Felix Meynet - Corto Maltese limited print

Corto Maltese print (Italy) - "Dedicati a Corto - Pratt & Corto a Venezia"

While I was visiting Venice in October 2025, I marveled at how much they loved Corto Maltese, Hugh Pratt's classic story of an adventurous sailor.

There were Corto books in Italian everywhere and even an entire shop dedicated to Corto in the Jewish Ghetto of Venice, where his book "Fable of Venice" takes place, selling books and Corto-related stuff like notebooks, posters, coasters, etc. Unfortunately, none of the books are in English.

Eventually, we made our way to a cozy, offbeat, rambling bookstore called Liberia Acqua Alta which has lots of vintage titles with unique displays, like boat bookshelves, and several resident cats. Very Corto, who's cats play a large part of "Fable of Venice". So I grabbed an Italian copy of Fables of Venice, and asked if they had anything in English or anything Corto related. The woman at the check out, who was very nice, pointed to a top shelf where some dusty oversized books were, and said, "I think we have something there. It's not a books, just some limited edition artistic prints."

Needless to say, my ears perked up.

And this is how I found this gorgeous limited edition set of Corto Maltese prints, number 89 of 249. I will post each print separately, along with the envelope and insert. It looks like they're mostly Italian artists and I hadn't really heard of any of them. Each of them took their own unique take on Corto.

Since October, I found a few Corto books in English, now out of print, on Ebay and started reading them. All I can say is, I thought I had a good graphic novel collection, but clearly this was the book missing. The stories are expansive, in depth, exciting, funny, and fascinating. And Pratt's artwork is worth drooling over. I cannot believe these books are not regularly in print in English and every language, but there you have it. My newest obsession.