EXTRACTS: WESTERNS Fleetway Picture Library Classics © 2020 Book Palace Books * 272 PAGES IN FULL EDITION

FLEETWAY PICTURE LIBRARY ™ CLA SS IC S 4 Aside of the work he would produce for the British market during the 1950s and 60s, Giovannini continued working in Italy for Il Vittorioso , even when the journal became Vitt: Il Rotocalco dei Ragazzi in 1967. The last comic strip he did for them was ‘Flash’, a series about a photographer-journalist set in contemporary Italy. Vitt would eventually cease publication in 1970, but by then Giovannini had begun his collaboration with Il Giornalino , another Italian youth-oriented comics journal. For this journal he worked on such series as ‘Bug Barri’ and ‘Harald il Crudele’ in 1970, ‘Gli Uomini del Pugnale’ in 1971, and ‘Captain Erik’ in 1972 (which he would draw until 1975, the series would prove quite popular in Italy and the artwork would later be handled by Attilio Micheluzzi until his death in 1990). This last series would also see publication in France. From 1974 to 1977 Giovannini was the art director of Eura Publishing’s comic journal Lanciostory (for whom he also drew the series ‘Biondo e Rampino’). In 1978 he collaborated again with Il Giornalino with the series ‘Ricky’. A journalist and passionate motorcycle rider, Riccardo “Ricky” Bravo’s, adventures always centred around motorcycles, which he frequently used as weapons for his many encounters with villains, while the journalistic aspect of his life takes second place, as Ricky hardly, if ever, goes near a newsroom. Still for Il Gironalino , and during the last years of his life, Giovannini worked on the series ‘Il Biondi Lupi del Nord’ which he began in 1981 and continued until his death in Rome in 1983. Diego Cordoba February 2020