The story has multiple historical references, but Díaz Canales has been able to avoid the excessive erudition of some Corto's albums, like Fable of Venice or The Helvetics. As in any adventure of the Venetian sailor, we find many historical characters crossing their paths with our protagonist: Matthew Henson (the first African-American Artic explorer), Waka Yamada (a pioneering feminist) and many others. Díaz Canales recovers the most adventurer Corto, with a story that feels like a sequel to La Giovenezza, one in which Corto's friendship with Jack London is the main reason behind the plot. How does it perform this new adventure of Corto, more than 20 ans après? In general, surprisingly well. This new Corto Maltese is in the hands of the spaniard Juan Díaz Canales, the creator of the acclaimed series Blacksad. And now, 20 years after its author's death and 27 since the last Corto story ( Mu), we get a new album: Under the midnight sun. No more Corto's adventures have appeared since the death of Hugo Pratt in 1995. Corto's comics are travels through time, full of erudition. He becomes a friend of Jack London and Stalin, Butch Cassidy and Ungern-Sternberg.

His adventures, in the first decades of the 20th century, bring him to the most exotic places in the most interesting moments: Siberia during the Russian Civil War, Arabia during World War I, Ireland during the Irish War of Indepencence. Corto, a comic character created by Hugo Pratt in 1967, represents the most beautiful heroic ideal: the caring cynical, the honorable rogue, the unrepentant globetrotter.

If I had to define Corto Maltese, I would call him the ultimate romantic hero.

Corto maltese in siberia