Remembering Roberto Ghiddi

Roberto Ghiddi – born on November 11, 1957 and passed away on April 2, 2018 in Modena – collaborated with Bonvi during his career, illustrated, based on texts by Castelli, Gli Astrostoppisti for the daily newspaper Il Resto del Carlino, and illustrated some stories dedicated to the great musical groups for the supplement Strisce e Musica for the same newspaper.

He collaborated with the magazine Be Boop in Lula, taking care of its graphics. He also created the graphics for the magazines Fumo di China and Kaos. Together with Luigi Bernardi and Luca Boschi, he founded the publishing house Granata Press in Bologna, where he was the artistic director of all publications. He worked for Franco Cosimo Panini in Modena and edited the Italian editions of the French comic books by Alessandro Editore.

How he writes Matteo Stefanelli on fumettologica.it “ he was the most original art director of the last 40 years of history of Italian comics publishing, a man who with his visual design made the history of an important piece of Italian comics ”.

INTERVENTIONS BY ROBERTO BALDAZZINI, BONFA, CLOD, GRAZIANO GIOVENZANA, STEFANO BULGARELLI, DENNI LUGLI...

ROBERTO BALDAZZINI

I don't remember exactly how and when I met Roberto Ghiddi, but my mind immediately goes to the mezzanine floor of number 37 of via Ganaceto in Modena, where we often met. As it happens, at that number, in the same building, Denny Lugli already lived, but I only started to hang out with him later, starting in the early 90s.

Denny lived on the top floor, 7 flights of stairs without a lift, Ghiddi on the first. How many times I opened and closed that door, how many times I climbed those stairs!

I think it was technical reasons about the choice of color types that brought us closer, but it was probably me who needed an expert in the field and he was a well of science. Roberto helped me on several occasions, he signed the colors of the album Uragano, which came out for the series "Grandi Eroi", Editrice Comic Art, it was 1988. More or less the same year they proposed that I create a very short cartoon, a TV theme song for Videomusic. I didn't know anything about animation, I thought that for the client it was the same thing to draw comics and make cartoons, they provided me with the acetates, but for the rest I made do! Ghiddi came to the rescue, so much so that he dedicated an entire day to me by coming to my house and gave me that push and encouragement that helped me get to the end of the work! Without his technical advice and concrete help I wouldn't have known what to do!

As it happens, we continued to hang out in one way or another until we created Granata Press. Ghiddi and Bernardi together, it seemed unreal! I felt at home! The editorial office was an important point of reference, in addition to finding Ghiddi always ready to dispense advice, I also found a photocopier available that I used at breakneck speed for my photo-based works! Ghiddi already used the computer for all the graphic work he did, but I still looked at the device from a distance, with a bit of aversion, I must say! Together we made several of my books, I found his graphics excessive, too loaded, on the one hand, I don't remember if I ever told him what I really thought, on the other hand, however, he had a strong character that made itself noticed! Roberto was a heavy smoker and I was no less, a constant invitation to light up a cigarette, how many did we smoke together? A lot!

The Granata years, at the time I lived in Bologna, in via Belle Arti, it became easier to see each other, go out to dinner, meet up. In those years in Bologna the world was moving: Brolli, Igort, Cacucci, Gloria Corica, Michele Masiero, Carlo Branzaglia, Elena La Spisa, Simonetta Scala, Martino Ghermandi, Enrico Fornaroli, I Kappa, Vanna Vinci, Catacchio, Gabos... How nostalgic for those moments, apparently fantastic, but in substance always at risk that something would not work, uncertainty reigned supreme, I had so many fears, but when I met Roberto, I knew who to count on! The Granata experience was coming to an end, too bad, it had been fabulous for everything it had produced, Luigi Bernardi and Roberto Ghiddi had piloted an airship for a journey that made history.

After the end of Granata I lost sight of Roberto, even though the distances between Bologna, Modena and Vignola were short. One day many years later in Modena, I was walking on the second floor of the 70 office building, in a square, I heard a hoarse and familiar voice, it was him. Roberto was on his cell phone, smoking, I had quit 15 years earlier, him, always the same, scarf almost on his chin, moustache, cigarette in his mouth. I waited for him to finish to say hello, finally, after thinking about it for a long time I had him in front of me in the flesh. We got to the point of setting up a possible meeting for dinner, how wonderful! I wanted to see him again and talk about us.

About two weeks later, I received the news of his death. How painful! Goodbye Roberto, like Luigi and Magnus you left us too soon! “How are we doing!?”

 

Roberto Baldazzini
Comic book author and illustrator

GOODNESS

GHIRO'S LEGACY
I was very fond of Roberto Ghiddi, my friend Ghiro, and he was fond of me. We loved each other because we were brothers in a passion and in comics work circumstances and therefore in life. Because we were the kind of young people determined to do the job they love and to do it in the best way possible. Robby was very precious to me, being a few years older, for the many pieces of advice he gave me and for the encouragement and gestures of friendship that supported me in moments of despair. I'm sorry I wasn't always up to his trust when he proposed collaborations, but he knew that in any case I gave it my all and so he forgave me.

Technically, Roberto was a well of wisdom. He knew, experimented and used all sorts of materials usable for graphics and drawing, when these arts were not yet done on the computer. He spared no expense when he went to Cartoleria Minerva to stock up or do some shopping for Bonvi. When I inherited his stationery materials, I became even more convinced of the importance of manual intelligence that people like him (and I allow myself to include myself among his students) have cultivated throughout their lives, a form of intelligence that has no comparison with the best artificial intelligence.

In his studio there were papers of all kinds (for example the Pantone papers with the colouring experiments of Count Night by Magnus, the blue steel nibs (now unobtainable) used by Silver and Bonvi, the double-tone paper in fashion among the great US cartoonists of the '60s and '70s, the backgrounds for the Nick Carter animations (which I then gave to De Maria), even Japanese origami papers and adhesive screens of all kinds that Ghiro used for the Sturmtruppen strips and for Bonvi's The Man from Tsushima.

I found lettering tests with special pens and special hand-made masks for spacing, brushes and bottles of paint (I remember seeing him color with ecoline a very faithful reproduction of a spectacular Harzack, Moebius plate). Airbrushes of various types, pastels, tempera, watercolors, chalks, pencils and leads of all sizes, markers, pens, straws, fountain pens, erasers, pencil sharpeners, solvents, glues, additives, rulers and set squares, compasses, scrapers, scalpels, razor blades, masks, transfers, adhesive films and even the necessary to paint the lead soldiers for his beloved role-playing games.
I even inherited his drawing table, which had been given to him by Silver, the author of Lupo Alberto. That table is an object with historical value, because Lupo Alberto, the longest-running Italian strip, was created on it, and many of Bonvi's comics were drawn, screened and colored by the magical hands of Roberto Ghiddi, as well as Ghiro's own personal comics.

Hundreds of tools and materials for visual arts that would have been useless without the desire to obtain concrete results in work, and therefore in life, combining them in an infinite number of ways to produce quality images in popular comics but also in experimental ones. Roberto was then able to enhance so much experience at best by using digital techniques, becoming a great editorial art director.

We lamented the loss of a whole generation of photolithists, printers and editorial and editorial directors, along with the progressive crisis of the sector that led us to be a bit cynical and disillusioned. Despite this, he was always willing to help friends who ventured into creative or cultural enterprises, however naive and daring, professional or not, such as for the magazine Casablanca or Fumo di China, Bi-Bop Alula or Sturmtruppen Magazine, Strisce e Musica del Resto del Carlino or the fanzine War or the magazine Kaos, as well as the initiatives of the publishing house Black Out or Nexus.

Not to mention the Granata Press in Bologna where I accompanied him a few times, chatting with him while he was shaving in the editorial bathroom. We talked, on the train or at the bar, about our world, about publishers, authors, famous and unknown, spending hours in gossip, anecdotes, venting and projects.
Even today Ghiro encourages us to do our best, as happened to Franco Tralli in re-proposing the IronHeart comic in 2023.
In short, when you talk about friends with whom you have lived many experiences it is always hard to decide what to talk about. Here I wanted to remain a bit generic because it occurred to me that Roberto was a bit allergic to flattery and I am sure that reading all this he would good-naturedly tell me to go fuck myself.

Massimo (Bonfa) Bonfatti
Comic book author and illustrator

SILVIO CADELO

"Hi Robbi. I'm dead tired, I can't take it anymore, do you have time to give me a hand?"

It was the appeal I launched to Roberto in moments of tiredness accumulated in days and nights of work. A hard job that of comics, a real trap without respite into which we slip over the years until we become prisoners for life.

“Hard, yes, but still better than working in offices or factories,” they used to say.

Roberto would take the train to Reggio Emilia and I would see him in the afternoon or the following morning. No explanation was needed, he would sit at my work table and continue applying the colors. I would stretch out on the sofa bed in the corner of the living room to rest, ready to answer any questions.

Then it happened that he took home some plates (the «BLEU», the «stamponi») to finish them calmly at home. I am not in a position to say which or how many of the first «Dio geloso» or the first «Vogliadicane» although leafing through vogliadicane I could recognize his graphic style in the images that follow: a very graphic and «orderly» style that is clearly distinguished from the oblique bands that animate the backgrounds.

I will always remember his affectionate friendship and the professionalism of his advice and criticism, which followed the period in which he moved to Bologna to work with Luigi Bernardi, with whom I did not get along but Roberto had the opportunity to fully express all his professional qualities.

Shortly after, I moved to Paris, but I continued to stay in touch with him. The tables of «vogliadicane» that are here, if memory serves, I brought them myself to Modena on a round trip. We spoke on the phone, he knew everything and much better than me, about the news of the French market. A few years later, with Granata press, I published «Perversa Alice» with the texts of «Celia Dogson» who had been censored in France.

Hi Robbi.

Silvio

Silvio Cadelo
Comic book author and illustrator

MARINA CHIOSSI

How do you write about Robby? A real writer can put all his feelings on paper (now on a computer) and find the right words. I don't think I can do it, because there are so many feelings but I won't be able to translate them into words. I'm talking about feelings and not work, even though I worked with Robby for almost 40 years.
Our working relationship has always been marked by the great feeling of friendship, with a capital F, that has united us. Friends with a capital F are chosen not with rationality but with the heart. This has been the case for me since the first time I met him in 1981. I immediately found him, in addition to being very nice (a true quality not enjoyed by everyone), very serious, meaning by this a person of absolute trust and sincerity.
He was a fake grumpy guy, fake because even with his “bad words” (which, for all of us who knew him, were just wonderful interjections that made us laugh serenely and that left the strangers who happened to witness the situation astonished) he was never arrogant and rude with people. Even today I miss his interjections that were not exactly worthy of “bon ton” but which for me were wonderful.
How he managed to be such an open and available person with me, leaving almost all his “personal” only for himself, I don’t know. Maybe because in fact it wasn’t important to know about his private life, his daily things, what he did etc.
The important thing was that he gave you, in full, his most important part, that is, himself, with his availability and his feeling of total friendship. I miss this very much, and I will always miss him, time has chipped away a little of the pain for his loss, but it has not helped me to chipped away, not even a little, his absence.
I am prepared, it will always be like this, but this feeling has the positive aspect that I can always feel him still close, as if he had just arrived from Modena, by train, ready for our day of work, collaboration and friendship. Robby, I miss you!

Marina Chiossi
Alessandro Editore

CLOD

“HOW ARE WE DOING?”
This was his opening sentence when I met ROBERTO. But maybe it is better to define, first, some points:
To make a long story short, ROBBY and I were relatives, third cousins, to be precise. It happened, sometimes, that I accompanied my mother to her aunt and there… a few minutes after our arrival, a twelve-year-old ROBERT(ino) who lived downstairs would join us and visit us (me).
At that time I was a collaborator of BONVI, therefore a professional designer, even if a novice and HE knew this.
When he introduced himself, he always had a folder with him and, apart from a shy “CIAO” and a few words (a few) in a low voice, he didn’t say anything else. Instead, it was his drawings that spoke, which at that time were ALL addressed to his favorite character and artist: LUCKY LUKE by MORRIS. Even at a very young age, he undoubtedly had good taste. He showed me the studies he was doing, copying from the great MORRIS.
As much as I could, I pointed out to him where to insist and where not to. He was an excellent student, because, the next time, when he showed me the "homework" he had followed most of my instructions.
I was pleased to see the desire and enthusiasm with which he already worked. He reminded me of myself when at his age I absorbed and devoured everything that was "drawing" both in cartoons and comics. Then, over time, he managed to make himself known in the comics publishing field, in fact he undertook several collaborations and also of a certain importance, such as the Granata Press founded together with Luigi Bernardi and Luca Boschi, coloring (by hand) for Fantascentifiche/fantastic stories by Silvio Cadelo for France.
Then I arrive, also for him, BONVI. He was, for years, his “Ghost Collaborator”. Where you see the Sturm with his lettering, well you can be sure that 99% of them were also Finished and inked by GHIRO'. GHIRO' was the pseudonym (GHIddi ROberto) that he had adopted. In that period he drew with his own characters, also for “Striscie e Musica” which was a comics supplement of the Resto del Carlino and I must say that he had a very personal and good style… too bad he didn't insist.
What made him a super expert and passionate about French-Belgian comics was when he started collaborating with Alessandro distribuzioni in Bologna, taking care of practically all the French and Belgian releases (choices, lettering, editorial layout and text supervision). Listening to him speak, he seemed like a French insider transplanted here.
Every time we saw each other, we asked him what was new and he, with candid lightness, would answer: <HOW ARE WE DOING?> and so on. I confess that it also became a funny catchphrase/greeting, but this is one of those charlatan codes that exist between friends.
He also spent his last years collaborating with Franco Cosimo Panini. And every time we saw each other our greeting was, obviously, “HOW ARE WE DOING?” and off we went with news, joyful gossip and so on! I didn't see him for a while, then one fine day...or rather, it's more accurate to say: “a Bad Day” I met him at the bus stop (he was going to Franco Cosimo Panini)... he looked a bit gaunt.
After a short chat We parted as usual…but, WE WERE SURE that that would be the last time we would see and hear from each other. A Bad disease has deprived us all of a great super passionate expert comic book fan and surely also of an unfinished artist. In addition, I also lost a good friend and a cousin.
I wonder how you would comment on the editorial situation of comics today? Probably with: <WHAT IS THE SITUATION?>

Hello, ROBERTO-ROBBY-GHIRO'…

CLOD (Claudio Onesti)
Author and illustrator of comics and cartoons

Nicoletta by Clod and Lina. In the large poster you can see the caricatures of Roberto Ghiddi, Silver, Massimo Bonfatti and Clod

GRATIANO GIOVENZANA

Franco kindly offered me the opportunity to intervene in the drafting of this album in the name of the fact that we dedicate it to our mutual friend Roberto "GhiRo" Ghiddi.
Of course I consider it an honor because Franco involves me in one of his works but above all because together we have the opportunity to reveal the greatness of our friend lost too soon.

The great love for comics, which never fades, even though I am now "differently young" has guided many of my life choices, not least that of the humble profession of newsagent. This profession, combined with passion, has allowed me to meet people and become friends.

Roberto, luckily for me, in the 80s of the last century, lived in the center a few hundred meters from the newsstand that I managed. He soon became my client, probably because he "felt" he shared the passion for comics. At the same time, Franco also became my friend, not only because he was a client, but also because he, together with others, founded Casablanca, a small comics magazine (which it would be belittling to call a "fanzine" because, instead, it proposed unpublished works by beginners like us) and asked me to collaborate. Roberto, demonstrating his greatness of soul, not only offered us his editorial expertise by filling us with technical and organizational advice, but he also collaborated: first by allowing us to publish a comic of his that he had previously created and then by creating especially for us some (magnificent) tables for a Christmas story drawn by many hands.

Later, Roberto helped me, out of pure friendship, also in my work: since he collaborated, among other things, with Alessandro Distribuzioni Editore in Bologna, when he returned to Modena he brought me the comic books fresh from the press, allowing me to give a different imprint to my store from the others. He, who could have boasted of knowing Publishing from a high creative point of view and collaborated there, also knowing big names in Comics, brought the books to me, the newsagent, demonstrating that humility is for the great.

Franco and I took Roberto to a group that we liked to hang out with because it was mostly made up of girls, including a girlfriend of mine who soon became Roberto's friend too.
In those (good) times he worked and was a partner at Granata Press in Bologna, together with Luigi Bernardi. In addition to collaborating with great Italian authors, they were, in practice, the first to bring to our country nothing less than manga, instilling, especially in the new generation of comic book readers, an interest in the immense Japanese production.
Often, on Sundays, in order to spend as much time together as possible, my girlfriend and I would drive dear Roberto to work in Bologna, avoiding him having to use the usual train, his usual means of transport, in addition to the bus and his legs.

At the time of the publication of the first issues of Casablanca, we used specialized laboratories to prepare the films that were then used by the typography for printing. Naturally, these laboratories were rather expensive for our pockets.
At that time, dear Roberto collaborated, among other things, with Bonvi, who had long since moved to Bologna. One (fine) day Robby called me and asked me a rhetorical question: "I'm here at Bonvi's, he's about to get rid of his reprocamera that he no longer needs: would you be interested in having it to make your own films for printing?" The reprocamera was a metal camera, one and a half meters high and one meter wide, with which we made reproductions of images in enlargement or reduction, on paper or film suitable for typography. Making these films ourselves was a godsend for us, given the great savings it allowed us. I was an expert in its use because, for years, I had used one, when I was an advertising graphic designer, in the second half of the 70s. Needless to say, we rushed to Bonvi's studio in Bologna to pick it up before he changed his mind. It was also the opportunity to meet the great Bonvi... thanks to the great Roberto!

When we refer to the moment in which a loved one leaves us, we always say "too soon" but in Robby's case it was truly too soon, not only because of his chronological age but also because the Publishing Industry and we would still need him.

Graziano Giovenzana
Editor and editor of Casablanca magazine

STEFANO BULGARELLI

In the unfortunate year of covid, 2020, the Museo Civico di Modena hosted the exhibition "Anni molto animati. Carosello, Supergulp!, Comix", dedicated to the glorious "school" of comics and city animation, from the 1950s to the 1990s.
Among the authors exhibited, Roberto Ghiddi could not be missed, and with him a selection of tables capable of documenting his relationship with Bonvi, as well as the image of a new youth condition also aware of its own restlessness and rebellions, in search of new ways of appearing and expressing itself, mixing art, communication, video, photography, comics and music.
These aspects, which Roberto himself first found in the debut work of Andrea Chiesi, now an established artist, were translated through his highly cultured imagination into innovative graphic languages ​​created "by hand", experimenting with graphic and editorial techniques.
For this reason, retracing his work and his way of working today means above all grasping his greatest legacy: never taking one's gaze off one's own time and stimulating new forms of creativity.

Stephen Bulgarelli
Civic Museum of Modena

DENNI LUGLI

I met Roberto in the early 80s by frequenting a small but very well-stocked comics and illustrated books shop located in via San Pietro in Modena called "Il Perfido Zhodani", run by Eleonora and Ivan. The customers were not great customers, in the sense that they often found themselves there for hours talking about comics, music, photography, politics but rarely bought.... that's why it didn't last long, a couple of years or maybe less. Among the various characters who gravitated around Zhodani there was a certain Ghiddi (there everyone called him by his last name: Ghiddi) who struck me for his comics-like style (Bonfa made a sensational caricature of him by inserting him in some episodes of Cattivik), his vaguely D'Annunzio-like air, his characteristic nasal voice and the dialectic of an almost pathological punctilious person. It was a subtle pleasure to disagree with him and bring him to the terrain of controversy where he rarely came out defeated.

In '84 I was fascinated by the first Terminator and for a while I toyed with the idea of ​​a video parody. I already had the title in mind: "Antiquator", the story revolved around a character who came from the past to sort out some business in his future (our present), and I had decided that the actor would be him: Ghiddi! I found the idea of ​​seeing him wandering cautiously along the portico of the College, bundled up in a Napoleonic overcoat, brandishing one of those ancient pistols with a trumpet barrel irresistible.... In the meantime we had become neighbors (he was on the first floor and I was on the fourth of the same building) and those who frequented him at the time will surely remember the plaque on his door with the humanized pencil with little arms and legs that was hopping around. I rang him once to offer him the part in the video but from his (famous) perplexed look I immediately understood that, as we say, he didn't want anything. I also had the impression that he avoided me for a few weeks so as not to have to return to the subject. And I also felt a little betrayed when some time later he lent himself to posing for a series of photographs for Red Ronnie's Be-Bop A Lula magazine together with Vasco Rossi in the guise of an unlikely Russian soldier from the "Vasco Fan Club" in Moscow. My revenge was not long in coming: on the occasion of his birthday I Dadaistically set out to find him the gift that was absolutely farthest from him and his way of being, and in the end I settled on the "Nunchaku", that Chinese combat object made up of two wooden truncheons joined by a chain, so often used with astonishing mastery in Bruce Lee's films.

I wrote these few lines in one go, with the idea of ​​making a sort of quick charcoal portrait of Roberto. Others have celebrated his technical skills in the publishing field as I certainly wouldn't be able to do, but I am ready to subscribe point by point to all the praises if only for the fact that one afternoon, while I was walking my dog ​​behind the Europa building, Roberto managed to explain to me (and make me understand) the revolutionary utility of the stochastic screen in publishing in twenty minutes.

Denni Lugli
Multimedia artist

Some pages of the magazine Be Bop in Lula with Roberto dressed as a Russian soldier who meets a young Vasco Rossi.

THE ROBBI TREE

Roberto's ashes rest, according to his wishes, in a wonderful stretch of sea that separates the islands of La Maddalena and Caprera, the places of the heart.

To create a tangible place of remembrance in the city, on November 11, 2018, Robbi's first non-birthday, Antonella had a Lagerstroemia plant planted in a public park in the city, more simply known as the Robbi Tree from that day on.

Since then, friends have passed by that place, watching the tree change with the rhythm of the seasons, sometimes raising a glass of Lambrusco and remember Robbi with cheerful nostalgia.

“Wish you were here”

Anto

Anto

At the moment his place is kept vacant; let's hope it remains so for a long time.

Robby in heaven.
Erotica, Eroticism Fair, Bologna May 1992.

Roberto Ghiddi's business card - Granata Press