Altan
Francesco Tullio-Atan (for all, simply Altan) was born in Treviso on September 30, 1942, he attended his first studies in Bologna and the Faculty of Architecture in Venice.
At the end of the 60s he lived in Rome and worked on set design and screenplays for cinema and television, while he began his first collaborations as a cartoonist with colored cartoons on Playmen and illustrating some books.
He moved to Rio de Janeiro in 1970, worked in Brazilian cinema and in 1972 created his first children’s comic Kika & Jaime, published by the important newspaper Jornal do Brasil. In 1974 he began to collaborate with Italian newspapers: in 1975 he settled in Milan and then in Aquileia, where he still lives. In that year he created the dog Pimpa, whose stories were published in the Corriere dei Piccoli until the closure of 20 years later and since 1987 in the monthly Pimpa since 1994 published by Franco Panini Ragazzi.
Meanwhile, his first comics for adults appeared on Linus, a monthly for which he published for a long time and in 1976 he created the worker Cipputi (but also Ada and the Trino series). His now famous political satire cartoons come out every week in particular in L’Espresso and in the newspaper la Repubblica, and then collected in numerous books since 1977, together with comic novels reprinted in several forms until today: Colombo, Macao, Friz Melone, Franz, Crazy Hearts, Zorro Bolero. To these are added new adventures of Pimpa (published continuously and translated in Japan, France, Spain, Argentina, Portugal) and since 1978 also Kamillo Kromo.
Since 1992 he has illustrated the Einaudi Ragazzi series of novels and short stories by Gianni Rodari, but also volumes for children by Roberto Piumini and literary classics.
His creations also reach animation: between 1982 and 1983 he worked on the animated TV series in 26 episodes of Pimpa, directed by Osvaldo Cavandoli for an international co-production with RAI, in 1995 he wrote the new series Pimpa, the new adventures in another 26 episodes of 5 minutes, made in 1997 directed by Enzo d’Alò in Italian-French-Spanish co-production and replicated with other series in 2010-2012 and 2015-2016, Also released on DVD in newsstands. In addition to prizes and awards, the fame of the character is such that some nursery schools (in Friuli, Sardinia, Emilia-Romagna, Lombardy and Piedmont) are named Pimpa. In 1992 he also made the animated TV special about his Kamillo Kromo and a video for early childhood with 6 stories from the illustrated series The First Book of Kika.
His works are also adapted for the theater (including Kamillo Kromo, as well as taking care of costumes and set design on Babar, the white elephant for the Teatro alla Scala) and cinema (the director French Gérard Zingg writes the film Ada in 1988 and the satirical cartoonist Sergio Staino directs the film Do not call me Omar in 1992, inspired by the story Nudi e crudi), without counting continuous theatrical collaborations for adults and children (including Il circo di Pimpa in tour), endless reprints and collections of cartoons, but also journalistic awards for the extraordinary synthesis that the latter manage to express (and remain valid for decades), educational workshops and stationery, furnishing furniture and clothing, exhibitions in Italy and abroad (in particular France, Belgium and Switzerland), a dedicated app and website.
