From: [o--ub--n] at [hec.unil.ch] (OLIVIER TOUBLAN)
Newsgroups: rec.arts.comics.alternative
Subject: HUGO PRATT IS DEAD
Date: Mon, 21 Aug 1995 10:34:42 LOCAL

I learned it yesterday night : the famous an renowned Hugo Pratt, the father 
of Corto Maltese, is dead, after a long illness, in Switzerland, a the bottom 
of the Lake Leman (Lake of Geneva).He was 68.


 I had an interview with him, just 6 month ago, for 
my fanzine, and he didn't seem so ill, just aged and a bit tired, reading a 
paper on the italian army in Africa in the 30's, in a huge encyclopedia, 
while talking with me. I remembre,  I was a bit afraid to 
mette someone of his fame (and he had a very bad reputation in the fanzine 
world), but, as it happenend some times, he was very kiInd, and accepted to 
pass a whole day with me, at his incredible home (or his library should I say, 
because all the walla were covered by books, more than 30'000, he told me), to 
speak about comics, about life, about the adventure of Corto, and about his 
adventures, perhaps more incredible than the ones of his paper 
heroes (or perhaps just the sames).We told about the way he was seeing the 
comics storytelling, about an adventure of Corto, following some short stories 
of Somerset Maugham he wanted to draw, about the critics (taht he was really 
disliking), about the fans. He told me that in the mid 60's Stan Lee invited 
him to work for the Marvel Comics (he was living in America at this time), and 
so on.  
I'm very sad, for the comics industry has just lost one of his most 
proheminent author and for I could never met him again. He was a greart human 
being.

I don't know if he is also famous in the States, but believe me, here, in 
Europe, he was like a god : I don't have TV, but at the 
radio, it was the main issue of the 22.00 news : he was really famous and 
everybody know Corto maltese, his most famous creation).

And just say that his "Ballada del Mare Salata" is one of the 10 
comics/graphic Novel/album, I'll bring with me on a desert Island

So, you could, like always, say that he is not really dead, for his works will 
survive him, but ....


Olivier T