“Pratt is near the top of a short list of the greatest cartoonists ever to ply the trade.” — The New York Times
Aww, shucks. Such a nice compliment. But, alas, I suppose they could be referring to Ugo Prat. I subtracted letters from my name for Dog Rat, and Prat added letters to his name to come up with Hugo Pratt.
That small sample was my first exposure to Pratt’s work. It came from this book, A History of the Comic Strip, by Pierre Couperie and Maurice Horn.
The book had just been published in English when, in the eighth grade, to my delight I saw a copy at the town library. Over the course of several months I devoured that book, checking it out as frequently as the library allowed. I valued it so much that I later bought a copy.
I felt that my obsession with cartooning and comic books was being validated. I was particularly pleased seeing a page about Marvel Comics with this drawing by Marie Severin.
Hugo Pratt received only a brief mention elsewhere in the book, but I later became more familiar with his work. Pratt’s style combined elements of Alex Toth and Jesse Marsh. Frank Miller in his later work seemed to adopt Pratt’s “flat brush” inking techniques.
In front of me right now is the new book, CORTO MALTESE: Fable of Venice and Other Adventures. There are links to purchase a copy in this NYTimes review.