Max Bunker steps down from Alan Ford after 50+ years, son takes over

After more than five decades, Italian comic writer Max Bunker (pseudonym of Luciano Secchi) has announced he will stop writing new stories for Alan Ford, the series he created in 1969 with artist Magnus. Starting with the next issue, his son Riccardo Secchi—a former collaborator of Sergio Bonelli Editore, Disney Italia, and Alan Ford—will become the main screenwriter. Bunker, 86, cited fatigue from writing 680 stories and plans to focus on expanding the narrative universe of another character, Riccardo Finzi, created in 1978 and already featured in novels and a film directed by Bruno Corbucci. Alan Ford follows the bumbling secret agent group "Gruppo T.N.T." based in a rundown New York flower shop. Bunker and Magnus had previously created Kriminal and Satanik, key noir series that competed with Diabolik in the 1960s. Alan Ford began as a parody of spy films, especially James Bond, but evolved into a satirical critique of capitalism and bourgeois conformity. Initially struggling, it became a beloved series in the 1970s. Since 2013, it has been published by 1000VolteMeglio Publishing, owned by the Secchi family. In 2024, Bunker had announced the series' end, but publication never stopped.