life and I do not know if there is one of true of them, or even if one is truer than the other.
Modern adventurer, it crossed the times as a dilettante; here tourist, implied elsewhere, undoubtedly never really committed. He could be one of the multiple characters of his work, because he carried out a life almost as animated and cosmopolitan as that of his hero emblematic, Corto Maltese.
Youth
Its childhood is Venetian. At the 10 years age, it leaves with his mother to join her father, military career in Abyssinie, invaded by the Italy since 1935. Four years later, the Second world war extends on all the continents and the oceans. The father commits himself with his thirteen year old son in the colonial police force in order to repressing the freedom fighters. After the British offensive of 1941, it attends the return of the emperor Hailé Sélassié in Addis-Abeba released. The family is sent in prison camps. The father falls ill and dies in captivity. The mother and the son are repatriated by the Croix-Rouge in 1943.In Italy divided by the war, Venice is under the control of the Germans. It is stopped by the S which take it for a South-African spy. He is enlisted in the maritime police force of the Reich; escape at the end of eighteen days and puts at the service Allies, as interprets and organizer of spectacles until in 1946.
Doors of the imaginary one
Very early, the Hugo young person likes to draw and read adventure and action-packed novels or American cartoons. The style of Milton Caniff inspires it more particularly. Its memory, nourished African spaces and adventures of the war, gives birth to in him the desire to become draftsman. It begins in the trade in 1945, when it meets Mario Faustinelli and Alberto Ongaro who have just created a company of edition. They propose in Pratt to draw Asso di Picche ( the Ace of spade ) - inspired of the American masked heroes -, in the review Albo Uragano . During four years, several stories are published in various reviews on scenarios of Mario Faustinelli. Sometimes, it also is essential as author of the text and drawing. These beginnings are often intersected with many voyages in South America and Europe. This thirst for discoveries is a source essential to its imaginary.In Argentinian, the work of Pratt and Faustinelli draws the attention of the editor Cesare Civita who makes appear the Ace of Spade in his periodical, Salgari . It invites Pratt to come to work with Buenos Aires. Hugo accepts and settles Là-bas in 1949. Two years later, Pratt meets Héctor Oesterheld which proposes to him to draw, for the review Cinemisterio , the investigations of the detective Ray Kitt . In 1952, in the review Misterix , Hugo Pratt draws Sargento Kirk ( Sergent Kirk ), on a scenario of Oesterheld, then takes again a series written by Ongaro: Junglemen . In 1957 Hugo makes team with Oesterheld. In the first number of the magazine Frontera , created by Héctor, they make appear Ticonderoga and in the n° 1 of Hora Cero , Ernie Pike .
In 1959, Hugo goes back to the writing and takes as model a fifteen year old neighbor, to give a face to the heroin of the history, Ann there daN ( Ann of the jungle ). It leaves then to London, to work for the agency Fleetway where it draws there eleven series of war for the magazine War, Picture Library . Then settles one year with São Paulo, with the Brésil, where it gives courses of drawing to Escuela Panamericana de Arte. In 1962, it turns over to Buenos Aires, where it writes and draws Wheeling and Capitan Cormorant . A few months after, Argentina undergoes a difficult economic crisis and he sees himself constrained to set out again for Italy.
Of return to Venice, the director of a review for teenagers asks him to draw in the Corriere dei Piccoli . Billy James , written by Milo Milani, appears in 1962. Simbad it marinaio ( Simbad the sailor ), the following year. Ombra , another masked dispenser of justice who points out to him Asso di Picche , makes his appearance in 1964, on texts of Alberto Ongaro. Adapted by Milo Milani, it draws two works of Robert Louis Stevenson: Insulated It LED tesoro ( Treasure Island ) and It Ragazzo rapito ( Kidnapped! ), in 1965. Still with Milani, Avventura di Fanfulla . In parallel, Hugo always goes on many journeys; in particular with the Brazil, in Ethiopia and Lapland.
Decisive meetings
In June 1967, Pratt comes into contact with Florenzo Ivaldi which is about to make appear a new review: Sergeant Kirk . The first number leaves in July. Inside the first pages of an adventure written and drawn by Hugo are: Una ballata LED pond salato ( the Ballade of the salted sea ), where a supporting character, named Corto Maltese, makes his beginnings. One will see there also Luck Star O' Hara and only the beginning of Gli Scorpioni del Deserto ( the Scorpions of the desert ), because fault of good figures of sale, the diffusion of the review is stopped fine 1969. In its house of Malamocco, close to the Lido of Venice, Pratt is found then without project. It leaves again to Ethiopia. He visits also the Kenya and the Tanzania.Lucca, November 1969: 5th International fair of the Comic S ; Claude Moliterni introduces Hugo Pratt to Georges Rieu, editor association of Pif Gadget - weekly of communist sensitivity. This last proposes to him to publish its work in France. Pratt accepts the offer and comes to settle with Saint-Germain-in-Bush hammer. Rich person of a made adventurous life of voyages and meetings which left him an indelible print, Hugo Pratt discovers little by little his double in one of the protagonists of the Ballade of the salted sea . He sees in this Corto the symbol of his own existence, his glance on the life and the beings and decides to take it again to make the hero of new adventures of them. It will be a decisive turn in its career. It arranges in the Île Saint-Louis, with Paris. In April 1970, in Conk n° 58, there is a gadget which is essential: a Poisson of April. There is especially the Maltese sailor who saw his own adventures in a first episode: the secrecy of Tristan Bantam . Thus, twenties and one others will follow one another until in 1973. It is the starting point of the French career of Pratt. However the young readers all are not enthusiastic. As for the direction, she considers the ideas of the character too libertarian to her taste. Pratt leaves Pif and leaves once again to Ethiopia.
Each day, from July 1973 at January 1974, on a full page, the readers of the daily newspaper France Soir can follow the very first adventure of the Maltese sailor: the Ballade of the salted sea . Phoenix, review international of the cartoon , publishes in her turn, from June to August 1974, the Ballade on the salted sea (sic). Louis-Robert Casterman, the editor of Hergé, diffuses the history, in the form of album, in the bookstores in 1975. Hugo Pratt is now very known in the medium. After presentbeing presented to the editions Lombard, the first episodes of the Scorpions of the desert leave in the pages the magazine Tintin as from February 1973.
Recognition
In front of the success gained in France, many European countries claim it. The Belgian edition of Tintin begins again, of 1974 with 1977, the adventures of Corto published in Pif Gadget . Italy is not remains about it and Pratt proposes for the magazine Linus : Corto Maltese sconta detta arcana ( Corto Maltese in Siberia ) in 1974 (Later, it will be Favola di Venezia ( Fable of Venice ) in 1977 and Put It Dorata di Samarkand ( the gilded house of Samarkand ) in 1980.) It flies away for the Canada in 1976, to give conferences on the history of the Indians of America and to make incidentally the actor in the film the Night of the high tide ( High Tide Night ).It is with the turn of the periodical Pilote to call upon Pratt in 1977, to publish Macumba of Gringo . In February 1978, Casterman creates (TO BE FOLLOWED) , a new weekly magazine where Pratt finds its public because the success of Corto is immediate. Fort Wheeling appears in the review, Métal howling in 1980. Pratt tells then the Youth of Corto in the daily newspaper the Morning of Paris of May 1981 at January 1982. In 1983, it leaves to make a tour in Ireland and in the USA.
1984, Hugo Pratt settles with Grandvaux in Suisse and the year according to, it supervises the exit of a more ambitious weekly magazine in its contents: Corto . His/her mother dies one years later. It does not cease traversing the world - turns over to Africa, with Djibouti. Fact one transfered in South America: they is initially the meeting again with Argentina. Follow the Chile and the Easter Island, the Peru, the Mexico, the Guatemala finally the Honduras. The Italian magazine Corto Maltese publishes Elvetiche ( Swiss the ) in 1987 and Mu the città perduta ( Mû ), in 1988. Already present as a scenario writer on the album of Milo Manara, an Indian Summer , eight years earlier, it collaborates again with him in 1991, for El Gaucho . In June and July 1992, it offers a one month tour in the Pacific: the Easter Island again, that of New Guinea, the Islands Cook and of Samoa - tallies of the first adventures of its paper double, but also the French Polynésie (Tahiti and Tetiaroa) In 1995 the review (TO BE FOLLOWED) publishes In a remote sky . A new album leaves shortly after; he reports the last moments of Saint-Exupéry: the Last flight - premonitory title? Hugo Pratt is sick since long months already. He puts the last hand at a new work: Morgan . It will be its last. In summer, a cancer carries it one Sunday afternoon.
Work in drawn accounts
- “I draw my writing and I write my drawings. ”
Warning: La date of the first French edition is followed of that of the change of couverture.
Series Corto Maltese
To follow the bond to consult the detailed bibliography of the 29 adventures of the Maltese sailor, spread out 1904 with 1925.
Series Strong Wheeling
1774, in Wheeling Creek, on the edges of the Ohio river. Criss Kenton is 17 years old. Its family was massacred by the Indians. Engaged in a battalion which launches forwardings against Indian tribes, it becomes acquainted with a young aristocrat, Patrick Fitzgerald, wire of English immigrants. The War of Independence against England bursts and the two friends line up in different camps.- Strong Wheeling . Volume 1
- Strong Wheeling . Volume 2
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Wheeling. The Path of the lost friendships
Series Scorpions of the desert
To follow the bond to consult the detailed bibliography of this series created by Hugo Pratt and continued by Pierre Wazem.
Series Ernie Pike
To follow the bond to consult the detailed bibliography of the accounts this to defer Second world war.
Series sergeant Kirk
Scénarisé by Héctor Oesterheld. Kirk is a soldier of the American cavalry which, revolted by the massacre of the Indians, lines up at their side after having deserted.-
Sergeant Kirk
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Sergeant Kirk . Volumes 1 to 5
Series the Shade
Scénarisé by Alberto Ongaro. It is a dispenser of justice masked with the double personality accompanied by its panther Lorna and of his friend Wu, it fights against the organized crime. What is hardly appreciated police force. Its principal enemy is “the General” also called “the Admiral” or “the Supreme one”.-
toys of the general
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the Shade
Other heroes:
- flexible Sven
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the Man of the Caribbean
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Macumba of flexible Gringo
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Ass of the Jungle
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Junglemen
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In the west of the flexible Eden
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Captain Cormorant
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Billy James
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Jesuit flexible Joe
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flexible Fanfulla
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the Ace of spade
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Ticonderoga
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Simbad the sailor and other accounts…
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Zulu Cato
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Koinsky tells… two or three things that I know them
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Saint-Exupéry. The Last flight
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In a remote sky
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Morgan
Pratt and Milo Manara
Scenarios of Pratt, drawings of Milo Manara.-
an Indian summer
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El Gaucho
Distinctions
- Price Yellow kid , decreed in 1970 by the international congress of Lucca, for the best world cartoon.
- 1st Phoenix Price of the best cartoon of adventure for Corto Maltese, in Paris, in 1971.
- Price Saint-Michel of the best realistic scenario for Scorpions of the desert , with Brussels, in 1974.
- Price of foreign realistic work for the Ballade of the salted sea , with the 3rd Festival of Angouleme 1976.
- Alfred of the best foreign album for an Indian summer , with the 14th Festival of Angouleme 1987.
- Special Grand Prix 15th birthday, with the Festival of Angouleme 1988
- national Grand Prix of the Graphic arts, given to Paris by the Minister for the Culture, Jack Lang, in 1988.
Catalog of films
The actor
Role of Pierre, with Anthony Steel.- 1977, Blue Nude , of Luigi Scattini, Italy.
- 1978, Quando it will era to him… caro lei! of Giancarlo Santi, Italy.
- 1986, Bad blood , of Leos Carax, France.
- 1992, Nero , of Giancarlo Soldi, Italy.
Adaptation of data base
cinema
- 1990, Jesuit Joe , realized by Olivier Austen, scenario and dialog of Hugo Pratt, Ron Bases and Olivier Austen. France the United States.
- 2002, Corto Maltese, “secret Court of the mysteries” .
Television
Four means-measurings, diffused on Canal+ in 2003, carried out by Richard Danto and Liam Saury according to the albums,-
2002, the Ballade of the salted sea . Scenario of Jean Pecheux.
- 2002, Under the sign of the Capricorn . Scenario of Jean Pecheux.
- 2002, Celtic the . Scenario deGiorgia Cecere and Jean Pecheux.
- 2002, the gilded House of Samarkand . Scenario of Henri Colomer.
Anecdotes
- the movie actor Boris Karloff, was called William Pratt and Hugo often asserted it as being a relative.
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Hugo Pratt is one of the main characters of the novel of Alberto Ongaro, a life of adventures ( a romanzo of will avventura ), Denoël, 1973.
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Pratt had signed the poster of the first edition of the International festival of the cartoon of Angouleme, inaugurated the January 25th 1974. The drawing was extracted from the “ Secret of Tristan Bantam ”.
- In 1978, the review (TO BE FOLLOWED) , publishes the first episodes of Giuseppe Bergman, character created by the draftsman and scenario writer Milo Manara who associates H P to him, a Master of adventure, in the person of Hugo Pratt.
- Hugo Pratt is also present in an adventure of Scarlett Dream , Ombres on Venice of Claude Moliterni and R. Gigi, Collection Adventures, Dargaud, 1982.
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Hugo Pratt drew the small pockets of discs of the singer Lio, for the album, Can Edge , in 1988, of the singer, Paolo Conte, for the album, Parole of amore scritte has macchina , in 1990, of the Esquina Trio, for the tangos of Corto , in 1998 and of the original soundtrack of film, Jesuit Joe , carried out by Olivier Austen, in 1991.
- Taken again its drawings for other discs:
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Hugo Pratt illustrated the cover of sixteen novels of Henry de Monfreid in the collection “Readings and Adventures”, Grasset, 1994/1995.
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