Part of me understands why Nanni’s variegated body of work isn’t a stable part of the general culture: his is a difficult voice to grasp, an author so unique in sensibility and formal exploration that it's hard to even compare him with what came before, or what will follow. And among them, I feel the most prominent example-the most infuriating, given the disparity between talent and recognition-is Giacomo Nanni. I’m not even talking about international notoriety, which for so many reasons can be hard to obtain I’m thinking most plainly about homeland success - or, in the worst cases, simple recognition.Īpart from the big superstars such as Gipi, Zerocalcare, and, to a certain degree, Manuele Fior, and apart from the artists working in the superhero industry, such as Sara Pichelli or Simone Bianchi (again, just to name a few), many of the comic book masters of our time remain borderline unknown, both in Italy and abroad. But despite this-and despite Italy's long tradition of graphic narratives, with seminal authors like Hugo Pratt, Andrea Pazienza, Grazia Nidasio, Magnus and Gianni De Luca, just to name a few-it’s somehow striking to me that a lot of the protagonists that made possible and still keep alive this “golden age” go unnoticed. It’s quite the time to be a comic book reader, let me tell you: never before have we had so many books, so many authors published, so much biblio-diversity, and, in more general terms, so much cultural recognition.

Guiding this small surge in popularity is the success of the graphic novel format, which plunged comics into what seems a new golden age, reducing decades of stigma and superstition to relics of a past ever more easily forgotten. Data, as approximated and biased as it usually is, shows us quite clearly a systematic rise in sales and readership traditional print and the mass media dedicate more and more attention to the medium, while new publishers seem to ceaselessly enter the scene. There is an ever-growing interest for comics in Italy.

Cronachette by Giacomo Nanni