Posts
Lucky Lucchese Memories
by Rick Marschall
“Have
you lived here all your life?” “Not yet,” is the answer packing the most
optimism.
“Yesterday’s
Papers” and “A Crowded Life” are dots I intentionally connect here. I have sort
of chosen to live in the past, as a trained historian and collector of vintage
and nostalgic pieces of days agone; and as someone who sometimes forgets what
I’m supposed to do tomorrow.
A
couple of artifacts have bubbled to the surface as I try yet again to sort my
collection, currently seven storage units and every room of the house, sigh. It
was fun to find some materials from my first Lucca Comics Salon in Italy. Lucca
was the world’s prototypic comics festival. Its first year was in Bordighera;
Angouleme in France grew larger, as did San Diego; and it split for awhile,
like an amoeba, with a rival event in Rome. But Lucca is Lucca.
It is a
small city or large Medieval village, a commune inside a complete ancient wall,
in Tuscany, close to Florence, Pisa, and Heaven. I keep threatening, here, to
tell more of Lucca, and I will – but Where to start? how to organize my tales?
The first year I attended was 1978, and it already was the 13th “salon.” I
attended thereafter in unbroken succession, usually as guest, juror, speaker,
or exhibitor, or all of those, as well as American representative, for many
years.
The
festivals were like family reunions, only seeing the world’s great historians
and critics who gathered there; and, eventually, where I met the world’s
greatest cartoonists. Many of the great friendships and “connections” I have
today were forged at Lucca, so you can understand my affection.
It all
seems like yesterday, but these materials from my “first date,” 1978, are more
than half my life ago. Our mind’s memories are merciful, however, when the ancient
past can seem fresh.
I will
quickly share some incidents. I attended in 1978 partly as an emissary of
Marvel Comics, where I was an Editor involved in the creation of what became EPIC
Magazine. I convinced Stan Lee that I could scout European talent there,
and indeed I made contacts with cartoonists who appeared in the magazine.
One was
a Bosnian cartoonist living in Zagreb, Croatia, named Mirko Ilić. His work blew me away – detailed, a great
sense of design, and a unique manner of depicting unfolding narratives.
Evocations of darkness and doom and, in lighter moments, irony. His work appeared in the first issue of EPIC; and soon Mirko himself was
appearing the United States.
Mirko
became Art Director of TIME International, and of the op-ed pages of The New
York Times. He opened a studio and has become a major figure in American
art, design, and graphics. He has specialized in designing visual “identities”
and motifs for major hotels and restaurants; collaborated with Milton Glaser on
the title sequence for the movie You’ve Got Mail; and has co-authored
books on design with the great Steven Heller. After I left the Illustration
Department and moved to California, Mirko became a Professor in its Masters
program; I wish we had overlapped.
The
sketch he drew for me displayed his thematic preoccupation, at least of
emotional content and style. The strip was a typical page of his that showcased
his ironic outlook on life. It is from the exhibition and catalog of his work
at Lucca. The other cartoonist so showcased was his fellow Yugoslav (this was
pre-“Fall”) Ivica Bednjanec.
The
late Ivica, sadly little known in the West, surely was Croatia’s most prolific
and beloved cartoonist. He created many characters and series for children and
adults; in comic and semi-serious styles; and wrote his own works. In a sketch
he caricatured me as a marshal (not surprisingly), rudely treating his popular character of the time, Gentle the convict.
Speaking
of caricatures, I met up at that Lucca with an (already) old friend, Peter
Maresca. This was long before Peter became a lord of Silicon Valley and
publisher of the great Sunday Press line of reprint books. But he was into
collecting and curating vintage Sunday comic pages. His sales of these sheets each
year paid for his travel and seeded a generation of Europeans’ appreciation of
classic American strips.
As at
book fairs like Frankfurt and Bologna, most of the business and all of the
fraternizing at Lucca happened at grand three-hour meals; and far into the
night at the bars and lounges of hotels (I had meals in America; I learned to
dine in Italy and France). Will Eisner used to say that he and I saw each other
more often in Europe, at such venues, than in America; and so it was with
Peter. In my haze one night I drew a caricature of Peter enjoying a grappa
or amaro. To prove I am an equal-opportunity mangler of likenesses, I
also show a self-caricature from the same sketchbook page. Also, here, a photo
at Peter’s table with Michel LaBelle and Eric Leguebe of Paris; Maurice Horn;
myself; and Peter. I think 1980; Peter clean-shaven.
Yes,
more than half a lifetime ago. After a stretch where I produced some reprint
books (Little Nemo, Krazy Kat, Polly and Her Pals; and titles like Popeye,
Little Orphan Annie, and Red Barry for Fantagraphics) Peter
eventually went pro with his Sunday Press reprint volumes. Major works like the
brand-new Milt Gross volume, and obscure gems like White Boy and The
Upside-Downs have received their due. Splendid work. I don’t know about
anyone else, but I refer to books of the SP dimensions, and I have done a
couple myself, as “Maresca Format.”
It is a
famous aphorism that “Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton,” where
generals contended as youths. It might be said that much of comics scholarship
and reprints was hatched in the commune of Lucca – or, to risk a pun – in the
lounges of Lucca and the eatin’ spots too.
– 30 –
109
