Birago Balzano (5 January 1936 – 25 March 2022) was a leading Italian

cartoonist A cartoonist is a visual artist who specializes in both drawing and writing cartoons (individual images) or comics (sequential images). Cartoonists differ from comics writers or comic book illustrators in that they produce both the literary and ...

who was the designer and illustrator of the adult horror character Zora.

Biography

Born in

Trinitapoli Trinitapoli is a town and ''comune'' in the province of Barletta-Andria-Trani in the Apulia region of southeast Italy. A few kilometres from the town are the ruins of Salapia (later called Salpia and Salpi), which was already a bishopric by 314, ...

, in the southern region of

Apulia it, Pugliese , population_note = , population_blank1_title = , population_blank1 = , demographics_type1 = , demographics1_footnotes = , demographics1_title1 = , demographics1_info1 = , demographic ...

Italy Italy ( it, Italia ), officially the Italian Republic, ) or the Republic of Italy, is a country in Southern Europe. It is located in the middle of the Mediterranean Sea, and its territory largely coincides with the homonymous geographical re ...

, when Balzano was a teenager he moved to

Milan Milan ( , , Lombard: ; it, Milano ) is a city in northern Italy, capital of Lombardy, and the second-most populous city proper in Italy after Rome. The city proper has a population of about 1.4 million, while its metropolitan city h ...

, where he attended the

Brera Academy The Accademia di Belle Arti di Brera ("academy of fine arts of Brera"), also known as the or Brera Academy, is a state-run tertiary public academy of fine arts in Milan, Italy. It shares its history, and its main building, with the Pinacoteca di ...

and then the Cimabue Art Institute; he debuted as a cartoonist in 1964, drawing the last five albums of the western series ''Capitan Audax'' published by Editoriale Corno together with Sergio Montipò, with whom he will also produce ''Cap Il Fumetto Capellone'', comic series published by ErreGI since 1966 to 1967. Since 1972 he collaborates with

Edifumetto Edifumetto was an Italian publishing house of comics, founded by Renzo Barbieri. It was started in 1972 and folded in 1993. The majority of their publications were digest- or pocket-sized adult comics known in Italy as '' fumetti''. Popularity peak ...

realizing the adult series ''Zora'', about a female vampire, written by Giuseppe Pederiali and of which he will be the main draftsman of the entire series published until 1985. In the sixties he made stories of the western series '' Capitan Miki'' published by Editoriale Dardo e ''

Piccolo Ranger ''Il Piccolo Ranger'' (i.e. "The Little Ranger") is an Italian comic book series centered on Kit Teller, a character created in 1958 by writer Andrea Lavezzolo in tandem with illustrator Francesco Gamba and later developed by numerous authors; ...

'' and '' Un ragazzo nel Far West'' published by Edizioni Audace.

References

1936 births 2022 deaths BioArtists Italian comics artists People from Apulia Brera Academy alumni Artists from Milan {{Italy-cartoonist-stub