Corto Maltese

Edition excerpt from Corto Maltese: Beyond the Windy Isles (2015): Collects the next five inter-connected short stories Pratt created in France in the early 1970sMushroom Head (20 pages)  (from Pif Gadget 96)Banana Conga (20 pages) (from Pif Gadget 103)Voodoo for the President (20 pages) (from Pif Gadget 108)Sweet Dream Lagoon (20 pages) (from Pif Gadget 117)A Tale of Two Grandfathers (20 pages) (from Pif Gadget 124)“Mushroom Head” begins in Maracaibo, Venezuela, where Corto Maltese and Professor Steiner lead an expedition on the trail of the legendary El Dorado, financed by the antiquarian Levi Colombia.In “Banana Conga,” Corto has his first encounter with the beautiful yet dangerous Venexiana Stevenson. Within this framework of adventure, Hugo Pratt weaves themes dealing with the exploitation of indigenous people, the noble struggle to gain freedom and justice, and how cowardice can poison men of all classes. The action, set in 1917, takes Corto Maltese from the Mosquito Coast to Barbados to a deadly struggle among Jivaro head-hunters in the Peruvian Amazon.