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Most of you probably don't even know who Massimo Mattioli was, the ingenious illustrator of the Frigidaire gang (who debuted with Cannibale) who effortlessly transitioned from drawing PINKY (the funny bunny journalist for IL GIORNALINO from ediz. Paoline) to this SQUEAK the Mouse or Joe GALAXY (irreverent, improper, vulgar, and often trashy!!). But it doesn't matter, I'll tell you in 10 lines.
In 1982 this SQUEAK the Mouse (Ediz. Primo Carnera L.5000) surfaced as a protégé of the underground epic of Robert CRUMB & Co., which quickly overturned the well-meaning rules of Italian comic books. With a childish and elementary drawing style (related to the lines of Matt Groening's The Simpsons), Mattioli brought to life a truly "hair-raising" saga that gathered the WORST of trash/splatter, vulgarity, sex, horror, and sheer gratuitous violence one could ever read in a "comic" that at first glance seemed destined for 6/7-year-old children. A kind of demented and at times brilliant TOM & JERRY, without words (there are no dialogues or lines!!) without filters, without "well-meaning" that pierced (and spoiled!) the young minds of the readers of the era who were not accustomed to this paper atomic bomb. The contrast between the "childish" sign and the "heavy" contents indeed created a unique short circuit. The book (in reality, there were two) today is quite rare unless you fork out dozens and dozens of euros at various comic book stalls (the last reprint of SQUEAK THE MOUSE 1 and 2 dates back to 1994 in the "Blue Color Series" by Blue Press editions!).
There are few of them also because back then this comic was repeatedly seized and censored by the Press Jury. Which said TODAY, honestly makes one smile....
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