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Indiánské léto / El Gaucho

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Dva historické příběhy od dvou slavných tvůrců. Scenáristy a kreslíře Huga Pratta (Corto Maltese) a legendárního mistra evropského erotického komiksu Mila Manary! V příběhu El Gaucho se dostaneme do napoleonských válek, přímo do víru nelítostných námořních bitev a krutých pravidel. A v komiksu Indiánské léto se přeneseme do sedmnáctého století, kde malá skupina osadníků poklidně přežívá poblíž indiánského kmene… než tragická událost rozpoutá krvavou válku. Prattovy scénáře jsou temné, násilné a historicky přesvědčivé, Manarova kresba je nádherná a jeho ženy svůdné.

288 pages, Paperback

First published February 7, 2012

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About the author

Hugo Pratt

722 books419 followers
Hugo Pratt, born Ugo Eugenio Prat (1927–1995), was an Italian comic book writer and artist. Internationally known for Corto Maltese, a series of adventure comics first published in Italy and France between 1967 and 1991, Pratt is regarded as a pioneer of the literary graphic novel.

Born in Rimini, Italy, Pratt spent his childhood in Venice in a cosmopolitan family environment. In 1937, ten-years old Hugo moved with his parents to Ethiopia, East Africa, following the Italian occupation of the country. Pratt's father eventually died as a prisoner of war in 1942. Hugo himself and his mother spent some time in a British prison camp in Africa, before being sent back to Venice. This childhood experiences shaped Pratt's fascination with military uniforms, machineries and settings, a visual constant in most of his adult works.
As a young artist in post-war Italy, Pratt was part of the so-called 'Venice Group', which also included cartoonists Alberto Ongaro, Mario Faustinelli. Their magazine Asso di Picche, launched in 1945, mostly featured adventure comics.
In 1949 Pratt moved to Buenos Aires, Argentina, where he worked for various local publishers and interacted with well-known Argentine cartoonists, most notably Alberto Breccia and Solano López, while also teaching at the Escuela Panamericana de Arte. During this period he produced his first notable comic books: Sgt. Kirk and Ernie Pike, written by Héctor Germán Oesterheld; Anna nella jungla, Capitan Cormorant and Wheeling, as a complete author.
From the summer of 1959 to the summer of 1960, Pratt lived in London drawing war comics by British scriptwriters for Fleetway Publications. He returned to Argentina for a couple more years, then moved back to Italy in 1962. Here he started collaborating with the comics magazine Il Corriere dei Piccoli, for which he adapted several classics, including works by Robert Louis Stevenson.
In 1967, Hugo Pratt and entrepreneur Florenzo Ivaldi created the comics magazine Il Sergente Kirk, named after one of Pratt's original characters. Pratt's most famous work, Una ballata del mare salato (1967, The Ballad of the Salty Sea) was serialised in the pages of this magazine. The story can be seen as one of the first modern graphic novels. It also introduced Pratt's best known character, mariner and adventurer Corto Maltese. Corto became the protagonist of its own series three years later in the French comics magazine Pif gadget. Pratt would continue releasing new Corto Maltese books every few years until 1991. Corto's stories are set in various parts of the world, in a given moment in the first three decades of the 20th century. They often tangently deal with real historical events or real historical figures. The series gave Pratt international notoriety, being eventually translated into fifteen languages.
Pratt's other works include Gli scorpioni del deserto (1969-1992), a series of military adventures set in East Africa during WWII, and a few one-shots published for Bonelli's comic magazine Un Uomo Un'Avventura ('One Man One Adventure'), most notably the short story Jesuit Joe (1980, The Man from the Great North). He also scripted a couple of stories for his pupil Milo Manara.
Pratt lived in France from 1970 to 1984, then in Switzerland till his death from bowel cancer in 1995.

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Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews
Profile Image for Phrodrick slowed his growing backlog.
1,083 reviews71 followers
March 15, 2020
I came to Manara’s- Manara Library Volume 2: El Gaucho and Other Stories as a price driven decision. I had read his Caravaggio and felt the art work to be wonderful but the story/biography to have been thin. I would have preferred to start these Manara/ Dark Horse Books reprint with volume I but because of price and my reaction to the book I had pushed me read out of order. Then again these collections are not in order so maybe this is less of a problem.

The combination of Milo Manara and Hugo Pratt (Sharing credit as artists and author) produces very thoughtfully written and historically interesting fiction. Throughout the collection the art work is superior. Some thought has been given to being historically accurate with levels of detail that make graphics worthy no matter the strength of the story.

This collection is in two parts. The first is a nicely told story (El Gaucho) of competing English and Spanish conquests in South America. The predominate point of view is that of a young English drummer boy in love with a prostitute carried over in an invasion fleet for the pleasure of the Officers. Be aware there will be nudity, sex and violence. Some of it in the same sequence. Some will disparage this as fan service teasing. It is consistent with the story line. This is not “costume failure”. Working women work. Others are ruthlessly attacked.

These are nuanced story tellers so good and bad tend to ride together, often in the same person. As a story it is long enough to develop complexity, but tends to spread among too many characters and too many plot points. Still the art work is more than enough to carry the readers experience.

The balance of the book is a series of trials charging fictional and historic figures. Most of us would assume that the case against Gen. George Custer would be his many crimes against the native peoples. That would have been a fairly easy approach. Instead he is charged with incompetence in leading his men in an attack that had little change of succeeding. This is a more creative approach and one for which a prosecution and a defense can be made. The conclusion for all of the trials is that the reader should vote their conclusion. The writing is relatively even handed such that readers could justify either an innocent or guilty vote.

Because of changes in the generations of the readership there are a few visual jokes in the artwork that some may miss. Tucked away in the illustrations for the Trial of Custer is a soldier looking a lot like John Wayne. Poor miss Helen of Troy faces several trials, but in all of them she carries a resemblance to a young Brigitte Bardot with perhaps a little of young Jane Fonda.

Totaling out at 280 pages there is a fair amount of material collected in Manara’s Manara Library Volume 2. I enjoyed it and will be looking to get more of the collected works. Second hand copies will be good enough.
Profile Image for Alex Sarll.
7,101 reviews365 followers
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September 14, 2014
Manara's been in the public eye of late over a rather butt-heavy variant cover for Spider-Woman. It's very much not his best work, and nor is it necessarily a good idea, but much of the criticism has betrayed a fundamental ignorance of his oeuvre*. For starters, if Manara draws someone in a weird, spidery posture, it's probably because the character has weird, spidery DNA. For unlike eg Spidey creator Steve Ditko - who managed a weird, spidery Peter Parker pretty well, but was less competent at making everyone else look like actual people - Manara can draw pretty much whatever you want, and have it look dead right. More than that - his world looks realer than reality. Yes, everyone focuses on his women, and yes, they're generally beautiful. But so are his young men. His architecture. His animals. And oh, his landscapes! Hell, even Manara's ugly bastards have such fascinating faces you could almost call them beautiful. When he draws a battleship, or a likeness of a particular person (several of the stories here are accounts of controversial figures from world history**), I'm reminded of the illustrations in my old children's encyclopaedia, or Ladybird books. Which might not sound like a compliment, but I remember those pictures having a numinous authority to them, a sense that - at its most noteworthy - this is how the world looks. Manara has that same yearning solidity.

*Not to mention a fundamental ignorance of how variant covers work. This is not the face the comic will generally present to the public, nor need it have any connection to the contents - cf all those ludicrous Deadpool variants Marvel did a year or two back for comics in which Deadpool did not feature.

**Several have not a woman to be seen - which admittedly presents problems of its own, but if you're discussing Little Big Horn or the planning of the attack on Pearl Harbor, it's basically unavoidable. Not that the Helen of Troy episodes are going to win any feminist plaudits, granted, but the point remains - he's not the pure T&A artist as which he's often caricatured, or why would this blokey military stuff even exist, let alone be getting handsomely reprinted?
Profile Image for Steve.
962 reviews114 followers
July 31, 2017
I received this from Edelweiss and Dark Horse Comics in exchange for an honest review.

Not sure how to review this one. The first story, El Gaucho, wasn't bad, and the artwork was very good, detail was incredible. The other stories, all part of the Trial by Jury line, weren't nearly as good, and definitely lost something because of the lack of color (they were black and white).
Profile Image for Dragan Nanic.
540 reviews12 followers
March 7, 2020
Again Pratt/Manara collaboration hasn't impressed me. Could be that the real reason is that Pratt imagined a much longer story (as stated in the introduction) but died shortly after this was finished. My main issue is with characters being superficial (young Tom) or unsufficiently believable in their actions (like Molly and hunchback). The backdrop, however, is what is worthwile here in historical, political, cultural and geographical sense, as expected from Pratt.

The true gem here is Trial by Jury. The writing is perfect achieving to put the focus on the most important acts of presented historical (or mythological) characters. It reminded me a lot of La découverte du monde en bandes dessinées by Larousse only it provided closer look to the persons in question and moral issues they faced and dire consequences that followed from them. Thought provoking and engaging.

And a beautiful edition, of course.

Profile Image for Ryan.
1,283 reviews12 followers
January 1, 2019
This is a good read. I expect that it might be the weakest in the series because it really only contains one fictional story in the entire volume, followed by some historical pieces. "El Gaucho" is a good story. It's grim, so grim that you feel like any bad thing could and will happen to the characters. To me, the only detractor is when it lapses into political conversations that are confusing and a bit slow. The rest of this volume consists of mock trials of real historical figures. This seems boring. But, to me, it's like "history for dummies". I never knew how dynamite was invented before; it's kind of interesting.
Profile Image for Ije the Devourer of Books.
1,971 reviews59 followers
August 9, 2017
The art is excellent. The first story was rather open ended but still interesting. The second part of the book with the imaginary trials of historical figures was a bit boring after a while. I would rather have had an additional story.
Profile Image for Pavel Pravda.
610 reviews9 followers
July 16, 2021
Indiánské léto - vůbec jsem nevěděl, co od toho mám čekat. Jestli Manarovy prasárničky, historickou tragédii, nebo romantický příběh. Ono je to nakonec od všeho něco. V závěru tohoto příběhu se píše, že to vychází ze skutečných událostí. To zajímavé tam ale dodal až Hugo Pratt a Nathaniel Hawthorne v románu Šarlatové písmeno, že kterým je tento komiks inspirovaný. Zajímavá je morálka všech zúčastněných. S její znalostí zcela přehodnotíte přiměřenost činu, který celý příběh odstartoval a vyeskaloval do tragického konce. Ač se to odehrává v okolí puritánské osady, a nebo právě proto, tak si tam potají rád vrzne každý s každou, indiány nevyjímaje. Poměrně zajímavý je i přístup indiánů k pomstě a přátelství. Vyprávění má vysoké tempo a nenechá vás chvíli vydechnout. Milo Manara zde odvedl svůj standardní dobrý výkon. Ne tak skvělý jako v Caravaggiovi, ten je jeho vrcholem, ale prostě dobrý.

El Gaucho - Druhý příběh také vychází z historických událostí a popisuje příběh několika lidí na pozadí dobývání Buenos Aires britským námořnictvem. Stejně jako první příběh se i tento odehrává jen v několika málo dnech a dokonale vás vtáhne do děje. I tady si Manara přišel na své a irské prostitutky zde zcela bez ostychu dávají na odiv svůj "vercajk". Kresba se zde Manarovi opravdu povedla. Oproti Indiánskému létu je prokreslenejší a má lepší barvy. Vypíchnout zde musím kresbu přírody.

Indiánské léto je povedená kniha s velmi dobře vyprávěnými historickými příběhy a povedenou kresbou Milo Manary. Podle informací na konci obou příběhu je evidentní, že si Hugo Pratt dal hodně záležet, aby byl co nejvíce historický věrný. To rozhodně oceňuji.
Profile Image for William Holm.
129 reviews2 followers
Read
August 1, 2012
Manara is an extremely talented artist, and he really enjoy drawing young women. Currently Dark Horse is making his work available in English in a gorgeous format. Included in this volume is his second collaboration with the legendary Hugo Pratt, "El Gaucho", and a number of short stories with the common title "Trial by jury" written by Mino Milani all depicting historical persons on trial for their deeds.
"El Gaucho" was to be one of Pratt's last contributions to comics (originally published in 1991, Pratt died in 1995). Unfortunately it is not one of his best. A rather complex historical background about the British trying to invade spiced up with some free masons is rapidly introduced and then more or less forgotten. It is hard to understand why the characters make the choices they do. Finally I find some of the images of seemingly happy young prostitutes brought from Ireland to Argentine to entertain British officers quite disturbing. Although the story has its downsides you are still pulled into it. It is two masters telling us a story and even on a bad day their workmanship standard is very high.
"Trial by jury" is from 1975 originally the stories appeared in a comics magazine aimed at younger readers. When collected like this the formula character of the stories become all to obvious. However, it is of some interest to see a younger Manara learning the craft of telling a story.
To summarize this volume is good for the real enthusiasts for someone just looking for a good read I think volume 1 in this series is a better place to start.
Profile Image for StrictlySequential.
4,020 reviews20 followers
October 12, 2019
A. El Gaucho written by Hugo Pratt

B. Historical Hindsight Atrocities Trials:
1. Custer (U.S.)
2. Yamamoto (Japan)
3. Nobel (Sweden)
4. Helen* (Troy)
5. Cortes (Spain)
6. Attila (Huns)
7. Robespierre (France)
8. Oppenheimer (U.S.)
9. Nero (Rome)
10. Helen's appeal*
______________________
4.5 rounded up.

Love his art especially the invisi-noses on the ladies which baffle me in their simplicity.

This is a LONG READ because the second half is heavily worded trials of historical figures which causes heavy consideration and keen attention to detail for the sake of your personal knowledge of history.

* The judge emphasizes that the trial is solely based upon Homer's account yet uses the Roman names of the dieties- Manara is blindly Italian to not realize that Homer was strictly Greek!
Profile Image for Barry Bridges.
823 reviews7 followers
February 12, 2012
Another beautifully crafted piece from the pencils of Milo Manara. The Trial by Jury pieces that form the latter half of the book were enlightening and educational to say the least.
Profile Image for Jenni.
1,094 reviews93 followers
March 1, 2012
Provided by Netgalley.
A 1.5 star rating. To raw for my taste. Not as good as the first one, but the trial by jury were kind of interesting. The first story were just downright a no for me.
850 reviews2 followers
July 20, 2016
Disappointing. El Gaucho is the only decent story. Trial by Jury is incredibly illustrated, but the decision to present it in black and white is mind blowing.
Displaying 1 - 16 of 16 reviews

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