| Hugo Pratt | |
| Birth name | Hugo Eugenio Pratt |
| Born | June 15, 1927 Rimini, Italy |
| Died | August 20, 1995 (aged 68) Grandvaux, Switzerland |
| Nationality | Italian |
| Area(s) | Writer, Artist |
| Notable works | Corto Maltese Gli scorpioni del deserto Jesuit Joe Saint-Exupéry |
| Awards | full list |
Hugo Eugenio Pratt (June 15, 1927 – August 20, 1995) was an Italian comic book creator who combined his strong storytelling talent with extensive historical research on Corto Maltese and his other series. He was inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame in 2005.
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Born in Rimini in Romagna to Rolando Pratt and Evelina Genero, Hugo Pratt spent all his childhood in Venice in a very cosmopolitan family environment. His paternal grandfather Joseph was of English origin, while his maternal grandfather was a Marrano Jew and his grandmother was of Turkish origin. He was also related to the actor Boris Karloff, whose real name was William Henry Pratt. In 1937, Hugo Pratt moved with his mother to Abyssinia (Ethiopia), joining his father working there after the conquest of that country by Mussolini's Italy. Pratt's father was a professional Italian soldier who was captured in 1941 by the British troops and in late 1942 died from disease as a prisoner of war. The same year, Hugo Pratt and his mother were interned into a prison camp at Dirédaoua where he bought comics from guards and later was sent back to Italy by the Red Cross. In 1944 he was at risk of being executed as SS troops had mistaken him for a South African spy.
After the war, Pratt moved to Venice where he organized spectacles for the Allied troops. Later Pratt joined the Venice Group with other Italian cartoonists, including Alberto Ongaro and Mario Faustinelli. His inspiration could be traced back to his reading of authors like James Oliver Curwood, Zane Gray, Kenneth Roberts, as well as the comic books by Lyman Young, Will Eisner and mainly Milton Caniff. Their magazine, Asso di Picche, launched in 1945 as Albo Uragano, concentrated on adventure comics. The magazine scored some success and published works by young talents like Dino Battaglia, Rinaldo D'Ami and Giorgio Bellavitis. The character Asso di Picche ("Ace of Spades") was a success, mainly in Argentina, where Pratt was invited in 1949.
In the late 1940s, he moved to Buenos Aires where he worked for Argentine publisher Editorial Abril and met Argentinian comics artists like José Luis Salinas, Alberto Breccia and Solano López. The passage to Editorial Frontera saw the publication of some of the most important series by Pratt. These included Junglemen (written by Ongaro), Sgt. Kirk, Ernie Pike and Ticonderoga. The latter were all written by Héctor Germán Oesterheld, one of the major writer of Argentinian and perhaps world comics. Pratt taught drawing in the Escuela Panamericana de Arte directed by Enrique Lipszyc. He often travelled to South American destinations like Amazon and Mato Grosso. During that period he produced his first comic book as a complete author, Anna della jungla ("Ann of the Jungle"), which was followed by the similar Capitan Cormorant and Wheeling. The latter was completed after his return to Italy.
From the summer of 1959 to the summer of 1960 Pratt lived in London where he drew a series of war comics for Fleetway Publications, with British scriptwriters. After that he returned to Argentina, despite harsh economic times. From there he moved again to Italy in 1962 where he started a collaboration with the child comic book magazine Il Corriere dei Piccoli, for which he adapted several classics of adventure literature, including Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.
In 1967, Pratt met Florenzo Ivaldi, and with him created a comics magazine named after his hero, Sgt. Kirk, the character first written by Héctor Oesterheld. In the first issue Pratt's most famous story was published: Una ballata del mare salato, which introduced his best known character, Corto Maltese.
Corto's series continued three years later on the French magazine Pif. Due to his rather mixed family ancestry, Pratt had learned snippets of things like kabbalism and lots of history. Many of his stories are placed in real historical eras and deal with real events: the 1755 war between French and British colonists in Ticonderoga, colonial wars in Africa and both World Wars, for example. Pratt did exhaustive research for factual and visual details, and some characters are real historical figures or closely based on them, like Corto's main opponent, Rasputin. Many of the minor characters cross over into other stories in a way that places all Pratt’s stories into the same continuum.
Pratt's main series in the second part of his career include Gli scorpioni del deserto (five stories) and Jesuit Joe. He also collaborated with his friend and pupil Milo Manara for Tutto ricominciò con un'estate indiana and El Gaucho.
From 1970 to 1984, Pratt lived mainly in France where Corto Maltese became the main character of a comics series initially published, from 1970 to 1973, by the magazine Pif gadget, which brought him the recognition both of the general public and of the critics. Published as comic book, this series was translated into fifteen languages.
From 1984 to 1995 Pratt lived in Switzerland. He owed his international success to Corto Maltese, a very psychologically complex character resulting from the travel experiences and the endless invention capacity of his author. Wanderer by nature, Hugo Pratt continued to travel from Canada to Patagonia, from Africa to the Pacific area. He died of cancer on 20th August 1995.
Pratt has cited Joseph Conrad, Fenimore Cooper, Herman Melville and Jack London as influences, along with Milton Caniff and Will Eisner.
On Friday, July 15, 2005, at San Diego Comic-Con's 17th Annual Will Eisner Comic Industry Awards, he was one of four professionals that year inducted into the Comic Book Hall of Fame.
One of the series created by Pratt, entitled "The Scorpions of the Desert" in English, has been resumed after Pratt's death: In 2005 a Sixth volume in this series was released, drawn by Pierre Wazeem and entitled "Le chemin de fievre". A Seventh album was scheduled by the French publishers Casterman for release in March 2008. Casterman have also on several occasions hinted at the possible future release of a further episode in the Corto Maltese saga.