Strips 3 and 4 - Interview with the Author (part 1)

Strip 3 - click on the image to enlarge 

Strip 4 - click on the image to enlarge

How do you go from being an Italian kid growing up in a small town in the 1950s, to being one of the most successful comic authors of your country? 

Click here or below to read Silver's answer.

Silver: “My main problem when I was a young boy was that I was no good at writing, nor was I any good at drawing – but I just loved story-telling in all its shapes and forms. It was a desperate situation. To add insult to injury, I stuttered. And I daydreamed. A lot. 

The fact that I was also left-handed was never a problem – the school I attended simply proceeded to immediately ‘correct’ this perverse behaviour. 

I was definitely not one of the cool kids. And since I was not talented enough to tell my own stories, I concentrated on hearing others’. At home, there weren’t that many books I could pick from. I come from a common family, one that, at the time, could have been described in no better way than ‘poor and ignorant’. Yes, the post-war economic boom was in full swing, but we didn’t feel it much back home, in that endless sea of small, interconnected towns on the northern Italian plain. 

Thankfully, the – mainly female – residents of my apartment block were in the habit of ferociously trafficking what were known as ‘photonovels’, a form of literature very popular in those times of low literacy and little access to TV. My mother, a prominent figure in this market, spent what little free time she had devouring these magazines with titles such as Grand Hotel, Bolero, and Dream. Many photonovel actors were later to become very well known – if not some of the most famous people – in the world of Italian cinema and television.” 

…to be continued.