Liberatore - Lot 141

Liberatore TANINO LIBERATORE RANXEROX Ranxerox in New York (T.1), Albin Michel 1981 Original plate no. 9, pre-published in L'Écho des Savanes in 1981. India ink, colored inks and colored pencil on paper 25 × 34.8 cm (9.84 × 13.7 in.) RanXerox was a small revolution in comics in the 1980s. It consecrates the international influence of Tanino Liberatore, a talent who made his name in the 1980s with the magazine Frigidaire, which in Italy had the same historical and aesthetic importance as Métal Hurlant, remarkable for its political, graphic and editorial radicalism. RanXerox, like the magazine it was published in, was intended to be subversive, provocative, satirical, caustic, libertarian, punk and anti-system in post-Leaden era Italy. Liberatore's originality also comes from his graphic design, which stands out for its formal renewal, constant graphic provocation and unbridled urban imagination. Here, the character's skin is completely transparent and modelled. The extraordinary boldness of the shots, with the hero's somewhat forced landing, right in the frame, in a low angle, facing a replica of the Colosseum, is characteristic of a new, violent, jerky narrative, accompanied by an unprecedented sensuality in ambiguously assumed bad taste, where flesh becomes machine and the world a techno-erotic nightmare.