Europa

Europa is a pseudo-steam-punk graphic novel about Baldassarre Sangiorgi’s tragicomic journey in his own birth planet: the Earth.

Baldassarre, a spoiled mammy’s boy from an extra-terrestrial colony, is sent to Earth by his energetic mother to learn the culture of his ancestors. During his stay in Europa – an underdeveloped enclave, isolated from the hyper-technologized external world – he and his servant Garrone are caught in a secession war between local governor Filius Rosadis and the Universal Government, the sovereign entity which rules over all known planets. The aggravating situation forces them to wander within the walls of Europa, looking for a way back.

Despite its references to civil wars and extra-terrestrial worlds, Europa is not a blood-and-thunder nor a science-fiction graphic novel. It is the ruthless chronicle of a privileged person’s fall into a harder reality, where everyone is guilty, and villains and heroes blend into one another.

Created with Massimo Semerano in 1991, the first episodes of Europa appeared on the comic magazine Cyborg for Star Comics. Over ten years and several relocations later, it was published in two editions in 2004 and 2008 by Edizioni Black Velvet.