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World

Italian artist pays homage to pandemic’s heroic women

Milo Manara

ROME — For 50 years, Italian comic book illustrator Milo Manara had portrayed female characters mostly set in a colorful, sometimes mythical, past. But one day, early in the coronavirus lockdown, he felt compelled to draw something quite different — something current.

Milo Manara

He dropped everything else and started jotting down the first in a new gallery: heroes in the pandemic fight.

Milo Manara

Milo Manara

It was just a lone nurse boldly placing herself in the way of the towering, eerily familiar rendering of the coronavirus — a drawing that Manara titled: “It’s you against me, now!”

Milo Manara

It was a nurse like his own niece.

Milo Manara

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Courtesy of Milo Manara

Secluded for weeks alone with his wife, Luisa, in their countryside home among the sprawling vineyards of the hard-stricken northern Veneto region, Manara had been feeling stressed out — unable to cope with his daily workload. “I was holding a pencil in my hand, but couldn’t get myself to draw. Dread was all around. I couldn’t find the right spirit to sketch anything that felt serene.”

Courtesy of Milo Manara

“So I tried to pay homage to these fighters instead. Heroes all: nurses, doctors … but also supermarket cashiers. Then the will came back to me,” he said.

Courtesy of Milo Manara

Milo Manara

The common ground between the subjects of these portraits, the artist said, was how all had to take personal risks and could not stay home.

Milo Manara

They had been deemed essential.

Milo Manara

Milo Manara

“I thought of those who were most threatened, but also most indispensable, like cleaning ladies,” he said. “I wanted to make them feel less forgotten.”

Milo Manara

Manara recently received a message from one who works in a hospital, telling him: “'At last someone remembers us, too.’ That is the reason. A little thank you [to them] felt like a duty to me.”

Milo Manara

Milo Manara

“Of course these are all female characters, as my career has been chiefly dedicated to the celebration of women’s beauty,” Manara said. “In this case, though, I felt it was time to celebrate other virtues, like courage, selflessness and altruism. I somehow wanted to pay off my debt.”

Milo Manara

Milo Manara

Nowadays, the artist’s routine is split in two. By day, he is doing his old job, still dreaming up additions to his catalogue of work.

Milo Manara

Then well into the night — sometimes until 3:30 in the morning — he dedicates himself to his lockdown heroes.

Milo Manara

Milo Manara

Aside from his wife, Manara’s only other direct human contact right now is with his daughter, who will bring them groceries while keeping her distance. “I’m quite at risk myself, as I’m 74. And I’m in no hurry to catch” the virus, Manara said.

Milo Manara

His daughter lives in the other half of the semidetached house in Veneto — along with her husband, who works for the civil protection agency and helps the homeless. “It’s praiseworthy,” Manara said, “but also quite dangerous.”

Milo Manara

Milo Manara

Of course, staying home entails its fair share of challenges, too.

Milo Manara

“All these people are confined inside their homes. I think in some city apartments frictions will be on the rise among family members who may not quite get along, leading to an explosion of domestic violence. Forced coexistence may as well bring about femicides,” Manara said.

Milo Manara

Milo Manara

The only exception to this streak of lockdown portraits was a drawing requested by Italian daily La Repubblica. In it, the artist shows the Pied Piper of Hamelin, straight from the Brothers Grimm fable, trying to lure an adolescent out of her home.

Milo Manara

“I was inviting readers to resist the temptation of going outside. The pied piper, going to the disco or having an aperitivo, will spirit you away, like in that medieval tale,” Manara said. “The idea that just by walking around town without protection you may well die is something terrible that three months ago we wouldn’t have been able to believe.”

Milo Manara

Milo Manara

As of late, Manara has come to realize how these lockdown heroes look the same all over the world. “I see from messages that I’ve been receiving that people from different countries have come to appreciate this solidarity,” he said.

Milo Manara

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Courtesy of Milo Manara

Manara is putting his finishing touches on the female postal worker. The news vendor, the pharmacist, the civil protection worker, fruit and vegetable producers, and more are all on his list.

Courtesy of Milo Manara

“It’s a long one. One by one, I’ll pay homage to them all,” Manara promised.

Courtesy of Milo Manara

“I’m setting them on paper so that we may remember them one, two, 10 years down the line,” he added. “I hope they will have helped us enter a new world.”

Courtesy of Milo Manara

Milo Manara