Morbid Tales. A deep dive into extreme art of Mauro Padovani

PREFACE: It's not easy to write a preface to something by Mauro Padovani. His work has been censored, attacked and fiercely criticised, but even appreciated by several readers and insiders. Leaving out Mauro's undoubted talent, it's hard to put his tales into a genre, to find words that could explain what you should be waiting for. Here you find tons of sex, horror, S & M, decay, black humour, all pervaded with irony and passion for "bears" - fat hairy men engaged in various sexual affairs. He mimics manga ("Tortures' school"), Carpenter's movies ("Motor zombi"), but can also create algid S & M backgrounds without losing the distance and the lightness of the author who refuses to be bounded by genres.
He can represent his aesthetics in any context without perverting or simply exploiting it, with uncommon understanding and respect. Some of these tales are unpublished, some others appeared on mags and 'zines some years ago. Because of their at least difficult availability, it seemed useful to collect and publish (or re-publish) 'em all together, even 'cause, after the release of "White squaw" & "Snuff night" - kept in the drawer for the problems above mentioned - the work of Mauro Padovani is more & more known and appreciated. These tales come out in an uncut version and with explicit drawings created especially for this edition, an unique opportunity to get all the stuff from a hard and maybe unrepeatable period. With the series "Bullet & Justine" Mauro left hyper-violence & hardcore to tell a complex and multi-stratified story, inside a horror scenario with a strong Tarantino taste. In the meantime he's getting to be a cult author in the bear scene (not only in Italy), so he's in the middle of an extremely important personal and artistic evolution Anything the future may have in store for him, Mauro Padovani remains one of the best extreme comic artists around.