Sergio Toppi

The artistic history of Sergio Toppi (Milan, 10.11.1932 – Milan, 08.21.2012) undoubtedly represents a fundamental step for the birth of author comics in Italy. Along with Dino Battaglia and Hugo Pratt, he is one of the key figures of the Ninth Italian Art.
His unmistakable style, which together with Battaglia’s will influence entire generations of cartoonists, will culminate in being recognized as the best Italian cartoonist with the Yellow Kid award, won in 1975 during the Lucca Comics Show.
Despite his numerous collaborations with the most famous publishers of the time (including Sergio Bonelli’s in the series “Un uomo, un’avventura”) and with the most prestigious comics magazines («L’Eternauta», «Comic Art», », «Orient Express» and «Corto Maltese» above all) his trait will be expressed at its best in the stories made entirely by himself, which over the years will acquire increasingly dreamlike settings and fantastic themes (for example, the great passion for the writer Dino Buzzati), after the first passages in stories with a historical and adventurous setting.
The freedom in the layout, the accentuated verticality of the vignettes, the very personal use of colors and the balance between historical verisimilitude and fantastic elaboration, are the elements that make his production closer to the field of art than to that of comics in a broad sense.
With its revolutionary use of the “vertical” table, the Toppi page becomes a unitary space, in which the images are fully extended, overcoming the rigidity of the “grid”. Also famous for his unconventional use of colours, often electric tones, and the use of black and white, predominant in his work, which acquire not only stylistic but also symbolic value, as a contrast between what is full and what is empty.
Sharaz-de, Blues, Bestiario, La Sacra Bibbia, Naugatuck 1757, Chapungo, Ogoniok, Il dossier Kokombo, Il Dio minatore, Krull, Il collezionista, Colt Frontier are just some of the titles that will be repeated in the dedicated series of Edizioni NPE.