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LFREDO CASTELLI was born in Milan on 26 June 1947.
He is considered the |
first Italian fanziner, since he was the originator of the fanzine "Comics Club 104",
which in 1966 inaugurated the rich season of publications in Italy that rapidly
acquired an enormous following of fans and enthusiasts. He had effectively
begun to contribute to the world of comics the year before, i.e. when he was still
extremely young, working together with the members of the editorial board of
"Kolosso" and illustrating the |
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adventures of "Scheletrino", which appeared in
"Diabolik". (In later years he always remained extremely fond of this character,
and composed several stories of this series with the protagonist Eva Kant).
In 1967 he wrote the script for issues of "Rocky Rider", "Pedrito El Drito" and
"Piccola Eva" for the publishing house Universo; he also worked on the team of
"Cucciolo" and "Tiramolla" of the Alpe Publications, and contributed to "Topolino"
published by Mondadori. Between 1966 and 1969 he worked on the television series
"Cappuccetto a Pois" (together with Maria Perego) and wrote the texts for many TV
commercials: "Taca Banda", "Antenati", "Tuttostanco". He also composed the script
for the movie "Il Tunnel Sotto il Mondo". In 1969, with Mario Gomboli, Marco Baratelli
and Carlo Peroni, he created the humorous periodical "Tilt"; in 1970, together with
Pier Carpi, he launched "Horror", for which he wrote not only tens of self-contained
stories but also the strip "Zio Boris".
He then began to work for "Corriere dei Ragazzi", of which he very soon became the
multipurpose General Editor, and created "L'Ombra" (artwort by Cubbino),
"Gli Aristocratici" (rendered graphically by Tacconi), "L'Omino Bufo"
(with his own artwork) and "Otto Kruntz" (artwork by Fagarazzi). For the foreign
market he wrote "Mark Merlin", which appeared in the German periodical "Zack", and
he also contributed to the French magazines "Pif" and "Scoop". Between 1971 and
1973 we find him working for the "Giornalino" with "Mister Charade" ,
"Gli Astrostoppisti" and "Chico & Blasco". In 1978, he contributed to the weekly
"Supergulp" published by Mondadori, writing the adventures of "Allan Quatermain",
an explorer specialized in archaeological mysteries. Quatermain lies at the root
of Martin Mystère, a character proposed to Sergio Bonelli in 1980, with artwork by
Giancarlo Alessandrini. Bonelli began to publish this series as from 1982. Again
for Bonelli, Castelli wrote issues of Dylan Dog, Zagor, Mister No and the books
"L'Uomo delle Nevi" (artwork by Milo Manara) and "L'Uomo di Chicago" (artwork by
Alessandrini). In 1983, together with Silver, he re-founded the magazine "Eureka",
published by Corno. In 1987, by means of the Epierre Atelier, he contributed to
the Walt Disney Company which published "Topolino" and the other Disney
periodicals. In the same year he launched the Almanack of Mystery, an annual
publication linked to the Martin Mystère series. Among the most recent labours
of love created by Castelli (whom you can see depicted above in a portrait by
Paolo Morales), mention should be made of Zona X, a series of unusual
self-contained stories which, in the original formula, were
presented by Martin Mystère. Another recent aspect of Castelli's work is his
return to humorous writing, as the subject and scriptwriter of a recent
adventure of "Pedrito El Drito" (artwork by Antonio Terenghi), published in
May 2000 in the Bonelli series entitled "I grandi comici del fumetto".
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