Giuseppe Bergman is an Italian comics series by Milo Manara, which was first published in 1978. It stars a

Candide ( , ) is a French satire written by Voltaire, a philosopher of the Age of Enlightenment, first published in 1759. The novella has been widely translated, with English versions titled ''Candide: or, All for the Best'' (1759); ''Candide: or, The ...

-like anti-hero who appeared in four graphic novels which are an ironic

deconstruction The term deconstruction refers to approaches to understanding the relationship between text and meaning. It was introduced by the philosopher Jacques Derrida, who defined it as a turn away from Platonism's ideas of "true" forms and essences w ...

of adventure stories and comic books as a medium.

History

The first adventure, later collected for publication as ''HP et Giuseppe Bergman'' (''The Great Adventure'' in Catalan's English translation), was originally serialized in the Franco-Belgian comics magazine '' À Suivre'' beginning in 1978. Giuseppe Bergman appears as a dissatisfied 20-something longing for adventure. Seeking it, he responds to the advertisement of a mysterious company which sends him to HP, "the adventure master”: a caricature of and homage to famed Italian cartoonist Hugo Pratt. Bergman finds himself confronted by hoodlums, rioters, white slavers, drug addicts, revolutionaries, and natives, but his adventures are bumbling disasters as he is consistently unprepared for the situations he encounters. In later adventures, collected in the graphic novels ''An Author in Search of Six Characters'', ''Dies Irae'', ''Perchance to Dream'', and ''To See the Stars'', Bergman's frustrating adventures take him through Africa, India, and the world of European art. Themes of art and illusion, fantasy and frustration, responsibility and human nature run through the stories. ''Bergman's Odyssey'' published by Manara in Italian in 2004, was translated into English, and included in The Manara Library Volume 5 Further Adventures of Giuseppe Bergman in 2013.

Sources

1978 graphic novels 1978 comics debuts Italian graphic novels Adventure comics Satirical comics Metafictional comics Italian comics titles Bergman, Giuseppe Bergman, Giuseppe Bergman, Giuseppe {{Italy-comics-stub