Corto Maltese: Difference between revisions

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The title character is a fictional adventurer active during the years before, during and after [[WW 1]]. Born of a sailor from Cornwall and a fortune-teller from Gibraltar, Corto Maltese has a lifelong case of wanderlust and travels across the world as a gentleman of fortune, treasure seeker and occasional pirate. His recurring sidekick is a psychopathic Russian named Rasputin (who coincidentally [[Celebrity Resemblance|does look like the historical Rasputin]]).

If you've never read the comics but the name sounds familiar, it's because [[Frank Miller]] used the character's name as that of a fictional country in ''[[The Dark Knight Returns]]'', which was in itself given a [[Shout-Out]] in the '89 ''[[Batman (film)|Batman]]'' film.

 

 

* [[All Myths Are True]]: Corto gets to meet mythical creatures from plenty of different folklores.

* [[Anti-Hero]]: Corto is an early example of this.

* [[Crouching Moron, Hidden Badass]]: Rasputin.

* [[The Dead Can Dance]]: And in "The Helvetics", Corto dances with them.

* [[Doppelganger]]: In "The Golden House of Samarkand", the Turkish officer Timur Chevket is a dead ringer for Corto. Not to mention, of course, Rasputin's resemblance with his more famous namesake.

* [[The Drifter]]: Corto never stays in any one place too long.

* [[Fortune Teller]]: Corto's mother was one, and so is his friend Golden Mouth.

* [[Heartbroken Badass]]: Corto never quite got over his love for Pandora Groovesnore in "The Ballad of the Salty Sea".

* [[Identity Amnesia]]: Happens to Corto in "Because of a Gull".

* [[Magical Realism]]: Real locations and historical events coexist with magic elements and pure fantasy.

* [[Older Than She Looks]] or possibly [[Really Seven Hundred Years Old]]: Gold Mouth looks "surprisingly young ... and yet there are very old women in Bahia who swear that she has always looked this way." She claims, too, to have known Corto's great-grandfather. He points out that this would have to make her over a hundred years old.

* [[Pirate]]: When first encountered in "The Ballad of the Salty Sea", Corto and Rasputin are pirate captains in the Indonesian archipelago.

* [[Ragtag Bunch of Misfits]]: Corto is often joined by characters so weird that they make even him and Rasputin look balanced by comparison.

* [[Sliding Scale of Idealism Versus Cynicism]]: The series is curiously impossible to classify, oscillating between a dream-like, nostalgic, elegiac tone on one hand and bitter, realistic cynicism on the other. Corto himself can sound both like [[Spaghetti Western|the Man with No Name]] and a hopeless romantic.

* [[Sliding Scale of Silliness Versus Seriousness]]: a poignant, dramatic scene can be followed by a light-hearted one, often involving [[Comedic Sociopath|Rasputin]]. Strangely enough, it works.

 

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[[Category:Corto Maltese]]