Dino Buzzati's Poem Strip

from Dino Buzzati's Poema a fumetti (1969), Poem Strip (NYRB, 2009)

Click images for larger versions


from Dino Buzzati's Poema a fumetti (1969), Poem Strip (NYRB, 2009)



from Dino Buzzati's Poema a fumetti (1969), Poem Strip (NYRB, 2009)



from Dino Buzzati's Poema a fumetti (1969), Poem Strip (NYRB, 2009)



from Dino Buzzati's Poema a fumetti (1969), Poem Strip (NYRB, 2009)



from Dino Buzzati's Poema a fumetti (1969), Poem Strip (NYRB, 2009)



from Dino Buzzati's Poema a fumetti (1969), Poem Strip (NYRB, 2009)



from Dino Buzzati's Poema a fumetti (1969), Poem Strip (NYRB, 2009)

Please click the images above and below to view larger. You wouldn't want to miss The God of Remorse at the End of Day. (But beware, the above image is quite disturbing.)


from Dino Buzzati's Poema a fumetti (1969), Poem Strip (NYRB, 2009)



from Dino Buzzati's Poema a fumetti (1969), Poem Strip (NYRB, 2009)

Much of the book is wonderfully dirty, which might not be clear from my selection (although the above image and the Bellmer-esque one at the top should give you some idea). You'll have to buy the book for the R-rated material.



A special treat for Hungarian followers of this blog
(Yes, there is a Hungarian translation of the book.)



from Dino Buzzati's Poema a fumetti (1969), Poem Strip (NYRB, 2009)

These incredible images come from Dino Buzzati's Poem Strip, just out from NYRB Classics (translated by Marina Harss, with lettering by Rich Tommaso). Daniel Handler provides an accurate description of the book in his blurb: "I think I stumbled upon this on late-night TV when I was a kid: Donovan, playing himself, wandering through a neo-Caligari lava-lamp world of writhing Barbara Steeles and Sophia Lorens in search of love and justice and groove. I'm happy to see it's on again."

Here is NYRB's description:

There's a certain street--via Saterna--in the middle of Milan that just doesn't show up on maps of the city. Orfi, a wildly successful young singer, lives there, and it's there that one night he sees his gorgeous girlfriend Eura disappear, "like a spirit," through a little door in the high wall that surrounds a mysterious mansion across the way. Where has Eura gone? Orfi will have to venture with his guitar across the borders of life and death to find out.

Featuring the Ashen Princess, the Line Inspector, trainloads of Devils, Trudy, Valentina, and the Talking Jacket, Poem Strip--a pathbreaking graphic novel from the 1960s--is a dark and alluring investigation into mysteries of love, lust, sex, and death by Dino Buzzati, a master of the Italian avant-garde.

***

I'm convinced Buzzati's reputation will continue to rise among English-language readers. His story collections are notoriously hard-to-find (get in touch if you have an extra copy of Catastrophe), but maybe if Poem Strip does well the stories will be reprinted. So buy this book! [NYRB, Powells, Amazon, B&N, indiebound.] And buy The Tartar Steppe too.

See my round-up of Buzzati covers and art. Some more visual work by Buzzati: 1, 2.