Italian comics have many merits and manage to give life to interesting and engaging stories, especially when it comes to humorous works. The demonstration is “Nirvana – sixth book” by Roberto Totaro, published by Franco Cosimo Panini, who with a simple and caricatured trait highlights the superficiality of society, which, through unconventional characters, addresses an alleged holy man Zen who lives, isolated, on a hermitage, asking him absurd questions and getting trivial answers.
These strips of a few side-by-side cartoons lead in just a few actions to the final joke that leaves the reader displaced but amused. The interacting characters are one more particular than the other who, with their rather inopportune way, annoy the holy man, therefore we find the cursed poet with such trivial verses as to make his interlocutor nervous and how can we forget others such as the scout, the thirteen-year-old boy , the psychic Madame Bernard, the ugliest man in the world and the new entries: the postman and Butterfly man and Elephant Man, all asking or telling their stories to the Supreme Master, who instead would like to sit blissfully in peace.
A simple but effective humor, especially today when we are oppressed by political correctness. The author intelligently manages to circumvent it and give birth to a surreal comic but which bases everything on everyday life, carrying on that genuine and fun comic tradition that we have known with authors such as Bonvi, Silver, Max Bunker, Jacovitti, Guido De Mary…
Precisely because of the great success and the optimistic aspect that overturns the pessimistic situations that the holy man experiences with a smile, we will undoubtedly see the Supreme Master bothered again by intrusive and absurd individuals, bestowing pearls of wisdom … or at least I think!