“Company of the Gallows” (“Družina od vješala”) in Croatian language, published in Yugoslavia in 1986. In parallel at that time, Romanini worked with Lucio Filippucci on a comics about Cicciolina, a Hungarian-born porn star who became a member of parliament in Italy in 1987. In the 1980s, Romanini illustrated “ Donald Duck” for Topolino, an Italian magazine that published Disney comics.

“The Company of the Gallows” (or “La Compagnia della Forca” in its original title) is regarded as Romanini and Magnus’ masterpiece. In the late 1970s, Romanini teamed up with Magnus again to produce “ The Company of the Gallows,” a blend of epic fantasy and humor in a format similar to Alan Ford.Ĭomprised of 20 issues of 120 pages each, the story revolves around a ragtag group of Renaissance mercenaries and their misadventures in Europe, Middle East and Southeast Asia, inspired by the impressions from the authors’ actual travels to those places. He was actually one of several illustrators of the series, and in fact was only credited as such on the issues 114, 121, 124. The acclaimed series celebrated its 50th anniversary in 2019, having achieved cult status across the former Yugoslavia (it's still printed in both Italy and Serbia).Īfter Romanini's death, some media outlets in the Balkans published obituaries describing him as “the illustrator of ‘Alan Ford’,” implying he was doing it on his own. Their joint work continued with “Alan Ford,” a grotesque parody of the spy genre created by writer Max Bunker and Magnus, which Romanini helped illustrate. Their collaboration began in the sixties with the series “ Kriminal” and the book “ Satanik,” both classics of the fumetti neri (“black comics”) genre-black-and-white crime thrillers with elements of horror and sex.

The Italian newspaper La Stampa called Romanini “Raviola's squire” in an obituary. In his homeland, Romanini was acclaimed as a life-long collaborator of the late comics legend Magnus, the pen name of Roberto Raviola (1939-1996). Cartoon by illustrator Gianni Tacconella, used with permission. Tribute to Giovanni Romanini and Magnus, depicting them as characters from The Company of the Gallows: minstrel and slinger Bertrano and knight Sir Crumb.

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