Big Sleeping is an Italian noir-humorous comic series created by Daniele Panebarco.

History and profile

Inspired by

Raymond Chandler Raymond Thornton Chandler (July 23, 1888 – March 26, 1959) was an American-British novelist and screenwriter. In 1932, at the age of forty-four, Chandler became a detective fiction writer after losing his job as an oil company executive durin ...

's novels, the main character of the series is a private detective loosely based on

Philip Marlowe Philip Marlowe () is a fictional character created by Raymond Chandler, who was characteristic of the hardboiled crime fiction genre. The hardboiled crime fiction genre originated in the 1920s, notably in ''Black Mask'' magazine, in which Dashiel ...

. The series featured typical noir and

hard-boiled Hardboiled (or hard-boiled) fiction is a literary genre that shares some of its characters and settings with crime fiction (especially detective fiction and noir fiction). The genre's typical protagonist is a detective who battles the violence o ...

elements mixed with surreal and humorous plots, such as the research of Godot, or the thief of the Christmas Star.Gianni Bono. "Big Sleeping". ''Guida al fumetto italiano''. Epierre, 2003. The series debuted in the magazine '' Il Mago'', and was later published in a large number of other publications including ''

linus Linus, a male given name, is the Latin form of the Greek name ''Linos''. It's a common given name in Sweden. The origin of the name is unknown although the name appears in antiquity both as a musician who taught Apollo and as a son of Apollo who di ...

'', ''

Orient Express The ''Orient Express'' was a long-distance passenger train service created in 1883 by the Belgian company ''Compagnie Internationale des Wagons-Lits'' (CIWL) that operated until 2009. The train traveled the length of continental Europe and int ...

'', ''Comic Art'' and ''

L'espresso ''L'Espresso'' () is an Italian weekly news magazine. It is one of the two most prominent Italian weeklies; the other is ''Panorama''. Since 2022 it has been published by BFC Media. History and profile One of Italy's foremost newsmagazines, ''l ...

''. Big Sleeping was also featured in several graphic novels, the first of them being ''Il Falcone Sardese'' (

Longanesi Longanesi, also known as Longanesi & C., is a publishing house based in Milan, Italy. It was founded in 1946 by Leo Longanesi and industrialist Giovanni Monti.Nanni Delbecchi (13 May 2016). "Longanesi fa settanta. Il 'Dottor Naso' aveva fiuto". ' ...

, 1977), which featured the killing of

Italian Communist Party The Italian Communist Party ( it, Partito Comunista Italiano, PCI) was a communist political party in Italy. The PCI was founded as ''Communist Party of Italy'' on 21 January 1921 in Livorno by seceding from the Italian Socialist Party (PSI). ...

secretary

Enrico Berlinguer Enrico Berlinguer (; 25 May 1922 – 11 June 1984) was an Italian politician, considered the most popular leader of the Italian Communist Party (PCI), which he led as the national secretary from 1972 until his death during a tense period in Ital ...

and his replacement with a double appointed to kill the American president

Jimmy Carter James Earl Carter Jr. (born October 1, 1924) is an American politician who served as the 39th president of the United States from 1977 to 1981. A member of the Democratic Party (United States), Democratic Party, he previously served as th ...

during a public event.Gianni Bono. "Big Sleeping". ''Guida al fumetto italiano''. Epierre, 2003. The appearance of the main character and the graphic rendering of the comics significantly evolved over the course of publications, from an early roundish and "boterian" style to a more stretched and realistic drawing.

References

Italian comics titles 1976 comics debuts {{comics-stub