Lorenzo Mattotti's 'Blind' Explores Vision Loss Through Comics

Lorenzo Mattotti (born 1954 in Brescia) has released 'Blind', a 56-page comic book published by Logos Editore in Modena in 2017 (€18, ISBN 9788857609508). The work, released on October 12—World Sight Day—traces a journey into blindness and back to sight through 24 double-page spreads filled with arcane, slightly frightening, and circus-like figures. The book is the first in a new series created in collaboration with CBM Italia Onlus, the Italian branch of Christian Blind Mission (active since 1908), an international humanitarian organization focused on preventing and curing blindness in the Global South. Part of the proceeds from sales will fund CBM's projects. The series aims to transform negative perceptions of visual disability through art. The epigraph, by Edmond Rostand, reads: 'It is at night that it is beautiful to believe in light.' Mattotti's images celebrate ocular perception, described as 'ocularly hallucinatory.' The review was written by Ferruccio Giromini, a journalist and critic born in Genoa in 1954.