Corto Maltese page by Hugo Pratt

This page comes from the second Corto Maltese story, The Secret of Tristan Bantam published around 1970 in Pif Gadget, a French comic magazine. It is collected in the tome titled Under the Sign of Capricorn and features some of my favorite art on this series by Pratt. This particular page is the 11th page in the story despite being labelled page 58.

Corto Maltese is among my favorite comic characters of all time...perhaps my favorite but if not a contender. I am enamored with the work of Hugo Pratt both in his art and his stories. I had basically given up on owning a Corto Maltese page. I decided to settle for two nice Sandokan pages which can be seen elsewhere in the gallery. When it rains, it often pours and not long after buying those other two pages a great Corto example came up from an early book. Early is more desirable for me as it means more Pratt and less assistants on the art plus I find the stories better written. The visuals from this particular story are among my favorite in the series and so extremely excited to add this to my collection. I have been paying it off over a few months and brought this back from the Lake Como convention. I'll probably write a much longer description about this landmark piece for me but right now a bit jet lagged still and need some rest.

The paste up word balloons are in French and it was suspected the Italian would be underneath but I was able to get a peak under a single loose word balloon and no text. See additional images. Pif is written at the bottom of the page indicating the publication. The art is on two boards of glossy paper that Pratt would have brought with him from Argentina when he returned to Europe to work on this book for the European market.

There is so much for me to love about this page. Lots of Corto which is essential but two of Pratt's ethnic women drawn beautifully. The third panel i particularly like as you have Corto's side view coming in at an interesting angle, a common Pratt-ism. The fourth panel is great too with imagery that speaks strongly of the Caniff influence on Pratt's work. I am looking forward to getting this framed. I am hoping to be able to dedicate a wall in our new house to only Pratt and Caniff.

Also in additional images you can see the COA issued by CONG S.A. the Hugo Pratt foundation. Some of the Corto Maltese pages in private collections might have questionable provenance but this one is clear of that.