«I always wait for a phone call from Alfredo, for me he’ll call me sooner or later». Giancarlo Alessandrini, historic cover artist and main designer of Martin Mystère, says so at the exhibition dedicated to him until 5 May at the WOW Spazio Fumetto, the Comics Museum in Milan (Viale Campania 12, museowow.it).
Alfredo is obviously the great screenwriter Alfredo Castelli, creator of the scholar of “mysteries” such as Atlantis and UFOs Martin Mystère, on newsstands since 1982. Alessandrini has been on the staff of the series since the first issue, he is still the cover designer and has designed all the most important stories, including the forty-year issue released in 2022, although in recent times he has dedicated himself above all to other characters, also from Sergio Bonelli Editore, such as Dylan Dog and Tex.
Unfortunately, the fortieth anniversary was one of the last stories of the character written by Castelli, who died last February 7 at the age of seventy-six.
The WOW exhibition is entitled «Giancarlo Alessandrini Fantasy» and displays some original drawings (comic pages) with elves and dragons by the designer born in Jesi in 1950, taken from Martin Mystère’s 2017 story «The doors of imagination» and from the Outremer series, again with texts by Vincenzo Beretta, one of the best screenwriters of the series after Castelli.
The two began working together in the early nineties in the Zona X series, born as a spin-off of Martin Mystère. Inside the series there was the Magic Patrol series, starring the members of Altrove, the highly secret government organization that appeared in the pages of Martin Mystère.
Struck by how Alessandrini had rendered his screenplay for the first Magic Patrol story (titled «The awakening of the dragons»), Beretta was convinced to write a real fantasy for him, «The secret of the king of the elves».
«It’s a fantasy, but also a story in the contemporary world of Martin Mystère. – says Beretta. – We have an estranged father with a daughter, only he is a wizard, the ex-wife is an elf and the daughter is a half-elf. Decio Canzio, the right-hand man of the publisher Sergio Bonelli, told me that the story deserved to be released in a much larger format than the standard format of the publishing house’s books.”
Among other things, the elf ex-wife of the magician had the features of Luisa, Alessandrini’s wife, but the two are still married and is in fact present at her husband’s meeting with the enthusiasts at WOW
The story was seen by a French publisher and thus the Outremer fantasy saga was born, planned in four volumes, of which, however, only the first two were released at the beginning of the millennium due to a change in editorial policies.
«Beretta is a true Martin Mystère enthusiast – comments Alessandrini. – I get along very well with his scripts, just as I got along well with Castelli (even if his relationship with the character, being the creator, was different).
I remember when Alfredo wrote in the script: “from panel twenty to thirty fight scenes, you do it””.
Over the years, if Castelli’s approach towards Martin Mystère has changed, as he has made him more and more similar to himself, Alessandrini’s style has also changed, from the 1990s more and more towards a so-called French-style “clear line”.
Now Alessandrini is drawing a Dylan Dog story, and he likes it, unlike the Tex ones.
«With Dylan we vary scenes and settings, as with Martin Mystère – he adds. – With Tex it was half a drama: very long stories, on three hundred tables, with horses, canyons, gunshots, and that’s it. For the first seventy, eighty tables, it’s fine, after that it’s a pain! In one story I drew two thousand five hundred horses, I counted them!
It is the first public meeting (also) on Martin Mystère since Castelli’s death.
«I miss him a lot – concludes Alessandrini. – I miss his sketches for the covers in Omino Bufo style (a comic character drawn by Castelli with the style of someone who doesn’t know how to draw, Ed.). To anyone wishing to get to know Martin Mystère, I recommend the giant album from 1995 (texts by Alfredo, drawings by me), “The Secret of Saint Nicholas”. There are flashbacks to the distant past, ever-changing settings, even a trip to Italy. There’s everything that made the character interesting: more than Tex’s usual horses!