Tiziano Sclavi

Tiziano Sclavi (born 3 April 1953 in Broni) is an Italian comic book author, journalist and writer of several novels. Sclavi is most famous as creator of the comic book ''Dylan Dog'' in 1986, for Italian publishing house Sergio Bonelli Editore. More than 300 issues have appeared in the series, which has sold millions of copies. It has been in collaboration with several artists, including Claudio Villa, Corrado Roi, Gustavo Trigo, Carlo Ambrosini, Luigi Piccatto, Angelo Stano, Mike Mignola, Andrea Venturi, Giampiero Casertano and Bruno Brindisi.

Biography

Tiziano Sclavi was born in Broni (Pavia) on 3 April 1953, his mother was a teacher and his father was a communal secretary. He had lived his childhood and first youth in the Province of Pavia, mainly in Stradella, Canneto Pavese and Certosa di Pavia. Due to the job of the father, Sclavi had moved from a town to another:

Sclavi has been a passionate reader since childhood: he claims he read the entire production of Edgar Allan Poe when he was between six and seven years old, and he has liked scary stories since his childhood, developing a passion of horror and science fiction films.

He started to write when he was still too young pushed by the desire to imitate what he enjoyed. He declared:

At middle school, he won a writing competition with a series entitled ''Storie Storte'' ("Crooked Stories"). Then, he attended the liceo classico of Pavia, when he published a story entitled ''Lettere bianche'' ("White Letters") on a school journal with the help of his Italian literature professor who believed into the ability and creativity of Sclavi.

Seventies

After high school, Sclavi attended university at the faculty of modern literature, but dropped out after a few exams. Later, he had moved to Milan.

In 1971, thanks to the interest of Grazia Nidasio who presented him to Mino Milani, Sclavi began to collaborate with the '' Messaggero dei Ragazzi'', where he wrote articles and stories often under the pseudonym "Francesco Argento", in honour to Francesco Guccini and Dario Argento, who both would be his colleagues at ''Corriere dei Piccoli''.

In 1972, Sclavi met Raffaele Crovi, who would be initially his literary agent and then editor of his novels and stories. In 1973, Sclavi issued a series of crime stories on ''Il Corriere dei Ragazzi'' under the pseudonym of Francesco Argento. The stories he wrote for ''Corriere dei Piccoli'' were collected in the volume ''I misteri di Mystère'' ("Mystère's Mysteries") by Editore Bietti in 1974 (then published by Arnoldo Mondadori Editore). These stories are focused on the character of Jacques Mystère, whose name inspired the creation of Martin Mystère by Alfredo Castelli in 1982.

In 1974, Sclavi published his first short novel, ''Film'', where he tries to unite the horror splatter and the grotesque. It was issued by '' Il Formichiere'' and it won the 1974 Scanno Prize for storytelling. However, Film seems to be a work "which can not be easily collocated in a genre or a novel movement, and it is even ..difficult to limit it in the category itself of the novel". In the same year, he joined the redaction of ''Corriere dei Ragazzi'' as editor of the column ''Sottosopra'' and here he met Alfredo Castelli, with whom he collaborated as Ghost Writer for the comic series ''Gli Aristocratici'' ("The Aristocrats"), writing the screenplay of some episodes and later creating his own characters like Altai & Jonson drawn by Giorgio Cavazzano. In the preface of the 2001 new edition of the first series of Sclavi, Castelli writes:

At the same time, he worked at the national broadcaster RAI thanks to the mediation of Crovi and, together with Bianca Pitzorno, he wrote texts of the show '' Gioco-città''. He collaborated with other newspapers belonging to the ''Corriere della sera'' group and with the journal ''Amica'' (where he edited a humour column) and with ''Salve'' (where he wrote as film critic).

As Francesco Argento, Sclavi published in 1975 a crime novel entitled ''Un sogno di sangue'' ("A dream of blood"). During the same period, he wrote also ''Tre'' ("Three") and '' Mostri'' ("Monsters"), published ten years later despite Natalia Ginzburg had already noticed him to the Giulio Einaudi Editore.

In 1976, he began his professional career as journalist.

When ''Corriere dei Ragazzi'' was closed in 1977, Sclavi began to collaborate with ''Il Corriere dei Piccoli'', writing comic series like ''Allister'', ''Miki'', ''Fantòm'' alongside ''Sam Peck'', ''Johnny Bassotto'' ("Dachshund Johnny"), ''Il Cavallino Michele'' ("Michele the Little Horse"), ''La guerra nell'aria'' ("The War in the Air") and ''Le pagine della Befana'' ("Befana's pages"). He published on '' Messaggero dei Ragazzi'' the western series ''Silas Finn'', drawn by Cavazzano, which would be later issued also in West Germany; he published ''Devoluzione'' ("De-evolution") for ''Alter'' and he wrote ''Steve Vandam'' for the RAI programme '' SuperGulp!''. In 1978, Sclavi published the first version of '' Apocalisse'', formerly entitled ''Guerre terrestri'' ("Terrestrial Wars"), issued by Rusconi.

Eighties

When ''Corriere della Sera'' was acquired by Rizzoli Editore, Sclavi proposed himself to Bonelli as editor and he was hired in 1981 as proofreader and writer of series like '' Zagor'', '' Mister No'' and '' Ken Parker'', creating also his own characters. Among his first works, he had written screenplays for ''Ken Parker'' (the issue #35 ''Il sentiero dei giganti'' and #41 ''Alcune signore di piccola virtù'', both based on scripts by Giancarlo Berardi) and then Sclavi had replaced Guido Nolitta for ''Zagor''. The positive response of first issues of Sclavi convinced the publishing house to give him the role of screenwriter for the important issue #200 of the series, becoming then its editor and writing its stories until 1988. Sclavi returned to write for ''Zagor'' on the 1990 special spin-off dedicated to Cico, the Mexican sidekick of Zagor, entitled ''Horror Cico''. Since 1982, he had written also screenplays for ''Mister No'', with a little contamination of the horror genre.

In 1984 Bonelli proposed to him the direction of Bonelli-Dargaud (a joint-venutre between Bonelli and the French publisher Dargaud). Together with Federico Maggioni as Art Director, he directs the Italian edition of the French comic magazine ''Pilote'' for Bonelli-Dargaud, intended to be published alongside the adult oriented and prestigious ''Orient Express'', acquired by Bonelli in 1984 The Italian ''Pilot'' offered both authorial and traditional comics from Italian and French authors, but it was closed together with ''Orient Express'' in 1985 with the issue #15. Following these flops, Bonelli decided to return to work on traditional comics.

Creating Dylan Dog

The first character created by Sclavi in Bonelli was Kerry Scott of the 1983 series ''Kerry il trapper'' ("Kerry the trapper"), a western comic series with horror influences published as appendix to ''Comandante Mark'' ("Commander Mark") until 1985. According to some critics, Kerry represented a former test for the further creation of Dylan Dog because Sclavi experimented and tried to insert elements taken from the horror genre.
Initially, the story of Dylan Dog was placed in America and inspired to the hard boiled genre, where Dylan was a lonely detective, without a sidekick. It was later propose to place the story in London after a discussion with Bonelli, because in New York there was Martin Mystère already and England seemed to be more ideal for horror due to its ancient traditions. Meanwhile, the figure of Groucho was included in order to avoid a series more focused on investigations. The creation of the character began a year before when Sergio Bonelli, owner of the publishing house, and Decio Canzio, general director, preferred to return to work on traditional comics and eventually to create new ones. Sclavi proposed a horror series, temporarily called ''Dylan Dog''. The protagonist was graphically realized by Claudio Villa who drew him with the appearance of English actor Rupert Everett. Sclavi tells:

The series debuted in October 1986 and Decio Canzio, editor in chief of the series at the time, remembers that:

After a few years, ''Dylan Dog'' became a best seller: the first ''Horror Fest'' convention of horror cinema was organized in 1987 in honour to the success of ''Dylan Dog'', and in 1990 Sclavi won the Yellow Kid prize as best author. In 1990, Sclavi published on ''Comic Art'' a collection of three short stories in colour about Dylan Dog (''L'inquilino del terzo piano'', ''L'appartamento n.13'' and ''L'incubo è finito''), drawn by Corrado Roi, and published a year later in the volume ''Gli Inquilini Arcani.'' In 1991, the issue #69 sold more than ''Tex'', school diaries were made and the first ''Horror Fest'' convention was organized. The novel ''Dellamorte Dellamore'' had a wide success and in 1994 Michele Soavi directed a film based on it (distributed in the USA with the title ''Cemetery Man'') starring Rupert Everett, the actor who inspired the somatic traits of Dylan Dog.

Meanwhile, Sclavi crossed a creative and personal crisis which took him away from the character. The signature of Sclavi appeared less and less until it disappears after the issue #100, ''La storia di Dylan Dog'' ("The History of Dylan Dog"), where Sclavi tried to end the storyline of ''Xabaras''. From this point, stories signed by Sclavi had lost their splatter feature of the first issues and they began to focus more on the surreal and grotesque, with incursions in social and science-fiction themes.

During the eighties and nineties, aside his main activity for Bonelli, he collaborated with other publishing houses: between 1982 and 1984, he wrote ''Agente Allen'' ("Agent Allen") and ''Vita da cani'' ("A Dog's Life") for ''Il Giornalino'', and, from 1987 to 1991, Sclavi published on ''Comic Art'' three stories of the ''Roy Mann'' series drawn by Attilio Micheluzzi and in which he tells the adventures of a comic screenwriter who, due to the explosion of a coffee-pot, is catapulted in a parallel universe. Some characteristics similar to those of Dylan Dog and in some novels of Sclavi can be found in Roy Mann, but with more influences of humour, fantasy and paradoxical elements.

Nineties

In 1993 the book ''Nel buio'' ("In the darkness") was published a collection of ballads in the style of Francesco Guccini, Fabrizio De André and Claudio Lolli: these are not poems as evidenced by Slcavi himself, but compositions born to be set to music. Some of them, ''I miei sette figli'' ("My seven sons") and ''Sotto il segno della volpe'' ("Under the sign of the fox"), have become songs sung by Tiziano Cantatore in the album ''È sparita l'orsa maggiore'' (Eleven, Fonit Cetra, 1978).

Since this moment, he had stopped to write novels until the second half of the nineties, when he published ''Le etichette delle camicie'' (1996) and ''Non è successo niente'' (1998). The publication of ''Dellamorte Dellamore'' in 1991 gave to Sclavi the success as narrator. The novel was created some years before and the original manuscript was lost, but Sclavi reused the main character, Francesco Dellamorte, for a story with Dylan Dog, making him as his alter ego; the novel was then found and published. The character of Dellamorte represented for Sclavi a general test for Dylan Dog because he confronts a horde of zombies along with a grotesque sidekick, Gnaghi, and he builds a scale model as hobby. The success in the nineties led him to re-publish ''Nero'' ("Black"), ''Apocalisse'' ("Apocalipse"), ''Mostri'' ("Monsters") and ''La circolazione del sangue'' ("Blood circulation"), all works written years before which were published due to the success of Scalvi as comic writer. Hencefore, Sclavi began to write novels in 1995. In 1997, the full version of ''Tre'' was published and Natalia Ginzburg, after reading that version, called Sclavi to tell him her appreciation.

In 1998, the novel ''Non è successo niente'' ("Nothing has happened") was published and it has been considered as the last novel by the author, because he had declared that he had nothing more to tell. It is an autobiographical novel where Sclavi tells about himself through three characters: Tiz, successful screenwriter, Tom, a depressed alcoholic in a creative crisis and with suicidal temptations, and Cohan, who represents Sclavi at the time and has reached an equilibrium and an affective serenity, but he has lost his creative vein; other numerous characters around the main ones can be reconducted to colleagues in Bonelli with a representation of life in the redaction. In a 1999 interview for ''Il Mattino'', Sclavi stated that:

Sclavi announced so his will to not write novels also due to the poor result of selling of his last work.

Sclavi wrote also for the publishing house for children ''La Coccinella'' and in 1999 he took part to the realization of the video-game ''Dylan Dog Horror Luna Park.''

New millennium

In the 2000s, Sclavi remained as supervisor of the series of Dylan Dog, leaving the role of screenwriter.

In 2005, Sclavi gave more than 8 000 volumes to the Communal Library of Venegono Superiore, collected and preserved in the ''Fondo Sclavi'' which collects volumes about cinema, music, a wide collection of comics and books about comics, novels of various genres (crime, noir and science-fiction), studies on occultism and paranormal phenomena, photographic volumes and books about graphic.

In 2006, Sclavi wrote a story for a Dylan Dog issue published in 2006 and he published a new novel, ''Il tornado di Valle Scuropasso'' ("The tornado of Scuropasso Valley") for Mondadori.

In 2016 he wrote a story for the issue #362 of ''Dylan Dog'' in occasion of its 30th anniversary, and one other for the issue #375 published in 2017.

CICAP member

Sclavi is a member of CICAP (''Comitato Italiano per il Controllo delle Affermazioni sul Paranormale'', Italian Committee for the Investigation of Claims of the Pseudosciences). In some interviews, he stated that

Films based upon his works

Some works of Sclavi had been transposed to cinema: '' Nero.''(1992), directed by Giancarlo Soldi, '' Dellamorte Dellamore'' (1993), directed by Michele Soavi starring Rupert Everett, and '' Dylan Dog: Dead of Night'' (2011), directed by Kevin Munroe starring Brandon Routh. About ''Dellamorte Dellamore'', Sclavi had stated:

Accolades

* 1974 - Scanno prize for storytelling for ''Film''
* 1987 and 1990 - ANAF Prize as best writer
* 1990 - Yellow Kid as best author (during the Salone Internazionale del Comics of Lucca)
* 1992 - "Giallo dell'Anno" Prize during the ''Festival in Noir'' of Viareggio, for ''Sogni di sangue''
*2006 - Gran Guinigi Prize as best author (during Lucca Comics & Games)

Works

Comics

''Dylan Dog''

* ''Dylan Dog'' issues #1-23, #25-26, #28, #30-33, #40-43, #46, #50-52, #56-57, #59, #61-65, #67, #69, #72, #74-77, #80-81, #83-84, #88, #100, #109, #113, #117, #119-121, #123, #125, #127, #129, #131, #133-134, #136, #138, #140, #143, #145-146, #151, #153, #156, #161, #163, #173, #176, #240, #243-244, #250, #362, #375 (1986-2001, 2006-2007 and 2016-2017)
* ''Dylan Dog Speciale'' issues #1-7 (1987-1993)
* ''Dylan Dog & Martin Mystère'' issues #1-2 (1990 and 1992)
* ''Dylan Dog: Almanacco della paura'' issues #1-4 (1991-1994)
* ''Dylan Dog Gigante'' issues #1-2 and #4-8 (1993-1999)
* ''Maxi Dylan Dog'' issue #2 (1999)
* ''Dylan Dog – Viaggio nell’incubo'' (vol. 1/50), ''La Gazzetta dello Sport – Corriere della Sera'', 2019

''Zagor''

* '' Zagor'' issues #184-186, #191-203, #221-222, #275-280 (1980-1983, 1988)

''Mister No''

* '' Mister No'' issues #90-92, #97-98, #104-108, #138-139, #159-161 (1982-1984, 1986, 1988)

Others

* ''Gli aristocratici (1974)''
* '' Altai & Jonson'' (1975-1976, 1978-1979, 1985)
* ''Archivio Zero'' (1975-1977)
* ''Jonny bassotto'' (1977)
* ''Il cavallino Michele'' (1977)
* ''Fantom'' (1977-1978)
* ''John John va nel West'' (1977-1978)
* ''Sam Peck esploratore solitario'' (1977-1978)
* ''Le avventure del professor Strano'' (1977-1978)
* ''Bizarro'' (1977-1978)
* ''Silas Finn'' (1978)
* ''Devoluzione'' (1978)
* ''Steve Vandam'' (1978)
* '' Ken Parker'' numbers 35 and 41 (1980-1981)
* ''Agente Allen'' (1982)
* ''Vita da cani'' (1982)
* '' Kerry il trapper'' (1983)
* ''Martin Mystère'' issues #51-52 (1986)
* ''Roy Mann'' (1987-1991), ''Comic Art'', 1993
* ''Cico Speciale'' number 6 (1990)
* ''La banconota da un milione di sterline'' (1990, adaptation of the homonymous novel of Mark Twain)
* ''Il West di Silas Finn'' (1992)
* ''John Merrick – Medico chirurgo del London Hospital sotto Vittoria Regina'' (1993)
* ''Le voci dell'acqua'' (2019)

Novels

Narrative

* ''I misteri di Mystère'' (1973)
* ''Film'' (1974)
* ''Guerre terrestri'' (1978)
* '' Le etichette delle camicie'' (1996)
* ''Il tornado di valle Scuropasso'' (2006)

Gothic stories

* ''Un sogno di sangue'' (1975)
* '' Apocalisse'' (1978); definitive version of ''Guerre terrestri'', it was reprinted in 1992 as ''Il nemico'' and divided in episodes for '' Il Corriere della Sera''
* ''Tre'' (1988)
* ''Dellamorte Dellamore'' (1991)
* ''Nero.'' (1991)
* '' Sogni di sangue'' (1992)
* '' Mostri'' (1994)
* '' La circolazione del sangue'' (1995)
* '' Non è successo niente'' (1998)

For children

* ''Nella foresta'' (1980)
* ''Dove vai uccellino?'' (1982)
* ''Casa mia, casa mia'' (1986)
* ''Guarda di là'' (1993)
* ''Metti il dito'' (1993)
* ''Scopri cos'è'' (1993)
* ''Tocca qui'' (1993)
* ''I sette cammellieri'' (1994)
* ''Una cosa cos'è'' (1997)
* ''Buchi nell'acqua''
* ''Con tutto il cuore''

Screenwriter

* '' Nero.'' (1992)

Collections of lyrics of songs

* ''Nel Buio, canzoni e ballate di morte e d'amore'' (1993)

References

External links

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{{DEFAULTSORT:Sclavi, Tiziano
1953 births
Living people
Italian comics writers
People from Broni