Milo Manara: Between comics, literature and film

The exhibition of Milo Manara, one of the world's greatest comic authors, is the highlight of the rich program of the Book Fair in Istria, which will be opened in the presence of the author himself.

The impressive exhibition of the Italian curator, Paula Bristot, brings different aspects of Milo Manara's artistic personality and presents his connections with the worlds of film, literature, comics and visual arts in general.

The exhibition between comics, literature and film is divided into three main segments that highlight the author’s distinctive artistic graphic style. The first part of the exhibition presents Manara's connection with literature, that is, with Umberto Eco through the original black and white panels from the first volume of his book, Il nome della rosa (The Name of the Rose, 2023), which accompany Manara's colour reproductions.

The second segment of the exhibition presents Manara's collaboration with the famous director, Federico Fellini and "his deep connection with the film, which is manifested in the actors' statements and in Fellini's direct shaping of the storyboards for the stories in the comics Il viaggio a Tulum (The Journey to Tulum) and Il viaggio di G. Mastorna, detto Fernet (The Voyage of Mr. Mastorna also known as Fernet).” In these works, the actor Marcello Mastroianni stands out as the main character and as Fellini's alter ego in these oneiric and psychedelic stories.

The third part of the exhibition presents exceptionally faithful reproductions of the works of Michelangelo Merisi, known as Caravaggio, in the reconstruction of the painter's turbulent life. These works, as the critic points out, are particularly convincing and amaze with the attention and fidelity with which the historical details and spaces of the then decadent Rome are presented.