June 15, 2024 6:16 pm
by MARCO VALLONE
“Pertini’s life could almost be a novel, or a TV series, given the many things he did until he later became President of the Republic”. Gianluca Costantini, Italian cartoonist known for some works of graphic journalism (i.e. comic stories with a journalistic approach)summarizes well what was the fulcrum of the graphic novel “Pertini tra le clouds”, published by Edizioni BeccoGiallo in 2014, which was discussed this morning in the second day of “Nuvola Comics”, the first comics, gaming and art festival in the regional capital.
Together with Costantini, who is one of the authors of the book, the other author was also present on the Festival stage Elettra Stamboulis, comic book writer and screenwriterbeyond Don Giacomo Panizza, founder of the “Progetto Sud” community of Lamezia Terme, to the historian Salvatore Bullotta and to the journalist Andrea Mazzotta in the role of moderator. The three engaged in an intense dialogue with the authors of the graphic novel dedicated to Sandro Pertini. The event was happily introduced by, of course, the artistic director of “Nuvola Comics”, Emiliano Lamanna.
“This is a book that came out many years ago” – stated Gianluca Costantini – “And it’s wonderful to bring it back to life a little. It is a book that tells of all of Pertini’s activities, of his entire very heroic and incredible life. It is told, in this graphic novel, through many comic book characters: this arises because a great cartoonist, Andrea Pazienza, already in the 80s he made comics about Pertini. So in the book there is this dialogue on the clouds between Sandro Pertini and Andrea Pazienza (who died young) where Pazienza, who is always, like this, a little strange and asleep, tries to learn the rules of socialism through the story of Pertini who is told.”
Elettra Stamboulis, for his part, underlined how “Pertini tra le clouds” is “a book that is exactly ten years old and wears it well, just as Pertini wore his years well: he has always remained young despite having gone through the entire history of the 20th century and also the history of Italy, in the sense that he was a man who also brought with him many aspects of the 19th century. He spoke, for example, of the Resistance as the ‘third resurgence’. This book often returns because it is a book that remembers, represents and narrates the figure of Pertini in a somewhat ironic way through the language of comics. Pertini transforms, in each episode, into a different comic character that somewhat represents his situation at that moment. He becomes Mafaldabecause he is a protester, but he also becomes a Maus character in the long period of detention” (Maus, for those who don’t know, is a graphic novel by Art Spiegelman, set during the Second World War and focused on the Holocaust ed.). “So” – continued the author – “the book has different reading levels: a historical reading level, a semiological one and one simply, like this, of fun, to also smile at what we have been, knowing that many knots, that Pertini showed us, they are still there”.
This discussion appointment of the graphic novel on Sandro Pertini was, second Don Giacomo Panizza, “a beautiful idea that these young people have given birth to. The fact of bringing Sandro Pertini into play is important, especially for the past story, but also for the current story. Just as it is the fact of taking a character, putting him together with Pazienza (a designer involved in satire and comics), to talk about a politics made up of men and women who set out, with seriousness, not to make their own career, but to grow a democratic nation. The keystone is this one, and, with many drawings that make you laugh, the meaning is precisely that of saying ‘let’s take democracy’.”
Finally the historian Salvatore Bullotta noted that “Pertini in the clouds” is a “beautiful comic that talks about the President most loved by Italians, and therefore about some of the crucial pages of history of our country, because Pertini lived through the entire 20th century: therefore from the First World War , passing through his commitment to socialism, to the Resistance and then to the construction of a democratic Italy… Without forgetting, obviously, his role as President of the Chamber and then as President of the Republic. I am very happy that this highly valuable editorial product can be presented at this Festival and that you can chat about Pertini right on the terrace dedicated to him, given that a few months ago the municipal administration named it after the President, near Piazza Giacomo Matteottiprecisely to underline this link between the tradition of republican and democratic Italy embodied by Pertini and the commitment of this martyr of our freedom who is Giacomo Matteotti. The young Pertini was inspired by Matteotti: therefore this ideal connection, enriched by the strength of the authorial comic production of this beautiful product, today allows us to also qualify the cultural message that from this Festival goes around the whole city and well beyond our own borders. So long live Pertini, long live comics, long live culture, long live democratic freedom.”
