It is not easy to establish a link between Vasco Rossi, the only rock poet in the musical history of the homeland, and a comic star like Dylan Dog, I use to investigate the nightmares and monsters of our imagination, but the publisher Bonelli took care of them. in this tribute to Vasco which will contain three stories inspired by as many songs by the artist from Zocca: Sally, Albachiara e Jenny. These are passages from Vasco’s first production, when he knew how to interpret the boredom and existential hardships of a province, his own, which mirrored that great province that was Italy.
Here then is that the hero of the mystery created by Tiziano Sclavi will find himself moving in the environments and stories of the singer-songwriter, with a crossing of genres as adventurous as the exploits of Dylan Dog. In the absence, due to consequences of Covid, of the usual tour in the stadiums with which Vasco celebrates the summers for good twenty years, fans will be able to play with the three books sent to the press by Bonelli and entrusted, for the screenplay, to three leading authors of the historic comic book house: Paola Barbato, Gabriella Contu and Barbara Baraldi. It was they who gave a personal interpretation of the emotions aroused by music and words, in order to transport them between drawings and balloons.
Corrado Roi, Sergio Gerasi and Davide Furnò for their part conceived and executed the comic images, while Gigi Cavegnago and Fabrizio De Tommaso illustrated the covers. Vasco Rossi’s comment: «I’ve always loved synthesis and comics are perfect in this: the story unfolds in images and a few words, but those that are enough to make you understand a whole world of things. I would say my path goes from Nembo Kid to Tex Willer to get to Dylan Dog, the most cultured, refined and committed, his visionary world fascinated me. Even today he is a myth for me and I am overjoyed to meet him. By the way, from Dylan Dog I went straight to the philosophy books ».
Tiziano Sclavi replies: «Once I had a dream. Usually my dreams are frightening and desperate nightmares, but that, more unique than rare, was happy. I don’t remember how it went, I just know that at one point I was singing I want a reckless life. It was undoubtedly a dream. A sign that something of Vasco had entered my depth ».
Each issue has a special foliation and is completed by 16 extra pages that contain an interview by Luca Crovi with Vasco, the lyrics of the songs which inspired the episode and a writing by Tiziano Sclavi. The «Sally» project, due out tomorrow (30 June), for a story of love and obsession, is inaugurated, the other two stories will be released in July and August in newsstands, in comic shops and on the Sergio Bonelli Editore website.