Pasquale Frizenda is one of the most respected cartoonists of the Italian school of comics of the new generation. A portfolio of his works, which is generally reserved for the greats, was recently published
Pasquale Frisenda is one of those artists that the audience classifies as classics of Italian Bonelli production, such as Galliano Ferri, Claudio Villa, Roberto Dizo, Giancarlo Alessandrini, Galep and the like, although it is not.
Pasquale Frizenda appeared only in the nineties, when screenwriter Giancarlo Berardi and cartoonist Ivo Milazzo decided to launch their former series Ken Parker.
It was an unusual revisionist western whose serious approach was diametrically opposed to the popular serials of the time. Ken Parker he did not hesitate to tackle the difficult themes of the American Wild West, nor to present an immense dose of melancholy and realism. But even those who did not think so Ken Parker interesting in the narrative sense, they could not dispute the skill of Ivo Milac as a graphic creator and author of key episodes.
For that project, Berardi and Milac needed cartoonists to convey the series' demanding rhythm. Pasquale Frizenda was among them.
"Pasquale entered my studio thanks to a drawing of Ken's hand in a glove with a soft border. The skill that the new colleague managed to show in the following years, along with an unusual dedication in facing the short deadlines of monthly production, represented a huge support for the magazine", Frizenda's mentor Ivo Milazzo later wrote.
Frizenda already in the first episodes kena stood out as one of the most innovative and artistically talented authors. Until then, in his amateur and early works for the magazine "Cyborg", he mostly dealt with science fiction topics. But in the western, Frizenda showed unsurpassed skill and it will become one of the most important themes in his work.
In 1997, the publishing house "Serđo Bonelli" launched a new western horror series Magic Wind, and Pasquale Frizenda became one of the first authors to join the new team. It is no coincidence that he was entrusted with the key episodes of this series. Its thin line and play with shadows perfectly capture the necessary combination of horror and dirty Wild West. On his boards, the decadence of civilization and the beauty of open spaces are mixed. And the dynamism of the skirmishes on his panels is a wonderful contrast to the serene and dreamy panels that are only a page or two later. Frizenda's ashy shadows evoke the artistry of Batalje, while the direct influence of Ivo Milac is noticeable in the framing. There are other role models, but despite everything, Frizenda managed to skillfully balance and build his own style worthy of respect.
After Magic Wind, Frizenda remained faithful to "Bonelli" and his most ambitious project to date followed - Patagonia.
Drawing Big Tex, an annual special edition, is entrusted only to the greatest artists. Frizenda was given the honor to draw the album Patagonia based on the screenplay by Mauro Bozelli on 224 pages. It took him three years to tackle the task, but in 2009 the result was the crowning glory of his career and one of his most impressive albums. Big Tex (Happy Thursday, 2018; see "Time" number 1423). In addition to this special edition, Frizenda also drew an impressive episode of the regular series Tex based on the screenplay by Mauro Bozzelli, in which he looked at the meeting between the fictional ranger and the real legend of the Wild West, Judge Roy Bean (Judge Bean's Secret, Happy Thursday, 2026).
The following years of Frizenda's creativity were marked by further cooperation with the "Serđo Bonelli" publishing house. He drew the 46th volume of the series The stories called Blood and ice (Phoenix press, 2022), where he impressively described the nightmarish version of a detachment during Napoleon's attack on Russia in a lava shower technique. And then he drew the second of three adaptations based on Maurizio Colombo's script Deadwood Dick Joe R. Lansdale with the title Between Texas and Hell (Happy Thursday, 2021). On that occasion, Colombo wrote: "His drawings even improved my directorial instructions. Maybe we were somehow unusually mentally connected. Or maybe it was simply because we had almost the same taste in visual and reading terms."
We should not forget either Thick Skins, a science fiction comic made for the French market, as well Tatar desert from 2024, an adaptation of Dino Bucati's famous novel, which Frizenda himself considers to be his best author's work. The public embraced it to a great extent, as well as all his other works.
Indeed, Frizenda's graphic expression is not hard to love. Its ease of creation does not sacrifice perfection for quantity. He draws slowly, carefully and in detail, he thinks about every element of the drawing - it's mesmerizing with how easily he does it all.
Portfolio of his works Pasquale Frizenda artbook: Drawings 1985 2021. recently published in Serbia (Happy Thursday, 2026), is one of the few artbooks dedicated to comics in this region. With his skill and popularity, Frizenda justified the need for such a monograph to be in front of the public. The book contains a cross-section of his creativity during the period when he went from being an anonymous cartoonist in Italy to becoming a notable and respectable name in the world of comics on an international level. And a special curiosity are Frizenda's personal observations about the creation of certain drawings and panels, which provide a unique insight into his creative process.
There are few current European comic book artists who can match the power of Pasquale Frizenda's graphic expression. Nor are there many that were so easily accepted by the audience.
Election time! And someone has to report to you independently. That's why it's in October annual subscription the digital edition of "Vremena" even 2.500 dinars cheaper. Choose now!
In the elections on May 5, 1935, the government and opposition lists were voted on. Before the elections, the government intimidated teachers and scholars with dismissals and arrests, called opposition candidates Ustasha allies and accused them of organizing the assassination of the king, prevented foreign journalists from reporting...
As if by pattern, the same thing that is happening now on Novoj.rs, happened on Television Novi Sad in October 1990.
Vesna Lalić, an excellent photographer, has passed away. She photographed all the most important social and political events in Serbia, as well as seemingly ordinary everyday moments.
It sounds incredible, but it's true - AI worms could soon spread through home devices
"The one who remains stuck in the sphere of traumatic experiences, who constantly thinks that, here, while we are talking about the book, someone is given the wrong diagnosis, someone is sloppily operated on, someone is receiving therapy that they do not need, someone is losing their hair, that person has a problem because living in fear is not life, and psychotherapy is an expensive thing."
There is, literally, no difference between the one who claims it is day in the middle of the night, or the one who claims to be a giraffe, from the claims we read on billboards: that Vučić is working to unify Serbs and that Serbia is doing better and better day by day.
The pre-election arrests due to the alleged "overthrow of the state" testify to the regime's panic. The bad news for them is - they can't arrest the whole people who decided to defend themselves from progressive beatings and election theft
The ring that tightens around Ćaciland Student list is getting narrower. Because there are more and more spoiled people who see the false prophet for what he is: a street obscener who is fighting Serbia
The archive of the weekly Vreme includes all our digital editions, since the very beginning of our work. All issues can be downloaded in PDF format, by purchasing the digital edition, or you can read all available texts from the selected issue.
See all
