222 - Liberatore

Liberatore TANINO LIBERATORE Original illustration published in the portfolio *Strange and Almost Abnormal*, published by Aaedena in 1985. Also the cover of the magazine *El vibora* No. 71 that same year. Acrylic on paper 25 × 35 cm (9.84 × 13.78 in.) Born in 1953, Tanino Liberatore is a major figure in the new wave of Italian comics that emerged in the 1980s. He made a name for himself in the magazines *Cannibale* and *Frigidaire*, where he collaborated with Stefano Tamburini, creating with him the series that would do much to establish his somewhat scandalous reputation and that of *L’Écho des Savanes*: *RanXerox* (1981). A pioneer of direct color, he innovated with a mixed-media technique—gouache, acrylic, pastels, sometimes accented with mascara, foundation, or fluorescent markers—which gave his compositions a resolutely modern aesthetic. This cyberpunk vamp, a futuristic take on Leopold von Sacher-Masoch’s *Venus in Furs*, was perfectly suited to the magazine *Métal Hurlant*, where these themes appeared for the first time in French comics.