Corto Maltese: Fable of Venice and Other Adventures

Artist Hugo Pratt''s most famous creation, the indefatigable sailor Corto Maltese, sails back to American readers after a far too-long absence in Corto Maltese: Fable of Venice and Other Adventures. Corto, a modern Ulysses whose wanderings in the early decades of the 20th century take him to the most fascinating places on Earth, is a hard-luck, hard-driving iconoclastic anti-hero who values freedom and independence more than wealth and status. In ''Fable of Venice,'' a riddle from a deceased friend plunges Corto into a phantasmagorical mystery thriller that zigzags between the solidity of dreams and the fluidity of reality. A frantic chase in 1921 Venice ensues, up twisting stairs and down tangled alleys, as Corto vies against Freemasons, occultists, budding fascists, and his friend (suddenly back from the dead) in a mad scramble to secure a mystical emerald that will open the doors of forbidden magic and unravel time and space itself! In addition, this collection also presents Pratt''s Corto Maltese classics ''The Secret of Tristan Bantam,'' ''So Much for Gentlemen of Fortune,'' and ''The Seagull''s Fault''. As a side note, readers who enjoyed The Magnificent Adventure by Milo Manara and its book-length search for ''H.P.'' will be quick to note that ''H.P.'' is, in fact, Hugo Pratt, a beloved mentor to Manara.