Leo Ortolani discusses career and artbook 'Musa' on Artribune Podcast

Leo Ortolani, the Italian cartoonist best known for his series 'Rat-Man' which first appeared in 1990 on the second issue of 'Spot', a supplement to the monthly magazine 'L'Eternauta' published by Comic Art, spoke with Artribune Podcast from Lucca. Over thirty years, his iconic Italian mouse has crossed every boundary, culminating in the recent 'Rat-Man Gigante' reprint that chronologically retraced the entire character's history and is now concluding with its final episode. In the monologue, Ortolani discusses 'Musa', an artbook celebrating his long career, presented at Lucca Comics & Games 2022. The volume features a gallery of illustrations by Ortolani, completed by Sarah D'Imporzano who painted the details. Ortolani describes their collaboration step by step, choosing to accompany his black-and-white images with color copies. The book includes interesting stories that report all the influences that have marked his work over time, as well as candid and spontaneous accounts of the chromatic and stylistic choices made during the intense work session. Ortolani's muses, mostly referencing male artists like Frank Frazetta, John William Waterhouse, and Alfons Mucha, delineate female bodies with stylistic traits evoking their fathers. These are accompanied by some remote memories, such as the figure of the queen of diamonds, or references to his training as a geologist translated into intimate representations of the Moon.