And speaking of Nathan Never...
I’ve been meaning to read some of this series for a while now, as I’ve always been intrigued by the covers when seeing them on display at newspaper kiosks.

Nathan Never is an Italian SF action series set in the future, about a century or so from now. In this world, there’s not much information about history prior to the early 21st century (in the aftermath of some vague but major planetary catastrophe that happened in 2024). Although there’s some kind of global governing body called the Security Council, power is mainly exercised by large corporations and wealthy individuals. While the police and judiciary still exist, many law enforcement tasks and investigations are handled by private security agencies. One such agency is called Alfa, and that’s where Nathan Never, an ex-cop, works. Alfa is has its HQ a giant eastern metropolis in North America (basically an agglomeration of New York, Philadelphia, Boston, Washington DC, etc.).
Nathan Never is the brainchild of three writers, Antonio Serra, Michele Medda and Bepi Vigna, who scripted (either individually or jointly) most of the initial adventures. (After about the first 100 issues, those three stepped back a bit, and other writers took over; quite a few artists have worked on it.) The series was launched in 1991 by publisher Sergio Bonelli Editore and rapidly became quite popular not only in Italy, but also throughout Europe. It’s still ongoing, with close to 300 issues in the main series, as well as special and ‘giant’ issues (kind of like annuals), and there’s also been about a half-dozen spin-off series, a few of which are also still ongoing (I think). Anyway, several Croatian publishers have released Nathan Never books in translation, and one, Libellus, is systematically releasing them in these nice, roughly digest-sized hardcovers that contain three issues in each book. I recently checked the first one out of the library.
This first book is also nice because it has several text pieces at the beginning which explain how the series came about and provide a primer on the main characters and story arcs. Here’s some brief rundowns of the episodes.

Il numero zero (“Number Zero”); script: Antonio Serra, Michele Medda, Bepi Vigna, art: Roberto De Angelis
(The cover illustration is the same as the one above)
This is the first published Nathan Never adventure, a short story that was printed in 1991 and handed out at Italian comic conventions that year as a free giveaway. It serves as an introduction and teaser for the character and his universe. In it, Never goes to an orbitting satellite habitat to find a young boy with ESP and telekinetic ability who was abducted from a research institute on Earth (where he was designated as Number Zero, because he was the most powerful of the gifted children there).

The art by De Angelis is really nice; he did some interior art for the series later and, for a time, almost all of the covers (including all the cover images in this post).

Agente speciale Alfa (“Special Agent of Alfa”); script: Antonio Serra, art: Claudio Castellini

The first full-length Nathan Never story; it starts with Never intercepting an illegal purchase of cybernetics technology in an orbitting space station. One of the culprits gets away and flees back to Earth, much to the chagrin of Never’s boss. Never is then assigned to play bodyguard to an android that witnessed the murder of the engineer working on him (the android couldn’t intervene because it’s programmed with Asimov’s robotic laws). The killer here ends up being the same guy who escaped from Never at the start of the story, and he’s working for an international criminal mastermind named Aristotle Skotos (who is apparently one of the main villains in the series).

The art is by Claudio Castellini (who later did quite a bit of work for Marvel and DC) and it’s quite good. As I was reading, I kept thinking that it’s like a blend of Adams and Buscema, and when I went to look him up on Wikipedia, it says in the first sentence of the entry that he was influenced by those two.

Il monolito nero (“The Black Monolith”); script: Antonio Serra, Michele Medda, Bepi Vigna, art: Germano Bonazzi

At Alfa HQ, Never gets a package from a cop and former colleague – it contains an old celluloid copy of Kubrick’s 2001, of which there are apparently no extant copies any more. When Never tries to contact his former buddy, he finds out that he’s been brutally murdered. As Never tries to get to the bottom of the mystery and takes the old film reels to a robot antique dealer and restorer. Meanwhile, some shady guys break into his apartment and, when they can’t find the film, kidnap the neighbor’s niece, who was there waiting for her aunt to come home. Never has to get the film to the kidnappers post-haste, but then it gets stolen from the shop where he left it. It becomes a race against the clock, involving an unscrupulous collector, mutants who live in the city’s ancient lower levels, and a cult leader.

Bonazzi’s art is solid and serves the story well, but I prefer the art in the two preceding stories by a long shot.

I'll definitely be reading some more of these (although sometimes I think my library card should be revoked; I've got so much unread stuff on my shelves at home...). I should also note that back in the late 1990s, Dark Horse published a number of Nathan Never stories in English translation - the series lasted for six issues.

It's a pretty quiet time for European comics at the moment as well as with American comics, so I've picked up two books just to have something to read:

Necromancers #1 by Olivier Gay and Tina Valentino. Apparently Cristophe Arleston has his own publisher, Drakoo, where he's overseeing the creation of various titles and his influence can be deeply felt on at least this series. All series seem to be either sci-fi or fantasy (the two main genres that Arleston writes in, though he's done other genres). The series are not marked as connected in any other way and all seem to be set up as short, finite series that will deliver a full story in 2 to 4 issues. Which is very welcome, some series that have a nice concept keep on dragging on too much and I'm a big fan of Elmore Leonard's rules for keeping stories short and to the point.

So Necromancers is a two-parter (only part 1 is out now over here) and the concept is pretty simple, but works well. In a magical world, many have mastered the magical art of necromancy, using it to summon and bind the spirits of the dead to them, allowing them to use their knowledge and skill as they command. So people are always on the lookout for hidden tombs and famous graves, hoping to find spirits with unique skills and knowledge. At the start, Acher, his sister Morla and two other Necromancers discover an ancient hidden tomb. While Morla is a very powerful Necromancer, Acher is pretty much a failure; he has bound 3 spirits to him, but they are not very powerful (we have Teodor, a scholar with only very limited knowledge, Teheris, a warrior, who died in his first actual fight) and Isia, an exotic dancer, who is actually really good at her job) and Acher has no real control over them. The three only help him because they like the young man and he amuses them.
Things quickly go wrong: Morla is possessed by the spirit of the tomb: the most powerful Necromancer that has ever lived, the other two are killed and Acher manages to escape. Back in town, he finds the merchant that sold them the map to the tomb and his mission becomes clear: find the spirits of the three legendary heroes that defeated the powerful Necromancer before, free his sister and save the world from an undead dictator. And being a two-parter at the end of the first issue, significant progress has been made towards the first goal.
It's pretty light stuff, but the artwork is good, the story has a good pace, action and both funny and suspenseful moments.

Sigrid #1 by David Chauvel and Patrick Pion. I like Chauvel for his adaption of the Arthurian saga (specifically pre-Geoffrey of Monmouth Arthurian saga), fantasy mini-series Wollodrin and Puss-in-Boots adaption Robilar (he has done a lot more, but those three series are the ones I've read and liked). Patrick Pion I'm not as familiar with and he seems to have done a lot of artwork for video game adaptions (Assassin's Creed, Tomb Raider and Devil May Cry are among his credits).
While Chauvel's previous works (at least the ones I've read, I know by description that this doesn't apply to his other works) tend to involve fantasy, this one is so far historically probable. Sigrid is a young female Northlander, living in Greenland and about to embark on a journey to the colony on Newfoundland. The journey does not go well, as most of the crew and passengers quickly succumb to a mysterious and very deadly disease. Sigrid's uncle entrusts an important (but to the reader unknown) object to her that she should give to the leader of the colony. The ship crashes and Sigrid is found by Gotheyet, a Beothuk. Gotheyet nurses her back to health. Sigrid is focused on returning to the colony, but when warriors from the colony arrive to retrieve the object and discover her role in the death of many of the crew, Sigrid sides with Gotheyet against them.

Pion's artwork has rough lines and is dark, but it fits the grounded story very well. Many pages are spent on drawing the unspoiled beauty of nature. Storywise, Chauvel adds in the interesting detail of the friction between the vikings following the old gods and those that follow Christianity, the official religion as decreed by the King. But the King is far away, so many still mention the old gods with no fear of reprisal. I also like that Sigrid and Gotheyet don't learn each other's language (they just about manage to figure the other's name), but they do understand each other through their actions. The story is pretty slow-paced, but I think that works well for this kind of story that is focused on building a mood. \

Overall, two very different comics, but I liked them both well enough. No must-reads, but you can do a lot worse if you just want to have a comic to read.

Nathan Never, Cuore di tenebra
written by Bepi Vigna, art by Stefano Casini

(no. 27 in the original Italian series, published in August 1993; included in vol. 10 of the Croatian editions published by Libellus, under the title “Srce tame”)
Nathan is sent on assignment by his agency for a pharmaceuticals corporation to a place called the Frontier, a wilderness of uncertain location (based on some place names, probably the Philippines, but it’s really unclear) that apparently has radioactive zones populated by mutants. He has to find a researcher named Korzeniowsky, who was on the verge of a finding a cure to a severe and deadly viral disease. With his guide Marlow he has to take a boat up a river to get to Korzeniowsky’s last known whereabouts. A Christian missionary named Rose Sayer tags along, as she’s seeking her nephew, the son of her brother who was preaching among the natives before his death. Again, as with Vampyrus, you can see many familiar-sounding names (and some deep dives, like the researcher’s name), because yes, the story is based on Conrad’s Heart of Darkness – with elements of Apocalypse Now, but also African Queen, thrown in for good measure. It’s a harsh story, with some rather graphic and gruesome depictions of violence. It’s a pretty brutal indictment of colonialism, environmental destruction and the behavior of multinational drug companies.

Stefano Casini’s art is really quite good throughout.
This one has also been translated into English and published by Dark Horse in 1991, in issue no. 2 of its Nathan Never series, under the title “The Darkness in the Heart.”

Once Upon a Time in France
by Fabien Nury and Sylvain Vallée, Ivanka Hahnenberger (Translation)

An extrapolated account of the life of Joseph Joanovici, a wealthy metal dealer in France during the period of the Nazi occupation. His painful attempts to walk a tightrope between apparently collaborating (while defrauding) the occupiers while also funding the resistance, and the moral compromises he is forced into in order to ensure his own personal safety and the safety of his family, are detailed in this complex and intelligent account. Not always an easy read, but very much worth the time and investment.

Dylan Dog, no. 8 (“Il ritorno del monstro”)

(May 1987; included in vol. 3 of the Croatian editions published by Libellus under the title “Povratak čudovišta”)
script: Tiziano Sclavi, art: Luigi Piccatto
The story begins with a flashback to 1971, when a blind teenage girl named Leonora Steele wanders through her family home (the large country estate of a wealthy family) in the morning, asking where everybody is – we the readers, though, see the bloody corpses of family members and servants in the background as she walks through the house and grounds. In the present (i.e., 1987), Leonora pays a visit to Dylan Dog. She recounts her story and notifies him that Damien, the mentally disabled stablehand who was blamed for the killings and locked away in a mental institution, has escaped. She wants Dylan to kill him, which is apparently no easy task since Damien seems to be superhumanly strong and virtually unkillable – not even severe electric shocks or fire seem to slow him down. Dylan reluctantly agrees to take on the job, and travels to Leonora’s estate, which, besides police checkpoints on every nearby road, is also protected by a cordon of Rambo-like mercenaries. Dylan gets Damien’s medical records from the mental institution’s director (who, we learn, is now Leonora’s husband). As he studies the records and goes over the police reports and court documents on the case, he finds some troubling inconsistencies in the accounts of what actually happened 16 years earlier. And while he snoops around the estate grounds, he stumbles, quite literally, onto some more dark secrets far below ground.

This is a pretty solid and suspenseful thriller – I kind of figured out the twist about 2/3s of the way through, but the pay off is still quite good. The art by Piccatto is also very effective. The story was published in English translation by Dark Horse in 1999 in issue #4 of their Dylan Dog series as “The Return of the Monster”

Dylan Dog, no. 19 (“Memorie dall’invisibile”)

(April 1988; included in vol. 7 of the Croatian editions published by Libellus under the title “Uspomene nevidljivog”)
script: Tiziano Sclavi, art: Giampiero Casertano
London is rocked by a series of brutal murders of prostitutes, as they are being stabbed by a mysterious individual who is not seen by anyone but his victims (and we the readers can only identify him by his hat and trench coat with its collar pulled up). The police seem quite incapable of finding even a single clue as to the murderer’s identity, while the press dub him the ‘invisible man.’ A group of prostitutes, coordinated by an American named Bree, pool their money to hire Dylan to find the killer, because Bree believes there is something paranormal about him. Meanwhile, there is a literally invisible man walking the streets, but he’s also trying to find the killer. A sort of unremarkable nobody, he turned invisible on the same night as the murder of one of the prostitutes, who lived in the apartment below his and with whom he was in love. This was a rather interesting story, as the theme of invisibility is also used as a metaphor for people who are generally ignored and ilicit little concern from society at large.

(I liked this scene, which is a play on Hopper’s painting.)
The story was published in English translation by Dark Horse in 1999 in issue #3 of their Dylan Dog series as “Memories of the Invisible World.”

The much-delayed fourth issue of the Croatian anthology series Strop was recently published. I've written the preceding issues here, here and here.

The three ongoing features continue, of which my favorite by far is "Zagrebljuje" by Krešimir Biuk and Dalibor Talajić (to reiterate, it revolves around a guy who can't keep down a meal and who's hired by an old acquaintance to kill his wife - with whom he's in love). It's too bad these are only 8-page features, because every time I read these I *really* want to see the rest of the story.

Otherwise, as in every other issue, there's a one-off piece by a guest artist, this time by an artist named Maja Duvnjak, whose contribution is a contemplative piece about a trip to Montengro. I like that she took note of all of the well-fed street cats she saw there...