1981 - La Jeunesse de Corto Maltese

The 9th Corto Maltese album. Hugo Pratt ended this long-planned story prematurely when he fell out with the management of the daily newspaper "Le Matin de Paris", which pre-published the comic. He never completed it.
Prepublished in black and white in the daily newspaper Le Matin de Paris, from August 5, 1981 to January 1, 1982.
Prepublished under the titel „La giovinezza“, in color, in the magazine L’Eternauta, from no. 1 to no. 9, in 1982.
Published 1983 under the titel „La Jeunesse 1904-1905“ at Casterman.

My start of collecting original comic art was a visit of a Hugo Pratt exhibition in Venice, which I saw while walking around in this beautiful city. I was immediately flashed back to my youth (end 70s-begin 80s), when I was reading Corto Maltese comics and when I was fascinated by the poetry of the stories and the elegant design of the strips.
When I saw the exhibition, I noticed that Pratt's original art was even more beautiful then I remembered and that you actually could collect the original art.
So, when coming back to Germany I worked my way to build up a modest collection of original comic art from all over the world, most of it connected to stories I read in the past, some beautiful new art from new artists that I love. But strangely no Corto Maltese. I want to change this now after ten years of collecting.

This beautiful strip is the first art of a Corto Maltese album in my collection - not with Corto Maltese himself but beautiful, poetic and stylistically unique.

The action of the album takes place around 1905; according to Corto's biography, he is just 18 years old. He is with war correspondents Jack London and his friend Dave in China, where the Russo-Japanese War is in its final stages. At the same time, the Russian soldier Rasputin has to flee China because he is wanted for several murders.

Corto Maltese promises his friend Jack London to take the Russian with him on his way to Africa, not knowing that this is the beginning of a deep love-hate relationship with Rasputin.

Hugo Pratt skillfully mixed fictional characters and real persons in this album. It is only in this adventure where Corto Maltese and the author Jack London cross paths. It is the latter that appears in this strip, which fully focusses on its subject and presents it in a very cinematic and intimate way. I especially love the center panel and the movement within the panels!