Twelve short stories, although of very different lengths. Twelve idyllic destinations that should be the dream setting for an unforgettable vacation: Bangkok, Capri, Morocco or Venice. Everything is luxury, calm and voluptuousness, rich and educated couples, and a slight eroticism that is perceived more or less explicitly on almost every page. But like everything we see in these beautifully drawn vignettes, what we have before our eyes is a mirage. A facade under which beats a more perverse reality. Immediately, the ideal vacation turns into a nightmare and each story becomes an acid tale where intrigues, jealousy and revenge will almost always end with the death of one of the protagonists.
Dream Vacations (Editorial Standard) compiles in a single volume the stories by Vittorio Giardino that, between 1990 and 2003, had been published in three albums called Fatal Vacations. This last title, more faithful to the Italian original, sums up well the spirit of the stories it contains, with women – always beautiful and rich – who are usually the trigger for the tragic ending, like those femmes fatales that in literature and film noir are they became the archetypal anti-heroine who uses her attractiveness to lethal ends. The comprehensive edition of Dream Vacations includes a final unpublished comic as well as a block of illustrations that closes the volume.
As usually happens in any collection of short stories, some are rounder than others. At times, its extreme brevity–as in the first, of only four pages–forces Giardino to an exercise of synthesis and thus some stories seem to oscillate between dream and reality. In the longer episodes, the plot becomes more solid and the author allows himself to introduce some brief pauses where the languid drawing of these vignettes seems to condense the calm atmosphere of the places he portrays.
At the end of the reading, what remains in the memory is precisely that sober beauty and elegant drawing by Giardino that permeates each of these vignettes in which time sometimes seems to stop. Very careful compositions in which the fine and precise line of the Italian author shines. Although he possesses a personal and absolutely recognizable style, in his graphics the influence of both Moebius and Milo Manara is noticeable, although in the maritime scenes – those seagulls – it is inevitable not to see a direct affiliation with Hugo Pratt.
Whoever gets stuck by Giardino's drawing but is looking for another type of script, more romantic and less light than these matrimonial thrillers, should try his bibliography with two of his classic titles: Jonas Fink and Max Fridman's last and longest adventure, entitled They will not pass!, already converted into two modern classics of European comics and that should be vindicated.
A detailed and very well documented comic in which the author invested more than 25 years (between 1991 and 2018). It tells a story that goes from the arrival of the communist regime in Czechoslovakia in 1949 to the social movement of the Prague Spring, in 1968, and the subsequent invasion of the country, led by the USSR, to put an end to that process of political opening. Giardino explains it through the eyes of the protagonist who gives the story its name, a Jewish boy from Prague, in three moments of his life (childhood, adolescence and middle age) and allows us to follow some of the key events of the second half. of the 20th century. A profound and unforgettable read. Edited by Norma Editorial.
Max Fridman is a former Jewish agent of the French secret services. In this adventure he is immersed in the Spanish Civil War, in the year 1938. Fridman travels to Spain to locate a comrade of the International Brigades who has disappeared. As always, Giardino's limpid drawing is supported by an enormous documentation effort and this allows these pages to recover scenarios such as those of the Battle of the Ebro or emblematic streets and buildings of Barcelona. Giardino does not avoid the political background, moreover, the political struggle is what interests the author of the conflict but he does it without Manichaeism. A mature work. Ambitious, forceful and emotional. Edited by Norma Editorial in Spanish and Catalan.
