Sergio Toppi

from Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Sergio Toppi (born October 11, 1932 in Milan ; † August 14, 2012 there ) was an Italian comic book artist and illustrator .

Life

Toppi had a happy childhood with his brothers and sisters, although his father died early. His mother worked for a small publishing house. Shortly before the Second World War , he saw an exhibition in Milan of drawings that Japanese children had made and that made a great impression on him. His first drawings of battles and soldiers were created as an alternative to the strictly geometric drawings that were required of him in school lessons. After finishing school, Toppi first enrolled in Milan in 1952 to study medicine , but the following year he made the first newspaper illustrations and never finished medical studies. In 1962 he married Aldina Monesi.

Professional background

Toppi began his career as an advertising artist for the Italian publisher UTET and from 1957 as a draftsman for the Pagot studio (known in Germany for the Calimero series ). In 1966, he brought with scenarist Carlo Triberti his first comic strip in the youth magazine Corriere dei Piccoli out, which was followed by many more comics about historical subjects and the war. The Corriere dei Piccoli was followed by the comic magazine Corriere dei ragazzi and the youth magazine of the newspaper Il Messaggero , Messaggero dei Ragazzi .

In the 1970s he took part in the development of comics in France , for example as a draftsman for the series L'Histoire de France en BD ("French history as a comic"). He also brought out the volume La Découverte du Monde ( The Discovery of the World ) for the French publisher Éditions Larousse . The comic series Un uomo un'avventura ( A man's adventure ), for which he drew three volumes from 1976 to 1978 (for example, volume two, L'uomo del Messico ( The Man of Mexico ) about the Mexican Revolution ), was also ins German translated. In 1984 he created the comic figure il Collezionista (“the collector”), one of the few fictional characters in his work.

In 2000, his opulent work Sharaz-De was published in Germany , in which the stories of Scheherazade from the Thousand and One Nights collection are told and the first episode of which he had already completed in 1979. The band Ogoniok and Myetzko followed in 2001, telling the stories of a Russian official who was enthusiastic about hunting in the times of the Tsars and two Austro-Hungarian soldiers in World War I. In the same year he completed Karol Wojtyla, il Papa del Terzo Millenio , a biography of Pope John Paul II based on a scenario by Toni Pagot . In 2005, Sharaz-De's second volume was published in France .

In the course of his career, Toppi also worked on the most important Italian comic series, for example Linus , Sgt. Kirk , Corto Maltese and Il Giornalino .

style

British colonial soldier drawn by Sergio Toppi for a fan.

Toppi's characteristic style is characterized by a detailed hatching technique, which he says goes back to his enthusiasm for engraving and the strong black and white contrast . That is why his drawings are often left in black and white or only have a few colors behind them. He mentions the Vienna Secession as influences from painting , in particular Egon Schiele and Gustav Klimt , who also preferred an ornamental style. Sharaz-De , in which Toppi blurs the boundaries between comics and illustration by dissolving the panels , contains a few color pages that were shown as large-format prints in an exhibition in the Pyramides metro station in Paris in 2007 .

Awards

Sergio Toppi received the Yellow Kid in 1975, the Micheluzzi Prix in Naples in 2005 and the Collezionista award for the best series at the Solliès-Ville Festival in 2006 .

Footnotes

  1. ↑ dpa : comic artist Sergio Toppi died. Frankfurter Rundschau , August 19, 2012, accessed on March 8, 2014 (the agency report was published on Sunday and names the Tuesday before the day of death).
  2. ↑ See http://www.editionsmosquito.com/toppi/enfance.php and http://www.editionsmosquito.com/toppi/chronologie.php .
  3. ↑ Cf. "J'ai toujours été attiré par la gravure ... Je suis fasciné par le fort contraste entre le noir et le blanc ..." http://www.editionsmosquito.com/toppi/technique.php .
  4. ↑ See http://www.editionsmosquito.com/pages/pyramides.html .

Web links

personal data
SURNAME Toppi, Sergio
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Italian illustrator and comic artist
DATE OF BIRTH October 11, 1932
PLACE OF BIRTH Milan
DATE OF DEATH August 14, 2012
Place of death Milan