Line #1 Creator/BenitoJacovitti


1	[[quoteright:261:https://static.tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pub/images/1000194.gif]]
2	[[caption-width-right:261:Jacovitti with one of his many creations, Pippo]]
3	Benito Franco Giuseppe Iacovitti (March 19, 1923 – December 3, 1997)), better known as Benito Jacovitti or simply Jac, was an Italian comic book artist of Italian and Albanian/Slavic descent. His passion for art and drawing began when he was very young and drew little stories on the pavement. He started his career at 16 with satirical pictures about UsefulNotes/WorldWarII and later on went to art school and started to collaborate with the Catholic weekly comic magazine "Il Vittorioso", a collaboration that lasted for almost 30 years. But this is just one of the many, many things he did, including illustrated books, satirical comics, political advertising, ad campaigns and so on.
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5	Much like Creator/OsamuTezuka, Jac was a total workaholic: he created well over a hundred books and dozens of characters, his works spanned almost every possible genre (including western, adventure, fairy tales, sci-fi, pulp detective stories, adaptations of famous novels and even pornography) and never stopped drawing up to the day of his demise. In his youth he was influenced by E.C. Segar (creator of ''ComicStrip/{{Popeye}}'')'s comics among others, and later he himself influenced other creators such as Creator/FranciscoIbanez.
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7	His most famous creation is ''Cocco Bill'', a hot-tempered but loyal and righteous cowboy who rides his talking horse ''Trottalemme'' (Slowtrot) and only drinks chamomile tea. Cocco Bill starred in a big number of comic books but also in a series of animated ads from TheSixties and two seasons of an animated series from 2001 that lasted 104 episodes. His style is identifiable by his characters having big noses and feet, stretchy limbs, strange anatomies, but especially by the fact that he fills every empty spot in the page with stuff of every kind. Expect to see pencils, salami and feet jutting from the ground, googly-eyed worms and butterflies watching the characters, combs, dice and flasks scattered everywhere, just to name a few.
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9	Here's [[https://www.lambiek.net/artists/j/jacovitti.htm his profile]] on Lambiek.net and his rather outdated [[http://www.jacovitti.it/jacovitti/public/home.jsp official site]].
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11	!!His life and works provide examples of:
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13	* AffectionateParody: A few of his characters were parodies of well-known properties, such as ''Zorry Kid'' (Zorro), ''Mandrago'' (Mandrake) or ''L'onorevole Tarzan'' (Tarzan, duh). Pecor Bill, a cowboy who rides a sheep, is a parody of Pecos Bill but InNameOnly.
14	* AnimatedAdaptation: As mentioned above, Cocco Bill received one that spanned over 100 episodes. Zorry Kid was supposed to have one too, but only a short trailer was ever produced.
15	* AuthorFilibuster: Averted and defied! He worked for both conservative and left-wing publications, and ''still'' managed to piss both off for writing/drawing something he wasn't supposed to. He also defined himself as a "center-wing extremist" and made fun of the fact that all of his three names were linked with dictators ('''Benito''' Mussolini, Francisco '''Franco''' and '''Giuseppe''' (Joseph) Stalin).
16	* BigThinShortTrio: The 3 P's, a group of three inseparable friends who share the initial of their names and were among Jac's earliest creations. They are Pippo (pictured above) Pertica and Palla. Pippo is the hot-blooded, short one and the leader, Pertica the tall, brainy and rational one, and Palla the fat, shy and easily scared one.
17	* BloodlessCarnage: In his stories Cocco Bill murdered hundreds of bandits, natives and other bad guys, and someone even complained about it. But it's all extremely cartoonish and surreal, with no blood in sight and the guys being shot making backflips or directly landing into open coffins!
18	* BreakingTheFourthWall: Very common, especially in his more comedic stories.
19	* BunnyEarsLawyer: By all accounts, Jac was both an incredibly talented artist and an incredibly weird person. Just one example: he put outside his house the sign "Beware of the Camel" and every now and then he made strange noises to mantain the joke!
20	* CanineCompanion: Tom, the little runt that always follows the 3P's. Also Cip the detective's basset hound Kilometro.
21	* CatchPhrase: Among others, Cocco Bill's "Mondo pistola!", Cip l'arcipoliziotto's "Lo supponevo!" ("I assumed it!") and his assistant Gallina's "Maestro, che faccio? Sparo?" ("What do I do, master? Am I going to shoot?").
22	* HardboiledDetective: Homaged and parodied in the ''Joe Balordo'' stories.
23	* IronicNickname: In his youth he was known as "Lisca di pesce" ("Fishbone") because he was extremely thin, so he started signing his works with "Jac" and a drawn fishbone beside the name. Later on he was not so thin anymore, but mantained the nickname and sometimes remarked on it.
24	* LivingShadow: Zagar, the arch-enemy of Cip the detective and a MasterOfDisguise, is probably one of these. Sure, it could just be a SpyCatsuit, but it covers all of his body (only eyes, a manic grin, gloves and a panama hat are seen), he's never seen outside of it, he puts his disguises on top of it and sometimes he apparently morphed into other shapes.
25	* NeverMessWithGranny: La signora Carlomagno ("Mrs. Charlemagne"), who is in her 80s or more but practices lots of sports, [[SuperStrength always managing to break bones whenever she shakes hands with someone]], possibly ImmuneToBullets and possesses a mean MegatonPunch. [[RuleOfFunny Oddly enough]] the only other character that can compete with her is another old woman, Granny Spaccabue.
26	* PaintingTheMedium: One of the many methods that Jac used to make his readers laugh. One example is Bernardo, Zorry Kid's manservant based upon Zorro's mute manservant. Bernardo is not actually mute, but ''illiterate'': his balloons never have any words in them, because he never learned how to write!
27	* PhraseCatcher: A bizarre example since it's not directed to a person, but an ''entire state''. Zorry Kid's adventures are based in California, and every time the state is mentioned it's invariably referred to as "La cosa, la California".
28	* PrinceAndPauper: One early story of his (dated to the early Forties) featured an evil duke who after shaving his moustache became the exact copy of the king and plotted to dethrone and replace him. Things are further complicated by the arrival of another IdenticalStranger, a poor farmer, with whom the king trades place. Only a few pages of the story, however, have been preserved.
29	* RecurringCharacter: Since Cocco Bill didn't have any arch-nemesis in his stories (as opposed to, say, Zorry Kid, who had California's governor Don Pedro Magnapoco), they decided for the AnimatedAdaptation to make some recurring characters (evil industrialist Bunz Barabarunz and the seven twin Kuknass Brothers) responsible for most bad things that happened to him.
30	* RepetitiveName: One of his gags, with characters named "Alonzo Alonzo detto Alonzo" or "Giuseppe Giuseppe detto Giuseppe".
31	* SapientSteed: Trottalemme, as stated above, but also Zorry Kid's masked horse Saratoga (who is, according to Jac, an accountant when not fighting crime!).
32	* SpiritAdvisor: An unusual case in the ''Jak Mandolino'' stories, because the "spirit"'s advice is used for bad deeds, and because it is always doomed to fail. Jak is a lowly hoodlum who aspires to become a master criminal, and to reach that goal he follows the advice of the little devil/imp Pop Corn. Since these were comic book stories for kids, Jak's bad luck and Pop Corn's ineptness make sure that the crimes are never succesful and Jak remains a loser forever.
33	* SublimeRhyme: The names of his characters often rhymed with what they were, some examples: Raimondo il Vagabondo (''R. the Tramp''), Elviro il Vampiro (''E. the Vampire''), Battista l'Ingenuo Fascista (''B. the Naive Fascist''), Mandrago il Mago (''M. the Magician'') and so on.
34	* TheTeetotaler: Cocco Bill's [[TrademarkFavoriteFood favorite drink]] is chamomile tea, he drinks it by the liter, but alcohol has harmful effects on him! As often happens in westerns, even comical ones, he also killed some people who made fun of him for this.
35	* WhatCouldHaveBeen: Jacovitti already drew three comic book versions of ''Literature/{{Pinocchio}}'' and was working on a fourth one, tentatively named "Pinocchio di Falco" (something like "Hawk-Eye Pinocchio"). It was meant to be Pinocchio [[RecycledInSpace In The Wild Old West]], with the titular character as a native, the Fox and the Cat as Mexican bandits and so on. Unfortunately he passed away after making only a few sketches.
36	* XtremeKoolLetterz: He changed his surname from Iacovitti to Jacovitti just because.
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Context Creator / BenitoJacovitti