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Rating: Guido Buzzelli, a name that might be just another to many, was one of the greatest narrative and innovative talents in Italian comics (and I would say even beyond the Alps). The son of painters, he debuted in comics at just 18 years old and, after spending years in painting and illustration, returned to comics from the mid-60s until the end (he passed away in 1992).
Buzzelli’s work draws from a certain psychoanalytic reading of reality, combined with a visionary sense truly ahead of its time, to the point that some of his works, like this “HP” (created in collaboration with screenwriter Alexis Kostandi), are still embarrassingly relevant.
His style, quick and pre-painted-sketch (it seems he didn't even use pencils but illustrated directly with a pen on the paper!) sets the background for this rather discouraging story about our future.
In HP, a near-future world is imagined where two types of societies face off: a bureaucratized, verticalized one governed by strict and almost useless laws (does it remind you of anything?) and another made up of a mass of outcasts without a clear ideology, homeless individuals, rebels, anarchists, and free thinkers who, will do everything (and poorly) to oppose the first (any reference to a certain current opposition is almost coincidental, even though it was 1973!).
A work related to certain Orwellian visions, but infused with references to the dark world of H.P. Lovecraft to whom the title explicitly refers, even though it does not lack forays into westerns and B movie sci-fi (!).
But HP is not just “gloomy grayness.”
In the various scenes (often epic, between horses pulling obsolete cars, proto flying vessels resembling boats, and absurd pseudo-locomotives) there is a sense of “latent solarity,” a certain bizarreness and cheerfulness (if we want even “recklessness”) in facing an uncertain and not at all optimistic future.
As if the desire to take risks (and to live everything as if it were “a game”) overcomes the sad and gray reality of daily life.
Someone, centuries ago, said “Imagination to Power” and never as in this comic, multi-awarded in France and the rest of the world, does one sense its sincere implementation.
Enjoy the visual spectacle of Buzzelli. It is truly worth it.
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