Your exhibition at the Archeological Museum features a large drawing of Torre Velasca, the Joe chair by Joe Colombo and an old Brionvega television set in the flesh. How important is architecture, the settings and landscape in your comics?
I was born in a little village in Veneto where all the houses are made from stone, even the roofs, and this was my first 'lesson' in architecture. It is a natural, spontaneous architecture but that has a sense to it, made with a material used in an exceptional way. I have always given particular attention to the settings. For my first book, Barokko, I drove around looking for places and taking photos then took everything home and sat at the table to draw what I had seen. It's a working method that I've used both for drawing the nullity of the metropadania, as well as for cities like Venice and Milan. I like a certain kind of architecture. The post-war architecture in Milan for example, for me represents the myth of the 1950s, that sense of optimism. The Torre Velasca makes me happy, the same goes for the Pirellone or the Gio Ponti building in front of Parco Solari that I see every day (and that I've nicknamed Mondrian House): when the sunlight hits it, it's impossible to be sad. Caccia Dominioni is an architect that I find almost moving. It's the most positive image of our country. As I live in Milan, these things have inevitably found their way into my comics. I observe things directly: I walk a lot, I wear out a lot of shoes and I move around by bicycle. In the car you see a lot less. A number of books have helped me a lot: Basilico's photos for example, they teach you to look. I like the idea that in my stories the architecture is also a protagonist, a character on the same level as the other characters. My dream is actually to tell a story without characters.
How would you describe the panorama of contemporary comics?
At the moment there are a lot of authors and a lot of publishers, some small and some not so small. A lot of people are interested in this medium, also outside the comic sphere, interested in experimenting, in mixing comics with other things. I would say that compared to when I started, the scene is much richer and varied. On the other hand though I have a kind of nostalgia for that virulence, that street fame that the comic on the news stand had, the more throwaway one
Do they still exist?
Let's say they exist is certain spheres, including the one I work in, Bonelli. They are black and white comics with an almost anachronistic appearance, printed on cheap paper. You don't see them in any other country... In Italy these kind of comics go on being very popular
Is it true then that things have opened up: to reportage and journalism with graphic novels and then to architecture and design?
There is definitely more attention. For example, real journalistic reportage, like that of Joe Sacco, who does beautiful work using comics without trying to ennoble it with something else. I would say that the comic has overcome a phase in which it was thought that it is not just a popular product but also culture. This is an argument I heard when I was 16. Umberto Eco wrote about it in the introduction to the comics by Hugo Pratt that I read when I was a kid. Comics now are adult and aware and move in various directions. Also in a way that is more mature compared to the 1980s, when there was a desire (typical of that time) to mix architecture, comic, design, music and whatever else. Now there is a greater awareness of the use of language, of knowing how to differentiate forms of narration according to need. At the same time there is greater confusion. You have to know where you want to go. What messages you want to convey with comics. In 1994 I published a book about Venice that I think was one of the few of this type done by a young author. There was no market for this kind of comic. Now even in Italy, that is not a particularly attentive country, there are loads of comics like this. I think it is a good moment, in which comics have grown up.
Have these "cultured" and refined comics lost ground with a younger reading audience?
The risk is that the new generations find it harder to reach comics because they are made for a more adult and aware audience. The language of comics isn't so simple, it's hard to get into as an adult. They should still do the Corriere dei Ragazzi and the Piccoli. Art Spiegelman's initiative is great, Little Lit, stories for children drawn by great authors. I think it is inevitable though for a medium to evolve and become more complex.
Is Internet interesting as an instrument for an author of comics? In what way?
It has made a big contribution to this evolution of the comic: things have definitely changed a lot. From my point of view it's better. Internet has offered the possibility of horizontal promotion. Some cartoonists have a blog - I've even got one - where they publish their stories and come into contact with the readers who follow them. I would say that Internet has increased this evolution enormously. It amplifies the possibilities of making your work known.
