Corto Maltese: Fable of Venice and Other Adventures
Cartoonist: Hugo Pratt
Translators: Dean Mullaney and Simone Castaldi
Publisher: Fantagraphics
Publication Date: April 2026
Say what you will, but one thing I enjoy is when some of the greatest comics ever made are easily available to read and enjoy. Now, you’d think this would always be the case. And, indeed, in basically any other medium it is.
Want to listen to The Beatles? There’s a half dozen ways you can do that with a few clicks and a few bucks. Want to watch Citizen Kane or 2001: A Space Odyssey or Jaws or whatever your favorite classic movie is? I’ll lecture you on why you should do it via physical media, but it’s also plenty easy to watch the greatest films ever made.
But because comics is a misunderstood chaos industry with a hyper-focus in North America on two sets of corporate superheroes, it’s just not always possible to access some of the medium’s greatest heights. In recent years, this has been the case with Hugo Pratt’s all-time great run of adventure comics starring his sailor character, Corto Maltese. While some publisher’s have made Pratt’s work available in North America — most recently IDW Publishing — it has not stayed in print, forcing interested parties to either pay absurd aftermarket prices for volumes, or skip it all together.
That, however, is changing. Last year, news broke that Fantagraphics would be publishing Pratt’s masterworks in full. This would ultimately mean six deluxe full-color hardcover editions, the first of which is slated to arrive in October. But to kick things off, Fanta has first published this month’s paperback sampler platter, Corto Maltese: Fable of Venice and Other Adventures, which features an excellent 132-page introduction to the character and the type of adventures readers can expect when the big hardcovers start to arrive in earnest.
And I think it’s a savvy publishing move, one that has led to the production of this new accessible paperback — clocking it at a great entry point price tag of about $20 — that will also nudge undecided shoppers to potentially pick the hardcovers up in full. To put it in context, those books are about twice the length of this one, and more than twice the price, retailing at $49.99. Not to show off my math, but if you want to get the full set as I plan to, it’s going to run you $300 plus tax.
That’s a hefty investment, and so it’s nice to be able to dip into Pratt’s work and world with this smaller book. I was always going to buy the full set, having nursed regret over not running down all of IDW’s books when they were available. But if I wasn’t, I imagine this book would have pushed me toward doing so.
But wait, isn’t this a comics review, not a sort of hybrid comics consumer advice column? Technically, yes. So then, I must answer: are the comics in this paperback edition any good? Of course they are. There aren’t really bad Corto Maltese comics. Pratt’s draftsmanship is among the best ever to this day, and his storytelling is so rich, dense, and layered, all with an adventurous, world-fairing veneer that never makes it feel like a chore. Corto Maltese is a great flexible comics character. He drops into most situations with ease, and a mystery or a conspiracy or a treasure hunt ensures, and before you know you’re entirely engrossed. You’ll see.
All that is to say that if you’re Corto Curious, this is a great book to see if you want to go all in. For me, it’s also a nice appetizer for one the full courses dinner starts to arrive come fall.
Corto Maltese: Fable of Venice and Other Adventures is available this month via Fantagraphics
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