Il Vittorioso 1947 by Curt Caesar (d. 1974)

Curt Caesar, born Kurt Kaiser (b. March 30, 1906 | d. July 12, 1974) was a German-Italian painter, journalist and comic book artist. He studied Engineering in Leipzig before moving to the Academy of Fine Arts in Berlin after a brief boxing career that yielded a German championship title. In 1929 he became a correspondent for several Swiss & German magazines. After travels and military service he married and moved to Italy, where he started to work at successful comics, such as Romano il Legionario, a popular nationalist character published in Il Vittorioso. He also drew Aeroporto Z and Will Sparrow for Paperino e altre avventure. In 1952, he became the monthly cover artist for the science-fiction magazine I Romanzi di Urania, for which he realized some 170 works until 1958. Caesar then moved to other popular magazine-book series for the same publisher, Arnoldo Mondadori Editore, I Gialli and Segretissimo, including Oltre il Cielo and Cronache del Futuro, and the German Perry Rhodan.

Caesar’s illustration chops were top notch as evidenced by this plate from Il Vittorioso from 1947. It’s not everyday that one gets to add a 77-year old piece of published comic art to their collection, but this piece is special for more than just age. The first panel showcases elements of steam punk and futurism —with a backpack that appears to be a prototypical Rocketeer type flying apparatus. The sequencing, while appearing perhaps non-sequitor, is actually an exercise in connected juxtaposition, a kind of controlled innovation within the parameters of fumetti that pays tribute to the Bauhaus movement popular in Karl’s formative years. Very little of his work has been translated in English, but in Europe (particularly, Italy) he is seen as a maestro on par with Frank Frazetta and Burne Hogarth. This is a delicious slice of early Atomic Age comic art from Europe.