Franco Bignotti was born in 1930 in the province of Brescia. Later on, he moved to Milan, where he started out as an advertising illustrator. Afterwards, he worked as an illustrator of fairytale books, as well as schoolbooks. His first comics work was 'Il Piccolo Centauro', a series published from 1951 by Gioventù. The series was written by Dalmasso, with whom Bignotti also created stories for El Bravo in 1953.