Dylan Dog's first cover artists: Claudio Villa and Angelo Stano - 35 years of Dylan Dog

Dylan Dog turns 35 years old! The nightmare investigator debuted in the newsstands on September 26th 1986 and since then he accompanied readers every month through the decades to this day. Recently we talked about Dylan Dog’s current cover artists, this time I want to celebrate the anniversary of the series with the cover artists of the “classic” era: Claudio Villa and Angelo Stano.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.1
by Claudio Villa

Claudio Villa debuted in the comic world after graduating from art school, drawing for edizioni L.U.G. the medieval miniseries Enguerrand e Nadine and the sci-fi comic Gun Gallon. In 1982 he started collaborating with Sergio Bonelli Editore (back then called Daim Press) for issues 11-12 of the series Martin Mystère, for which he drew nine stories in total. After working on four stories the publishing house commissioned a test to draw pages for Tex, which he passed successfully, working later on a script written by founder Gian Luigi Bonelli.

Cover for "Le vie dei colori"
by Claudio Villa

In 1986 he was contacted by Tiziano Sclavi for the character design of a new character, Dylan Dog. Sclavi provided Ville with all the material gathering the “creative process” and reference images for the faces that inspired him. His first attempts weren’t very satisfying: Dylan is a British man and his studies had traits that were <<kind of Hispanic with thick hair, sideburns and a big nose>>. Once they understood that Dylan is British, they decided to use Rupert Everett’s face as inspiration, and with a few adjustments we reached the definitive appearance of the character. Claudio Villa took care of the covers for the first 41 issues. In 1996 he wrote and drew in collaboration with singer songwriter Claudio Baglioni the story Le vie dei colori starring Dylan Dog, published in color in the magazine Tutto Musica e Spettacolo. In an interview with Lo Spazio Bianco in 2015 he stated that this was his first experience as a cover artist and it was very formative: <<The opportunity of working on the covers was a real gym>>.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.42
by Angelo Stano

He then took care of the character design of Nick Raider, a character created by Claudio Nizzi that debuted in 1988. He took up the baton as cover artist for Tex after Galep in 1994, drawing many issues as well. In 2006 he drew the story Devil & Capitan America: Doppia Morte with the script by Tito Faraci, a production from Marvel Italia. From 2007 to 2011 he drew the covers for Tex’s Collezione storica a colori, a collection of Tex’s stories in color in collaboration with publisher group L’Espresso. Claudio Villa also works on covers for Bonelli comics’ international editions.

Tarot card of The Judgment
drawn by Angelo Stano

Angelo Stano got the art high school diploma in 1971 and debuted in the comic world in 1973 drawing an adaptation of From Earth to the Moon by Jules Verne according to Roberto Catalano’s script, published by Editrice Sole. He worked for several publishers, among which Ediperiodici, Edifumetto, Corrier Boy and Universo. He taught at Milan’s Scuola di Fumetto from 1981 to 1999. In 1985 he entered the team of authors that created Dylan Dog, drawing the first issue of the series, L’alba dei morti viventi. Then he worked on many stories of the series, and in 1990 he took up the baton from Claudio Villa as the series’ cover artist from issue 42. His last cover was issue 361, Mater Dolorosa, followed by the blank cover of Dopo un lungo silenzio, leaving the baton to Gigi Cavenago in issue 363. Occasionally he keeps drawing stories for the main title: his most recent one is issue 417, L’ora del giudizio, written by Barbara Baraldi and published in May 2021. During his career Stano also drew covers for the titles Speciale Dylan Dog (1990-2014) Maxi Dylan Dog (1998-2014), Dylan Dog Gigante y Almanacco della Paura.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.315
by Angelo Stano

In 2012, Angelo Stano worked on script, drawings and cover of issue 315, La legione degli scheletri, an exceptional case because issues are usually a work of two authors plus the cover artist. In addition, in 1991 he drew the illustrations for the Tarocchi di Dylan Dog, tarot cards created in collaboration with publisher Lo Scarabeo that represent the major arcana with the characters of the series.

On occasion of issue 400, Claudio Villa and Angelo Stano came back to create special covers together with Gigi Cavenago and Corrado Roi, who was not a cover artist for the main title but he is one of the most memorable artists of the comic series.

Covers of Dylan Dog n.400 by Gigi Cavenago, Claudio Villa, Angelo Stano and Corrado Roi

This time as well I will show my favorite covers to celebrate the artists of the classic era of Dylan Dog.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.25, “Morgana”, October 1988, Claudio Villa. One of the most memorable covers, due to its composition as much as for the introduction of the character of Morgana.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.44, “Riflessi di morte”, May 1990, Angelo Stano. I especially like the shadow and the inclusion of the title in the composition, with the sword covering one of its letters.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.40, “Golconda!”, February 1990, Claudio Villa. The cover is an homage to the painting Golconde by René Magritte in a horror key. 

Cover of Dylan Dog n.63, “Maelstorm!”, December 1991, Angelo Stano. A surreal passage-way room, where you can’t tell up from down and different supernatural creatures meet.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.16, “Il castello della paura”, January 1988, Claudio Villa. The veiled lady and her marvelously detailed gown are the protagonists of the composition.

Cover of Dylan Dog n.120, “Abyss”, September 1996, Angelo Stano. The objets and marine fauna are portrayed very thoroughly, personally I quite like the perspective the razor is represented with.

Dingo Pictures news: after the kickstarter

After the successful crowdfunding for the documentary about German studio Dingo Pictures, which collected 9.818 euros, DJ Kaito released a video on his YouTube channel to explain the direction the documentary project will take and the future of the studio under the new management.

At the moment of recording the video there was not a defined date for filming, due to the current health situation in Germany and the physical distance between the documentary organizers. Then, on September 16 Dingo Pictures' official twitter account announced  that filming will begin in the first week of October. Meanwhile, the activities of the new Dingo Pictures are constantly in progress.

First of all, several interview deals were made! Among the confirmed content creators interviewed we have: Phelan Porteous, Caddicarus and Matt Presents for the English side of YouTube and Malternativ for the German side; musician Bernt Möhrle who worked for Dingo; M. Beausejour from the Dingo Pictures Wiki. Furthermore, the team managed to obtain footage of an interview with one of the founders, Ludwig Ickert, recorded by other documentary filmmakers before his death in 2019.

Once completed, the documentary is intended to be distributed on DVD and BluRay thanks to a current collaboration with a team expert in film restoration to remaster the Dingo productions in high quality and organize the distribution, but it’s not a certain thing yet and negotiations are still in progress. On the other hand, Jimmy Beeblebrox has contacts with television channel Cartoon Network (German branch) for a possible television release of the documentary! We await more news about this possibility, as it is not yet confirmed.

Moreover, in the merchandise field, deals are being arranged with a company to produce apparel and gadgets, even though we await more info for the confirmation. What is certain is that DJ Kaito’s label, Vier Sterne Deluxe Records, is preparing the release of songs from the movies and the films themselves in the form of radio plays. You can currently buy CDs of the Wabuu theme and preorder the radio plays. The first one, Sing mit Aladin, is already available on iTunes and Amazon. Up to this day the release plan is one radio play each month.

At the end, DJ Kaito invites the viewers to leave their questions in the comments, here you can watch the video:

It’s incredible how the passion of a group of fans could give new life to an animation studio after all this time. Here we’re restoring the past and creating the future!

From animation to meme: kickstarter for a documentary about Dingo Pictures

If you are accustomed to the community of animation fans on YouTube, you probably already heard of Dingo Pictures: the small German studio known for its productions, cheap knock-offs of famous (often Disney) films, with incredibly limited animations and amateur voice acting. These low cost films fit perfectly the “so bad it’s good” category, and for this they soon became object of analysis by YouTube channels and source of many, numerous memes, such as the well-known Yee. Phelan Porteous is the main creator of English content about the Dingo Pictures films (and much more), while in Italy the studio is mainly known thanks to Yotobi and Synergo’s videos.

Oro the dinosaur, protagonist of the Yee meme

Founded in 1992 under the name Media Concept, then Dingo Productions and finally Dingo Pictures in 1996, the studio started with audio narration of fairytales accompanied by illustrations. Later, with a bif of ambition they introduced rudimental animation blatantly plagiarizing many Disney works, entering in their era of mockbuster films production. The films, originally voiced in German, were dubbed (occasionally by the same German actors) in different European languages. The English dub is known for being extremely amateurish and full of errors in the soundtrack, with occasionally overlapping tunes. Dingo Pictures’ last production was completed in 2005, but the website kept existing until it shut down in 2021.

A full wiki is dedicated to the documentation of Dingo Pictures’ history, you can read more here! In fact, one of the main sources of information of Dingo Pictures Wiki, youtuber and musician Simon Bohnsack (known as DJ Kaito), together with artist, film maker, podcaster and current CEO of Dingo Pictures Josef “Beppo” Roderer (Jimmy Beeblebrox) organized a crowdfunding for a documentary about the studio’s history, with exclusive material and interviews called “YEE! -Behind the Meme of DINGO PICTURES”. Here you can support this incredible project of documentation and help writing a page of animation and online pop culture history!

Before online forums and websites in Italy: Japan Magazine

During the boom of popularity of anime in Italy during the 80s-90s the average fan was very interested in discovering more about their favorite series, more aware of the differences between the censored dub and the original version, and as well wanted to meet other fans. However, in that era the forums and websites as we know them today didn’t exist yet. So, what did yesterday’s fans have?

Japan Magazine cover from 1991
(source: Guida al Fumetto Italiano)

In 1991 in the newsstands debuted Japan Magazine, a periodical dedicated to the current anime series. A versatile magazine, that through more than a decade changes many times covers, title and especially size. Japan Magazine’s inconsistent size was probably due to the change of publishers and the fact that technically it was a publication with pirated content, because it wasn’t authorized by the owners of the series, but this last part is speculation that was never officially confirmed. Correct or not, the rumors about the “pirate magazine” amplified its fame: Japan Magazine was the reference point for the newborn Italian otaku culture.

Its contents included articles about series on air and sneak peeks of what was about to come, interviews to the voice actors and comic artists, posters and spaces dedicated to the readers’ content. In fact, the readers could send their drawings and fanfiction to the magazine’s editorial staff! Furthermore, the staff replied to reader’s questions in La posta del Drago (Dragon Mail) and you could propose ads for selling, buying or exchanging in the column Fiera del Bambù (Bamboo Fair), where occasionally the ads were something along the lines of “I’m looking for friends to talk about manga and anime, you can write me at this mail address”. In the last period of its publishing history the Dragon Mail was accompanied by Matilda’s Mail: the first was about questions and daily general themes, the latter was dedicated to questions about the anime world and Japanese culture.

JM cover from 1993 featuring
unexplicably Dylan Dog
(source: Guida al Fumetto Italiano)

This all seems legit, right? Where is the pirated content then? In the early years of Japan Magazine, the periodical used to feature chapters of anime comics, that is a comic version of an episode created using frames from the animated series. Normally anime comics can be quality work, when they are made by a team that understands the visual language of comics. The point is that JM’s anime comics used to take already existing adaptations and modify them, sometimes cutting scenes and simplifying dialogues. We can see an example of this thanks to MikiMoz’s article, that presents us a Sailor Moon anime comic and the differences with the correctly translated version made by Marvel/Panini years prior. His article about the magazine is also quite interesting! During the third publishing phase of JM the anime comics were reduced and when they appeared it was a few pages put together by the editorial staff with frames of lower quality, they personally remind me of VHS recordings.

Page from the Beyblade anime comic
(2005, personal collection)

What’s more, in the early years a few issues had an annex of some VHS of movies or OVA (Original Video Animation) anime, and these were undoubtedly pirated, to the point of open conflict between publisher EDEN and authorized distributors such as Yamato.

This peculiar magazine, that sometimes can be considered similar to a fanzine, had three series through its publishing history:

• Series I (1991-1992) 10 issues
• Series II (1992-1995) 28 issues
• Series III (1998-2005) 66 issues

For this, although it’s not easy to identify the release date of each issue, it’s possible to estimate the year of publishing.

JM cover from the late 90s
(source: Guida al Fumetto Italiano)

During my childhood in the 2000s I used to buy Japan Magazine when I had the chance of finding it at the newsstand. I remember seeing different sizes, one time it was a small book, another time it was as big as printer paper! The number of pages changed as well and occasionally the title, and I used to wonder why it was like that. I own several issues titled JM Japan Magazine, and a few titles JM Cartoons, sized like a little book. Thanks to the archive site guidafumettoitaliano.com I could finally understand the bizarre journey of the magazine and it’s special editions, such as JM Cartoons. One of the articles that particularly impressed me was about drawing tools and it mentioned Pantone markers with many images as well.

JM cover from 2005
(personal collection)

In the end this was JM’s strength: in a time period where the internet didn’t exist or it wasn’t as accessible as it was today, images and information (although sometimes partially incorrect) were a precious treasure! After the golden age between 1995 and the first years of 2000, in the last period of its publishing history the magazine gradually lowered in quality, and concluded its journey in 2005. When I decided to write this article I looked for my issues of the periodical and I found two that are very likely from 2005. I hope to find the issue with the Pantone markers, so I could share the article here!

JM was a peculiar and a bit odd magazine, it wasn’t perfect but it was a product of passion from manga and anime enthusiasts. Thank you Japan Magazine for the happy memories of two generations of fans! <3