Milo Manara adapts Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose into a comic

Milo Manara, awarded Gran Maestro del Fumetto at Lucca Comics&Games alongside Riyoko Ikeda, received his prize from Uffizi director Eike Schmidt — 44 years after his first Yellow Kid. The agreement with Italy's Ministry of Culture, the Uffizi, and Lucca Comics&Games includes the acquisition of a self-portrait by Manara for the Florentine museum, currently on display at Palazzo Ducale in Lucca. During a press conference, Manara stated that a comic's quality is measured by its story, not its drawing, except for Moebius. He expressed love for literature but finds current Italian literature self-referential, citing only Moresco as intriguing. He believes any writer except Thomas Mann can be adapted into comics, even Dostoevsky. Manara recalled his collaboration with Federico Fellini, which began with a poster for Fellini's film Intervista and led to Viaggio a Tulum, a comic based on a Fellini subject originally intended as a film with Carlos Castaneda. The film was never made due to obstacles recounted by Andrea De Carlo in his book Yucatan; the story was first serialized in Corriere della Sera in 1986. Manara is currently adapting Umberto Eco's The Name of the Rose into a comic, proposed by Eco's children and Elisabetta Sgarbi. He called it a challenge for an erotic artist to draw men in cassocks talking, but emphasized the novel's themes of poverty and a formative encounter with a woman, which he plans to treat with full dedication.