Pratt, Hugo - Strip original - Corto Maltese - La Jeunesse de Corto - (1981)

No doubt, all collectors of original illustrations would be very proud to highlight in their library a ‘Strip’ or an ‘Original Plate’ of this remarkable album designed by Hugo Pratt in 1981: ‘La Jeunesse de Corto Maltese’.

As the original illustrations of this album are rare on the market, very few collectors realized that these strips are quite large, for which each panel measures 15 x 15 cm, and therefore more than 45 cm x15 cm for a whole strip, which makes the framings very spectacular and appropriate for modern interiors.

This album titled ‘La Jeunesse de Corto Maltese’ is very famous in Italy and in the French-speaking countries for the following reasons:

- Pre-publication by individual strips in 1982 in Italy (magazine L’internauta: The Gionivezza) and in France (Le Matin de Paris) in 1981 and 1982 (A Suivre, Casterman).

- Many publications in albums and reissues in black and white + colour, for which illustrations found on the Internet are presented as documentation in this lot.

- Exceptional encounter between Corto Maltese, Rasputin and Jack London to make a mythical trio in the history of the European comics, only in this album.

This strip is very evocative of this famous first war between Russia and Japan from 1904 to 1905 and, especially of this ambivalent atmosphere of end of war which starts from the first plate of this story, with Raspoutine killing a Japanese soldier while the end of the war is announced, and will serve as a framework of the whole story...

Hugo Pratt had the intelligence to mix fictional characters, such as Corto Maltese,.... with other characters more rooted in reality, like Jack London, the American... and the Russian Rasputin.

Moreover, in this quite remarkable Strip, Hugo Pratt makes us understand the almost sacred nature of honour in the ancient Japanese army...and the pride that came with it:

... "Unless you recognize that a Japanese is "morally" superior to any American... »...

"What bullshit..." replied Jack London immediately...

That says it all...

The duel will indeed take place...

"I leave it to the lieutenant to decide the place and the day of the duel... »

What more is needed to enhance a beautiful collection of original drawings, except this masterpiece by Hugo Pratt...

Hugo Pratt's great art for this strip primarily intended for an individual publication.... like the great stories published in the daily newspapers....

Strip of large format presented for sale by "Catalogue Scriptura", original texts in Italian with original writing by Pratt in pencil, not entirely erased, which is a "little miracle", while this strip has appeared several times in French in different books, including colour editions ...

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