The painter and illustrator Giorgio Trevisan, one of the internationally renowned masters of Italian comics, designer of the characters of Ken Parker, Sherlock Holmes and Julia, died on Saturday 5 October at the ‘Mother Teresa di Calcutta’ hospital in Monselice (Padua) at age 89 years.
Born in Merano (Bolzano) on 13 October 1934, after graduating from classical high school, Trevisan moved, on his father’s advice, to Padua to follow courses at the Faculty of Agriculture. Here he was advised to dedicate himself to comics and illustration (he had already drawn a short comic story for a small printer publisher about the South Tyrolean hero Andrea Soffher) and moved to Milan, where he began to collaborate with Studio Dami. For Roy D’Amy (Rinaldo Dami) between 1956 and 1960 he drew the pencils for “Cherry Brandy tells…” and did the penciling and inking for war stories intended for the British market.
Between 1959 and 1977 Trevisan worked continuously for the publishing house of “Corriere della sera”. For the “Corriere dei piccolo” he painted in tempera the figurines of the “History of Rome” and “History of the Risorgimento”, then the centerfold with the “History of Italy” based on texts by Mino Milani. For the “Corriere dei Ragazzi” he drew stories from the series “Catastrophes on Earth” (in particular “Fear in Milan”, based on a text by Milani), “The Great Generals” and “Trials in History”. For “Corrier Boy” he drew comic stories from the “The Great Indian Chiefs” series.
In the meantime, through the Maffi agency, between 1960 and 1968, he worked for the French Lug, designing various characters, some of which (such as Archie and Fury) also reached Italian newsstands in publications such as “Alex & C.”, ” Rodeo” and “Zembla”. In 1961-1962 he also created Salgarian adventures for the publisher Vaglieri. In the 1960s he moved to Este (Padua, Italy), where he lived with his wife Vera and four children.
In 1965 with Studio Dami he worked for Fleetway illustrating with colored ink the children’s novels “The Secret Garden”, “The Dog of Flanders”, “Till Ulenspiegel”, “Pollicino” and “Gulliver”, while he created comics “Il Wizard of Oz”. Trevisan also illustrated some novels for gift boxes for Mondadori subscribers: for 1971 stories by Poe, Melville, Melburne; for 1972 “Love” by Stendhal, “The Young Werter” by Goethe and “Jacopo Ortis” by Foscolo. In 1971 he began his collaboration with the “Messaggero dei Ragazzi” of Padua, producing “Fatima” based on Nicolette’s text. His entire activity for the publishing house of the Basilica del Santo earned him the European Christian Press Award.
Since 1973 he has drawn all eight issues of the “Medium” series (including covers) for the Dardo publishing house, plus one issue that remained unpublished, all based on texts by Romano Garofalo. Again for Dardo he also drew various war stories for the Super Eroica, Reportage, Prima linea and Men and war series; he also created many covers for “Il menntrò as a designer for Sergio Bonelli Editore for which he created, even during the eighties, comic series which would become particularly famous such as Storia del West and Ken Parkersile” and “Reportage”. At the end of the Seventies Trevisan joined Sergio Bonelli Editore as a designer for which he created, even during the Eighties, comic series which would become particularly famous such as History of the West and Ken Parker. He subsequently joined Julia’s team, the criminologist created by Giancarlo Berardi and was also commissioned to create the celebratory issue 100, “Clowns”, in colour. Also during the 1980s, Trevisan also created comics stories with the character of Sherlock Holmes published by the magazine “L’Eternauta” based on texts by Giancarlo Berardi, a transposition of some original stories by Arthur Conan Doyle. In 1991 Trevisan created the Romantic Tarots and the Renaissance Tarots produced by Lo Scarabeo editions.