Omschrijving
Milo Manara’s famously inept adventurer returns in
two engagingly absurdist adventures that absolutely
attest to the existence of free will — or do they?
Is life a stage, and do we just follow a script? Can we rewrite our
roles, or must we play along according to the instructions of others?
The two stories in this volume, An Author in Search of Six Characters
and Days of Wrath, take place in Africa, which artist Milo Manara
views as the bearer of insight and hope for the rest of the world.
Turning Pirandello’s “Six Characters in Search of an Author” on
its head, Manara sets our favorite inept, globe-trotting hero-naif,
Giuseppe Bergman (Manara’s comics alter ego), off on another
quest for adventure. An off-panel director hands out scripts and
then disappears. (Are we watching a play or are we in it?) Dedicated to playing his role, Giuseppe is confused when others assert
themselves and send the entire scenario spinning out of control.
His sexy co-star, Lulu, cast as a bimbo, rewrites herself as the hero,
leading us to ponder deeper matters, such as whether we possess
true free will or we just think we do. (But watch out! Just when you
think the answer is in sight, Manara flips the script once again.)
Bergman’s second adventure begins with Chloe, a winsome
nymphet who asks many questions — about the facts of life (and
the fictions, too). Manara allows his characters to break the “fourth
wall” as Chloe beckons us into an erotic, exotic Fellini-esque
romp revolving around young Giuseppe’s determination to return
a kidnapped child to her tribe. His real motive? To break free and
become the hero of his own story, rather than remain the hapless
plaything of an omniscient narrator. Part tongue in cheek, part
philosophical exploration, Manara lets Chloe wink in and out like
a mischievous Tinker Bell, pushing events forward only to then
pull them back — as Bergman struggles to make sense of it all and
become the hero he needs to be.