I'm thinking that women would be wonderful if we could fall into their arms instead of their hands.

This was a Christmas gift. I asked Joel last weekend if he was familiar with Hugo Pratt. Umberto Eco in [b:Inventing the Enemy: Essays|13326582|Inventing the Enemy Essays|Umberto Eco|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1336493013s/13326582.jpg|18533740] raved about this Corto Maltese series. Joel acknowledged the author but hadn't had any experience reading him. It was thus a shock midweek to not only discover the massive Ford on Fox boxed set but this on our porch as well.

The narrative concerns an adventurer who sails about with his eclectic peers undertaking the tasks of the genre: looking for treasure, assisting rebels against their tyrant oppressors, unlocking family secrets etc. Pratt succeeds in repositioning these classic tropes in a very self-aware manner, much like the cinema of Godard, you are unable to forget that you are reading a novel.

The action sequences are very much Billy Jack meets Scott Pilgrim. Thankfully they are brief. Eco notes in his essay that characters in Corto Maltese spend a good amount of time reading, that may be the case in other volumes but not this one. There is a measure of Borges, a mingling of ancient arcs through the prism of the dime novel. ( )

Classic comicbook collection translated into English

I had already read this book in French many years ago and it was fun to re-discover it all these years later. There are 12 Corto Maltese books, originally written in Italian, and this was the third one published.

There are several adventure stories – all in black and white – linked together by common characters.

The whole is thoroughly entertaining even if a bit old-fashioned nowadays
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The interior is beautifully done. The cover design is truly awful. ( )