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A review by otterno11
Corto Maltese: The Early Years by Hugo Pratt
4.0
This was the first Corto Maltese comic book I found, stumbling on it in the intractable stacks of Wilson Library at the University of Minnesota in my third year of college, intrigued by its evocative time and place, enigmatic characters, approaches of literary deepness, and expressive artwork. By coincidence, The Early Years serves as an origin story for when the enigmatic sailor Corto Maltese met his frenemy, the unpredictable and amoral Russian drifter, Rasputin, though it is not the first published adventure of Corto Maltese.
Set in Manchuria at the close of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, and featuring cameos from Jack London, an American war correspondent at the time, The Early Years was a particularly good place to get into the series, rife as it is with allusions to historical events, vaguely mystical undertones, and at times abstruse philosophizing. With this new edition, I’ve enjoyed returning to this comic, so difficult to come by in English for so long before.
Set in Manchuria at the close of the Russo-Japanese War in 1905, and featuring cameos from Jack London, an American war correspondent at the time, The Early Years was a particularly good place to get into the series, rife as it is with allusions to historical events, vaguely mystical undertones, and at times abstruse philosophizing. With this new edition, I’ve enjoyed returning to this comic, so difficult to come by in English for so long before.