Dylan Dog (1986-1999)

The one comic book that inspired me more than any other is this Italian tale of a paranormal investigator (based on actor Rupert Everett) with a Groucho Marx lookalike sidekick who take on cases involving an entire history of horror, fantasy and science fiction. He lives on Craven Road, a tribute to director Wes Craven. Almost every character in this dreamlike world is a reference to another horror creation: Jack the Ripper, Death, Zombies, Wolfman, Jason Vorhees and on and on. I think I encountered everything I would see in films and read about later in life in this publication along with Martin Mystery (that’s another tale). It was created by Tiziano Sclavi and published by Sergio Bonelli Editore, initial covers were by Claudio Villa and Angelo Stano. This stuff and metal album covers blew my mind.

Italian, Spanish, French and Belgian comics were hugely popular in the Balkans, everyone grew up with Diabolik (1962-1980’s), Corto Maltese (1967-1989), Tintin (1929-1976) and Torpedo (1982), among many others. From kids adventure stories to sex and gore, from cowboys vs Indians to 1930’s gangsters to the Atlantis myth, we absorbed it all. Dylan Dog was one of the creepiest to hit the kiosks (where we would also buy smokes and newspapers for our dads) but sadly all my original copies are long gone. Instead I found an English language edition published by Dark Horse Comics in 1999, with cover art by Mike Mignola of Hellboy fame. There was also a movie made called Dellamorte Dellamore aka Cemetery Man (1994) starring Rupert Everett himself, which is worth hunting down. It has the bizarre humour and surrealism that the American version Dylan Dog - Dead of Night (2011) completely lacks

.