Alack Sinner – White Space

e-magazine basic golem Born in 1996 at the initiative of Umberto Eco, Gianni Ryota And the Danko Singer The first example was an Italian cultural magazine designed specifically for the web.
Until its final closure, which occurred in 2011, the magazine had various incarnations and could count on signatures and prestigious collaborations, including signatures Danielle Barbieri (www.guardareleggere.net) that as of 2001 on the pages of the second series of the magazine published a series of articles and articles on comics and their language.Unfortunately today the web page and online archive for basic golem It is no longer accessible, but those pages by Barbieri are still fresh today in the contents and value of the analysis and in-depth study of the language of sequential art. So it is unfortunate that fans of the world of comics from a younger age or those who did not know at the time that the magazine missed such interventions.That’s why we asked Barberry, a friend white spaceThis production may be republished on our website and the author has kindly given us permission. In this article, the author talks about his meeting with Carlos Sampaio and José Muñoz Alack Sinner.

In 1978 I began to believe that comics could be more than just ordinary entertainment. I began to think about it, at a time when I had previously considered myself, prematurely, an ex-reader of comics, when, by pure and decisive chance, I found comics Andrea Bazinza Based on Filippo Scuzzari. Then, shortly after, I found Alak Sener From Carlos Sampaio And the Jose MuñozAnd I was sure my hunch was correct.

My first story was called Muñoz and Sampaio Sophie ComicsAnd, compared to the main series, it was a show dedicated to Sophie, Alack Sinner’s girlfriend who traveled to Mexico, and there she passed from one hallucinator to another, to the point that he could no longer distinguish reality from hallucinations, real from myth.
The story was original and unusual, but at that time it was Muñoz’s drawings that caught my attention above allsharp black and white, an abundance of signs, expressive distortions, or even better, expressive distortions, which depicted a world distorted by everyday life even before hallucinogens.

Only in the following years, the collection of arrears terlinosYou know Alack Sinner’s previous stories. There, the design wasn’t so extreme yet, and At the beginning of the first reading, the stories appeared “normal” hard-boiled stories, in which a pessimistic and slightly lost private investigator has to contend with a world of nonsense – somewhat like it happens in Chandler. But the impression soon turned out to be very superficial: Sampaio was nothing but a second-hand Chandler! The boiling facade helped to reveal a world of intense and desperate feelings, filtered through the somewhat cynical humanity of the protagonist; to build social criticism messages; To reintroduce the American myth, while at the same time denouncing its hypocritical morals and the illusion of power…

I don’t think any of Alack Sinner’s readers were actually surprised when the series, just as my discovery was still going on, and genres changed — at least in appearance. Contrary to all serial rules, in fact, in an episode of the late ’70s, the hero suddenly changes his job and leaves the private investigator’s noir clothes to become a taxi driver. So enough with police investigations, and therefore enough with boiled. Story Engine is no longer murder or missing.
But as Alack Sinner’s stories become the stories of his life and the tales of his hometown, New York, it also becomes easy for readers to realize that upon closer examination, things were actually that way even before the change. And the series hasn’t really changed: it has found its true fulcrum, its true subject. I wasn’t the only one who in those years was enamored of the tormenting muñoz and the disturbing narrative snippets of Sampaio. An entire generation of Italian cartoonists grew up on itSometimes they imitate, sometimes they understand and start from there. The names, among many, suffice from Lorenzo Mattotti Based on Igort. Especially since these extraordinary stories saw the light for the first time in Italy, in the same magazine terlinos; And Italy became the chosen home of Argentine authors, after frantically wandering around Europe.

In passing, you can also suggest file fans Frank Miller From reread Sin City in light of Alak Sener. Nobody doubts Miller’s authenticity, but this black mark
And this pervasive sense of sin has a clear precedent—which an author as careful as Miller cannot ignore.

Muñoz and Sampayo did a lot of other things after that, besides the Alack Sinner series, but they haven’t completely given up on their character. Series in the bar (recently republished by Coconino Press), which for years has been the next container for their stories, based on different characters each time, all revolving around the pub in Joe, the same one Sinner frequents, and where the spotlight is also occasionally.

Over the years, some new stories dedicated to the former investigator have appeared. The most recent of these stories, the year 2000, private storiesis first published in Italy in the record Replica Anime Classics Released a few days ago on newsstands, as well as first stories by Alack Sinner, and a selection of intermediate stories. Even if sacrificed a little by the compactness of size, Muñoz’s visual world tells of another disturbing episode in Alack’s personal and family saga – now aged, with an adult daughter, forced by circumstances to return to investigate, in the brutal world of public spaces, and Saved only by emotions. (Classo di Repubblica editors’ choice was disqualified, likely due to its length, search and discover, which is the first long story after Sinner changed jobs, and among the many memorable stories about Muñoz and Sampaio, my favourite. You can find it in the volume published by Hazard, Milan, 1996¹.)

1. Latest Edition: Oblomov Editions, 2019 ↩