[From ‘Lambiek Comiclopedia‘]

“Walter Molino was an Italian comic artist and illustrator, notorious for his sensational cover paintings for Domenica del Corriere, that depicted mayhem and disaster in everyday situations. His illustrations for the women’s weekly Grand Hotel popularized the “cineromanzi” genre, in which the lead characters in picture stories were based on popular film stars. Prior to this, he worked for Italy’s pre-war comic magazines, most notably co-creating ‘Virus, il Mago della Foresta Morta’ (1939-1940) and ‘Captain l’Audace’ (1939).”

Italian comic artist and illustrator. Walter seems to have been incredibly prolific with his work. Newspapers, comic books, magazines. Once again, somebody had a post on him in the art group on Gab. Reading his bio and the melodrama so much of his work contained, it made me wonder if Italy was the only place he could have come out of? My stereotype of the larger than life/over the top/grandiose nature of Italian life? He was just starting out with some of his first jobs in 1934, maybe the Great Depression was a formative experience that contributed to the nature of his work.

One of his mainstays was the magazine, Domenica del Corriere (The Sunday Courier). Similar maybe to a magazine we had called True Detective. Fun stuff regardless. I love ‘busy’ art, and his was all of that. Lots of action, animals and general mayhem. Just delightful. Then he had his political cartoons for the newspapers, fairly conventional. Then he had a series called the Grand Hotel that are just the most wonderful and stylish black and white pieces.