Viva Valentina! A Critical Anthology on Guido Crepax's Iconic Character

The book 'Viva Valentina!', edited by Micol Beltramini and published by Edizioni BD in 2016, is a critical anthology celebrating Guido Crepax's comic heroine Valentina, who debuted in 1965 on the magazine Linus. The volume includes comic homages by artists Lola Airaghi, Adriano De Vincentiis, Corrado Roi, Maurizio Rosenzweig, and Tuono Pettinato, but its core is a collection of critical essays by notable writers and critics such as Umberto Eco, Morando Morandini, Massimo Fini, Gillo Dorfles, Roland Barthes, Oreste del Buono, Natalia Aspesi, Patrizia Carrano, and Giorgio Manganelli. The essays explore Valentina's cultural impact, her role as a symbol of modernity and female empowerment, and Crepax's innovative visual language. The book also recounts anecdotes, such as filmmaker Alain Resnais ordering Crepax's stories from Milan, and Giovanni Gandini's first description of Valentina as a 'brunette with bangs, cute and absolutely lovable.' The anthology positions Valentina as a key figure in Italian and international culture from 1965 to 1995, transcending her comic origins to become a 'testimonial' of societal evolution.