Change of cover artist for Dylan Dog: leaves Gigi Cavenago, enter Raul and Gianluca Cestaro

The month of September starts with important news in Dylan Dog’s main series: the cover artist that accompanied readers for the past years, Gigi Cavenago, passes the torch to the brothers Raul and Gianluca Cestaro starting from issue 421. The series curator, Roberto Recchioni, explained in the comments of the announcement of issue 420’s newsstand release that Cavenago currently has other priorities and for this he had to leave his role as cover artist.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.420 by Gigi Cavenago

Gigi Cavenago debuted in the comics world in 2005 in the magazine Strike published by Star Comics with a short story called “Predatore naturale”. Then he worked for the new series of Jonathan Steele drawing several issues. He alternates the activity of comic artist with his job as illustrator for publishers and advertisements. He debuted at Sergio Bonelli Editore as part of the staff for the miniseries Cassidy (2010), he was chosen for the series Orfani in 2013. He started drawing covers for the secondary title Maxi Dylan Dog Old Boy in 2014 and debuted as cover artist in the main series in November 2014 with issue 363, Cose perdute (Lost things), written by Paola Barbato with art by Giovanni Freghieri, taking the torch from cover artist Angelo Stano.

Cover of Mater Dolorosa by Gigi Cavenago

Furthermore, before his official debut as cover artist, Gigi Cavenago drew in color issue 361, Mater Dolorosa, written by curator Roberto Recchioni to celebrate 30 years of Dylan Dog. This issue is available in its newsstand edition, with cover by Angelo Stano, and in hardcover and bigger size edition as well for bookstores, that can be read in Italian, English and Brazilian Portuguese. In February 2019, the Cestaro twins started to work on the covers for Maxi Dylan Dog Old Boy, with very nice results.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.421
by Raul and Gianluca Cestaro

Raul and Gianluca Cestaro debuted in the comics world in the second half of the 90s with the short story “Il Fulmicotone” in a fanzine for the Lucca convention, in 1996 they started their professional journey with “Kid, una strana storia”, comic written by Giancarlo Alessandrini and published for the centenary of comic at the Lucca Comics event. In the same year they worked at Sergio Bonelli Editore drawing Robinson Hart, created by Luigi Mignacco. In 2002 they started working on the publisher’s main title, Tex, becoming recurring artists. Their first story with Dylan was in the Color Fest n.10 in 2013, then two issues in the main series: n.331 La morte non basta (writer Giovanni de Gregorio, April 2014) and n.346 “...e cenere tornerà” (writer Paola Barbato, July 2015). 

Although I will miss Cavenago’s covers, I am very happy that the Cestaro brothers will be his successors! To celebrate the artists I will show you my favorite covers by them in these years of their career with Dylan Dog.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.363 “Cose perdute”, November 2014. Debut illustration of Gigi Cavenago in the main series. Groucho is a remarkable element of the piece, because he doesn’t appear often on the covers.

Cover of Maxi Dylan Dog Old Boy n.35, February 2019. Debut illustration of the Cestaro brothers as cover artists for Dylan Dog, it presents some of the more iconic adversaries of the main character.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.403 “La lama, la luna e l’orco”, March 2020, by Gigi Cavenago. Fun fact: in the issue’s physical copy the title and the knife reflect the light!

Cover of Dylan Dog Old Boy n.3, October 2020. Illustrated by the Cestaro brothers, it includes Dylan Dog’s supporting cast in a Halloween atmosphere.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.419 “Albachiara”, July 2021, by Gigi Cavenago. Playing with warm and cool tones, the protagonist of the piece is the girl despite not being in the front row of the composition.

Cover of Dylan Dog Old Boy n.6, April 2021. The Cestaro brothers pay homage to the painting Nighthawks by Edward Hopper with an interesting distorted perspective.

On another occasion we could talk about the first two cover artists of Dylan Dog, Angelo Stano and Claudio Villa, with my favorite covers from the series’ “classic” period, stay tuned!