EXTRACTS: Illustrators issue 25 © 2019 The Book Palace (96 PAGES in Full edition)

5 MiloManara The undisputed master of erotic art whose sensual women are deeply embedded in the minds of every male comic book fan around the world, is the subject of Diego Cordoba’s prurient curiosity and enthusiasm. Born Maurilio Manara—but known by his family and friends as Milo—in Luson, Italy in 1945, he was the fourth among six brothers. Manara grew up mostly in Verona, and although his mother didn’t want him reading comics, he showed interest in drawing at an early age, and studied at the city’s local art school. When he reached College age, he moved to Venice where he took architecture, but didn’t finish his courses, switching instead to art and paint- ing, which he didn’t finish either. Caught in the middle of the 1960s without a job and no real studies under his arm, he tried his luck with comics, perhaps the lowest echelon in the artistic field, and moved to Milan, where all the publishers were located. Unfortunately due to the large amount of work required, publishers weren’t hiring new artists, but rather relying on experienced ones with a long background in the field. Thanks to a friend of his, Mario Gomboli, he was introduced to publisher/author Furio Viano. Through Viano, he began working on the series Genius , about an FBI agent who, dissatisfied with how the law sometimes got bent to help crooks, decided to take matters on hand, and donning a mask became a FACING PAGE: Woman With Blue Eyes , ink and watercolour on paper, 1995. BELOW LEFT: Manara in 2015 during the presentation of his latest opus on Caravaggio. BELOW RIGHT: Temptress , watercolour on paper, 2012.