0009 - BLUEBERRY & TEX WILLER

Lieutenant Blueberry Tex and designed by Colin Wilson

Never imagined to see Mike Blueberry and Tex Willer sitting at the same table as old friends? Even if the two most famous protagonists of European western comics are too characteristically different from one another, the unpredictable can happen against them.

Do you know how? Thanks to brush Colin Wilson (see image below), a designer who signed many "youth" stories of the French hero and that with Texone L'ultimo ribelle, revised part of his narrative universe of Bonelli hero, giving life to a "frontier-man" (frontiersman) nervous and impetuous, ready to face the most dramatic and triggered adventures.

Seated from left to right - Blueberry, Tex., Jean Giraud and Carson, standing François Corteggiani, in Art Emanuele Barison

"... And the hunt continues!" Sergio Bonelli snippet: "Again my confidence was rewarded, because just one of the artists I admired that and more, wanted the chance, signed in recent years, many of the adventures of French brother Tex, Lieutenant Blueberry ".

"A successful and well-told story, inventive, graphic ability, clarity." The skills that according to Wilson, should have a good comics, not lacking in any of their works. Just see the drawings made by him for "Blueberry".

"Colin Wilson: a designer of another world," Graziano Frediani, excerpts: "The Demons of Missouri", "Terror in Kansas," "The relentless pursuit", "Three men to Atlanta" ... Who loves western surely recognized, only the four mentioned titles, chapters also one of the most celebrated comic epics ever made: "Lientenant Blueberry" (Lieutenant Blueberry).

Tex Willer designed by Jean Giraud for Fabio Civitelli

The long, triumphant ride through the history of American Frontier a mocker, undisciplined, irresistible lieutenant northern army - Mike Steve Donovan, said Blueberry precisely - began in 1963 through the work of two masters of comics: the French writer Jean-Michel Charlier and Jean Giraud Belgian designer (later became very famous among lovers of fantastic comics under the pseudonym Moebius).

Subdivided into different temporal planes, the saga spawned in 1984, a parallel series (successively followed by a second, "Marshal Blueberry"), written by first and then by François Charlier Corteggiani, in which the adventures of the young count Blueberry, when was forced to endorse the motto.

It is these episodes that managed to impose themselves to public attention a designer of great talent coming literally from the other end of the world, Colin Wilson, to which it owes special album Tex "L'ultimo ribelle" (The last rebel).

Authentic "globe-trotter" (born in New Zealand and lapped at length by England, France, Holland and Belgium before moving to Australia ...), Wilson develops plank after plank, strip after strip, a dynamic style and nervous, rich detail and shading, can translate to perfection the wild, glowing beauty of the Wild West.

Below are excerpts from the interview via the Internet, as Colin Wilson currently resides in the Australian city of Melbourne:

Graziano Frediani: How would you define the character of Blueberry? Colin Wilson: heroic, humorous, epic, opposed to every form of authoritarianism. Blueberry was fortunate to be created by two very different authors from each other. At the time, Charlier was already a successful writer, classic template, endowed with an extraordinary narrative skill and a great love of adventure; Giraud was an emerging artist who developed rapidly superb graphics skills and gradually introduced to Blueberry tastes, experiences and personal passions. It emerged that it was a much more complex character than those encountered in the western precedence, at least in comics. In the best stories Blueberry, you could not ever know in advance what would happen.

GF: What unites and divides Blueberry and Tex?
CW: It's hard for me to say it, because the only story of Tex I know is that I drew. Insurance, however, Tex was represented by many more artists and writers, the same did not happen with Blueberry, and retains, in my eyes, a conventional relationship with the western genre. Also Blueberry certainly was released, but then, as the influence of Giraud grew stronger and influential, began to become more reflective and anti-conformist. Blueberry has always had the advantage of being able to enjoy the superb graphics and literary gifts of Giraud, and this is something that, at least for me, distinguishes it from all other western comics! One thing that I miss after the death of Charlier is the "dimension" of Blueberry: Albums produced by Charlier and Giraud in the 70s are immense, whether in business, whether in-depth narrative of them. Today Blueberry is more "reduced" ...

GF: Are there any western movie that feels particularly neighbor and that may have influenced your work?
CW: Some of my favorite western movies are: the epic works of Sergio Leone's "Butch Cassidy" George Roy Hill, the early work Akira Kurosawa, which were then transformed into western, as remade by Americans. But most of these masterpieces is very difficult to express in comics: Giraud is the only artist who, as I, could do it well. And perhaps also Michel Blanc-Dumont, who currently carries out the series on "Youth Blueberry". But the reality is, is the impact of cinema what pleases me most, regardless of genre film. "

Source: Claudio Nizzi, Colin Wilson. L'ultimo ribelle. Speciale Tex n. 14. Milano, Sergio Bonelli Editore, 2000.

On-time:
Information from this page sent by Afrânio Braga , texmaníaco Manaus, AM, Brazil, that beyond the ranger adventures regularly reads the adventures of Blueberry.

CREDIT:

Article Originally Taken From: www.texbr.com