Coloured illustration of Ton en Tinneke and his nephews.About the author
Dino Attanasio
(Edoardo Attanasio)
(b. 8/5/1925, Italy/Belgium)
Edoardo ("Dino") Attanasio was born in Milan, and he also attended the Academy of Fine Arts in this city. He began his career in the early 1940s, illustrating a series of children's booklets, written by Roberto Renzi and Invernizzi. He also participated in the first Italian animated feature film, 'La Rosa di Bagdad', and in the creation of several advertising films. He settled in Belgium in 1948, together with his brother Gianni.
While contributing to the Italian magazine Il Giornalino ('Criche e Croc') he began a long collaboration with La Libre Belgique, where he illustrated 'Fanfan et Polo' from scripts by Jean-Michel Charlier and later René Goscinny. He was also present in Tintin with illustrations, and in Spirou, with some 'Belles Histoires de l'Oncle Paul'. In Petits-Belges, starting in 1953, Attanasio illustrated 'Le Conquérant de l'Asie', 'François-Xavier', 'Terre Belge d'Afrique' and 'Le Dernier Pirate'. In Line, he cooperated with Lucien Meys on 'On a volé Valentine' and with Michel Greg on 'Pastis et Dynamite'.
Attanasio was one of the first illustrators in the Marabout Junior collection, where he illustrated the adventures of 'Bob Morane', written by Henri Vernes. Between 1959 and 1962 he also drew the 'Bob Morane' comic strip in Femmes d'Aujourd'hui. In 1956, he returned to Tintin with some 'Coconut et Vermisseau' gag pages, before launching his best known series with René Goscinny in the following year, 'Signor Spaghetti'. In addition, he took over André Franquin's 'Modeste et Pompon' gag series between 1961 and 1968, while also producing 'Jimmy Stone' with scriptwriter André Fernez (1964-65).
By 1965 Attanasio was also back on the Italian market, with series like 'Ambrogio e Gino', 'Il Colonnello Squilla e Pepè' and 'Gianni Flash' in Il Corriere dei Piccoli. The first was also published in Tintin under the title 'Ambroise et Gino'. Attanasio left Tintin in 1968. He then contributed 'Candida' to Ciné-Revue, and began producing material for the Dutch market.
He was hired by the Dutch magazine Pep (later Eppo) to illustrate the funny gangster serial 'Johnny Goodbye', from scripts by Martin Lodewijk and later Patty Klein. Also in Pep, he made 'Bandonéon' with Yvan Delporte and the soccer strip 'De Macaroni's' with Dick Matena. In the Dutch girl's magazine Tina, he made 'Conny Wildschut' with Patty Klein in 1973.
In 1974, he revived 'Signor Spaghetti' with scriptwriters like José-Louis Bocquet and Jean-Luc Fromental in Formule 1 and later in Rigolo. He was present at the publishing house Deligne with 'Flash-Back et la 4e Dimension' (with Yves Duval, 1979), 'Il était une Fois dans l'Oued' (with Lambrexhe, 1984), 'Le Diable aux Trousses' (with Engil, 1984), and contributions to the magazine Fénix.
In 1991, Attanasio created an idiosyncratic watercolor comic adaptation of Boccaccio's literary classic 'Decamerone', from a script by his son Dino Alexandre Attanasio. In 1994 he drew one new episode of 'Bob Morane' at Éditions Lefrancq. His version of 'Satyricon' for the same publisher has remained unpublished. Since 2002, the publishing house Loup has been putting out collections with Attanasio's old work for Tintin.
