Image: Sergio Bonelli Editore
Event: A Colt-Slinging Don Quixote: Tex Willer and Italian Pop Culture
Date: 12 September 2023
Time: 18:00
Venue: Faculty of Arts Library, Msida Campus
Speaker: Dr Adolfo Fattori, Naples Academy of Fine Arts
Its first comic-strip being launched on 30 September 1948, originally scripted by Gian Luigi Bonelli and illustrated by Aurelio Galleppini, the Western comic-book series Tex will soon turn 75. Now revered as the longest-lived comic hero’s adventures still being serialised and sold on Italian newsstands, Tex went rather unscathed through crucial and stormy decades of Italian history, from the distressful reconstruction after the war to the present day. The eponymous Tex Willer is far more than just a comic-book character; he is a celebrated icon which hundreds of thousands of loyal readers have grown fond of.
The University of Malta’s Department of Italian is proud to announce ‘A Colt-Slinging Don Quixote: Tex Willer and the Italian pop culture’, a talk which will be delivered by Dr Adolfo Fattori. After discussing the comic-book series’ narrative roots, Dr Fattori will then proceed to examine in more detail the recipe of its extraordinary success. Our guest lecturer will analyse the character’s personal background, his charming and role-model behaviour (Tex is determined, ironic, antiracist, always willing to redress a wrong), the settings which he inhabits or explores (prairies, woods, wastelands, not rarely coming across ancient, or even unknown, civilisations and ruins), as well as the countless enemies he has to confront, ranging from ruthless outlaws to uncanny necromancers. Furthermore, Dr Fattori will scrutinise the recurring – but not merely repetitive – tried-and-tested formulas and serial imagination behind Tex’s scripts, while pinpointing the character’s kinship with other heroes of popular culture such as Don Quixote and Flash Gordon.
The talk will be held in Italian on 12 September 2023 at the Faculty of Arts Library, Msida Campus, at 18:00.
The general public is warmly invited to the talk.
Dr Adolfo Fattori is a lecturer in sociology at the Naples Academy of Fine Arts. He extensively published and edited essays on popular culture and the media, focusing on science fiction, horror, adventure, technology, serial and post-serial fiction.
