Giorgio Cavazzano

Giorgio Cavazzano is an Italian comic book artist, mostly recognized for defining the modern expressive Italian style of Disney comics. Born in Venice, he published his first illustrations in Il Piccolo Missionario, before he became an assistant to Luciano Capitanio (his cousin) and Romano Scarpa, who were both active for the Italian production of Disney comics. In 1967, he started his solo career with several 'Paperino' ('Donald Duck') stories for Mondadori's Topolino comic book. He has remained one of the main authors of Italian 'Donald Duck' and also 'Mickey Mouse' stories for decades, but he has also worked on Disney comics for Hachette in France and Egmont in Denmark. In Le Journal de Mickey, he drew comic adaptations of the Disney movies 'Basil from Bakerstreet' and 'Bernard and Bianca', and stories with 'Mickey Mouse' and 'Donald Duck'. Cavazzano illustrated the epic Disney fantasy comic 'World of the Dragonlords', which was written by Egmont's Byron Erickson. Besides his extensive work for Disney, Cavazzano has also created his own series, such as 'Walkie e Talkie' in Il Corriere dei Piccoli from 1973 to 1975, 'Oscar e Tango' in Il Messagero dei Ragazzi (1974) and the series about the two scammers 'Smalto e Johnny' in Il Mago (1977). The writer of these comics was Giorgio Pezzin, with whom Cavazzano has also worked on several stories for Topolino. One of his most notable non-Disney works is the series about ramshackle police officers 'Altai e Jonson', that he created with Tiziano Sclavi for Il Corriere dei Ragazzi in 1974. The humorous crime fiction parody, that draws inspiration from Starsky & Hutch, ran until 1985, and was then continued in Casablanca from 1988. Other creations for Il Corriere dei Ragazzi include 'I Ranger' and 'Slim Norton'. By 1979, Cavazzano got his first assignments from foreign publishers. Together with scenarists Quisimodo (a.k.a. Sclavi) and François Corteggiani he created the adventures of the old west adventurer 'Silas Finn' for the German magazine Zack (and its international counterparts, such as Wham in Holland and Super As in France). He was shortly afterwards also present in the French magazine Pif, where he and Corteggiani redesigned the title comic 'Pif le Chien', that was originally created by José Cabrero Arnal. He brought with him a team of Italian artists, that assisted in the inking and later also the pencil art, such as Clod, Bonfatti and Sandro Zemolin. Cavazzano also illustrated stories with 'Pifou'. For Le Journal de Mickey, he created 'Timothée Titan', a fantasy comic in a steampunk drawing style, in 1987. In 1980 he created his other well-known comic with his regular scriptwriter Pezzin. The 18th century beaver hunter 'Capitan Rogers' ran for 47 episodes in the Italian magazine Il Giornalino. Several stories were written by François Corteggiani. In addition, he drew the series 'Big Bazoom' for the Italian Playboy (1983), and cooperated with the American artist Sergio Aragones on the gag series 'Oran et Outang'/'C'Est la Jungle' in Spirou. During the 1990s, he has furthermore drawn a long long story with Silver's character 'Lupo Alberto', called 'Il Tesoro dei McKenzie', and he worked with Bonvi on 'La città' and 'Maledetta Galassia'. In 2006, he set up a new property for Disney Italia with Tito Faraci, resulting in the one shot 'Jungle Town'.